Criticism wanted on New Mexico Background Art

Fred Five · Mon 18/08/2014 22:14:59

Hi guys!

I've been working on this background today. It's my first attempt on doing pixelart backgrounds, and would really love to get some feedback from some skilled people such as your selves.
From a tech POV, would this background work in a game? Since I'm practicing on doing backgrounds early 1990's style for a game I'm currently writing, it would be most helpful to get some input.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Reuploaded smaller picture.

Snarky · Mon 18/08/2014 22:52:14

First attempt, you say? Very impressive!

Could you maybe scale it back down to some more reasonable size, and use an imgzoom tag if you want to be able to view it larger?

I'd say it's looking very good overall. Love the mountain in the background. Maybe work on getting the antialiasing more consistent. Many parts have none whatsoever, while some things (like the flag pole and telephone poles) look excessively blurry. The shadow from the camper doesn't look quite right to me (too much like a bit of Photoshop burn), and the flowers look partially transparent, and maybe the wrong shade of green? Consider perhaps giving them a shadow as well. (In fact, on closer look a number of objects in the scene look slightly transparent; the effect is disturbing.)

You might also want to indicate the exits from this screen more clearly, maybe by a path in the dust or some such?

Oh, and I just realized, is that a stream in the background? Hmmm... not quite successful, I think. But that's only relative to the picture aa a whole, which is very good. This is really just nitpicking.

Gribbler · Mon 18/08/2014 22:54:01

I'm no artist but power line cables are a little too pixelated for me, and that rock in the distance on the right seems a bit off, looks like a copy pasted pillar of smoke. Other than that your background is quite nice. You can easily use it in the game. Trailer looks really great and the whole image has a Breaking Bad vibe to it

Fred Five · Mon 18/08/