Background by UnLady + Character

[Problem]

First of all, I don't want to take credit for something I haven't done, so let me express that the following background is not my work.

Okay, so what is this about?
We're a small team making a game (surprise!), and we'd like to get some feedback on our graphic style. Our background artist UnLady is a little shy, so she asked me to post this background for her. She'd love to get some feedback on colors, shading, composition or anything else you can think of:

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...and after that, please have a look at the room again, but this time with a character I've created:

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Yep, it's the same 3D model that I've posted here a few days ago. We worked really hard to create a consistent style, so we'd like to know what you think of our 2D/3D combination? Do like the style? Does the character blend well with the background? Is there anything we should change to make it better?

[frenzykitty]

They are both absolutely gorgeous - on their own. I think the squiggly style of the BG and the clean lines of the character contrast quite starkly.

But don't get me wrong - they are both insanely beautiful, and Im sure getting a char and a bg to meld together seamlessly is a real challenge.

Keep up the good work. Looks great!

[Cassiebsg]

That's a lovely BG! Very rich in detail.
I don't have that much input on composition or colors, I like them just like it is. However, think the lighting of the scene needs work. There seems to not be a clear light source in the shadings. Or better said, lighting seems to come from the left, but it should come from the windows, so maybe make it "reflect" on the floor and celling, that has no shading at all ATM, and maybe that will help out with shading the objects in the room.

As for the character I think he passes very well in the style, and I can't even tell he's a 3D character, he's got a very "comic" look that make him look 2D. And the only thing I think would make him to blend better in the BG would be if he had the same light source as the BG (from the windows to his left), instead of receiving light from the upper right.
Since it's a 3D character, you could just render him with light from the left, and using different views according to the rooms light source (or would that be too complicated? I'm still new to AGS, so forgive me if it is ).

[jwalt]

Looks great to me. You might consider dialing back on the shadows that cloak the stuff on the left side. Those would, likely, be heavy curtains, and while it isn't impossible to support their weight by rods hidden behind the moldings, my eyes want to see a box structure above the molding where it juts out. That might complicate the ceiling, since it looks like it is curved around the edges. Oh, and get the character to wear a different vest. Green and purple? 

[Scavenger]

The first thing I think when I see the picture is that the lineart is very good, but the shading kills it, makes it look flat and boring. You need to make your shadows more obvious, and your lighting doubly so. I've mocked up what I mean here:



Did late afternoon because I couldn't think of anything better, and it's not all done. Ideally you'd put shadows in a lot more places. The light would be yellow-orangey, and the shadows would be blue-purple - this creates an interesting contrast that enriches the scene. I put a dark blue Screen layer over the top of it to soften out all of the harsh hues and unify them a bit towards blue. The shafts of light are placed over this layer and are so immune to being blued out, creating more contrast. Instead of colours being what they objectively are, they are instead informed by the environment around them, and it makes them look more there.

You also don't want to overload the player's senses with light - if everything is uniformly lit, the player won't know where to look in the background. Add in shadows to places that aren't important, and light to places that are.

The key to backgrounds is that they need to be slightly more gentle than the characters. You could make a big black outline on the characters and noone would bat an eyelid, but if you do it on the backgrounds as well the characters will vanish into them, swallowed whole by their loudness. Even if you don't want gradiented shading, I'd avoid deep black outlines because, well, they'll overpower anything on them.

[Problem]

Thanks for your feedback guys, it's much appreciated!

As for the character:

And the only thing I think would make him to blend better in the BG would be if he had the same light source as the BG (from the windows to his left), instead of receiving light from the upper right.
Since it's a 3D character, you could just render him with light from the left, and using different views according to the rooms light source (or would that be too complicated?

Yes, that would be possible, but it's not practical. There'll be too many different rooms with different lighting setups - it would be insane to render different views for all possible situations, considering that we already have hundreds of high resolution sprites just for the main character and his basic animations.

Oh, and get the character to wear a different vest. Green and purple? 

Haha! I guess you can tell that it's not his office.   The character you see here will visit many locations, and most of them are not purple

[Giraffadon]

I agree with scavenger.
The light from the windows needs defining more.

Still though with that character and those backgrounds the style will
get very close to BS5. Great work! YAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  a a!

[UnLady]

......UnLady[/url] is a little shy, so she asked me to post this background for her. .........

Umm, yes. I dunno about shy, I just drew a huge blank when I set down to write something. Possibly because shy. Seeing how articulate your post is, I was right to leave it to you . Thanks.


This being said, that's a fantastic response, guys! Very useful feedback and very quick, too. I'll tackle revamping the drawing as soon as I can and post it here again.

Thanks!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Scavenger is right. even without using lenseflare effects, everythingt hat's not directly facing a window should be much darker.

[gingersnap]

Totally agree with the lighting values thing. The background puts me in mind of stuff from 101 dalmatians. I really like it.

Just wondering, going with the cartoon angle; what if the character didn't have any shading? Most cartoon characters don't have self shading, and we're used to seeing them that way. I would make him a little bit brighter and take away the self shading. He might also need some tweaking to make his silhouette stronger in this case (shading gives a lot of form and it would probably need to be compensated for).

[xil]

I agree with gingersnap actually, I think it would work much better with a slightly more simple take on the guy.

The journey of Iesir comes to mind:

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In regards to the lighting I'm not so worried. I do think that Scavenger's version does look better, but if you can't achieve that level then I'd rather not see what I think is already a fantastic background ruined by work in progress or learning in progress lighting applied to it.

[Problem]

Simplifying the shading even more is not an option. The outlines would have to compensate for the lack of shading. This is done very nicely in the screenshot you've posted, but those are hand-drawn characters. No outline renderer I've tested was good enough to give similar results, especially when the models have to be animated. You just don't have enough control over the lines, so you can only get a few basic outlines, otherwise lines tend to appear and disappear in places where you don't want them, making animations look unnatural.
So the characters are rendered with a simple shader, having two shades of each color, which is also very common in comics and cartoons.

EDIT: However I can play around with the light setup, shadow size and contrast to give the character a more flat look. I'll see if this leads to any improvements.

[xil]

Yea I understand what you mean as it's a 3D model.

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about it as personally I don't think any normal player would be at all interested in more shading and a 'flatter' character if the game and story are fantastic.

Think of my critique as 'extra polish' if you have the time available. I'd rather see a fully fleshed out game/story with the character and background as is rather than a rushed game/story with a lot of work done on the backgrounds/characters personally.

Just my 2 cents anyway!

[Problem]

Yes of course, we're not sacrificing the story for better shading
But we still want to do it as good as possible.

Here are three different versions:
1. Very smooth shading
2. The simple shading we are currently using
3. Simple shading, but with more light and much smaller shadows.

Which one would you prefer?

[gingersnap]

Heh, of course story comes first, these are just my observations. I'm personally not a fan of 3d cell shading for characters. There isn't enough control of where the shading goes, and they seem out of place if the background isn't cell shaded the same way (and Unlady's background is some pretty premier stuff, much more painterly. Oh the troubles with quality!). The biggest thing driving my comment is that perhaps by minimizing the character shading, he won't look out of place in different lighting conditions. Less versions of animation for more payoff I would also make him a tiny bit brighter? Maybe? He looks a tad grey. Maybe change the lighting color? I don't know exactly what would fix it, but he seems a less saturated than the background in this example. The adjustments are minimal, which is why it is so hard to pin down which direction I think you should go. I'm getting nit-picky!

I like the third option. The shading really fades away and strengthens the lines. He barely looks shaded at all, and yet is clearly defined. The shadows don't seem nearly so directional.

But really? I just... want to know what's in the desk. And. Why he's there. You just know that those damn drawers are locked.

[Problem]

Thanks! Brightness and contrast are subject to change, I'll wait for the final version of the background. And of course AGS can change the brightness and tint of the character at runtime, so we can adjust that for each room if necessary.

[xil]

Yea I definitely prefer the third one and agree that a little brighter would certainly help against the background shown (but like you hinted at it may be down to many other backgrounds what his eventual contrast is I suspect).

I think it would get very, very close to a 'drawn style' if you removed the lines from the hair, waistcoat and shoes but I imagine that's probably going too far away from the original look you wanted. May be worth a try though? I imagine it's difficult on a 3D model to produce the small 'crease' lines on clothing, hair etc that you would need if you removed the detail lines from the hair etc.

[UnLady]

Hey. I was away for a while and just now managed to sit down and properly reply.

There seems to be a consensus regarding the background: not enough shadow! Now looking at it I have to agree. The first version looks flat and boring.

Scavenger, I liked your edit so much I did my very best to reproduce the same results. Also dialed down the outlines a bit.
I also took Jwalt's suggestion to heart and lightened the right side foreground a bit (now you can see the smugness on the piggybanks, uhm, face).

In the meantime I also got rid of a lamp.

So here it is, what do you think?

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Thank you all, for the compliments on my work, Giraffadon especially, having my drawing compared to BS5... it's like pouring honey over my soul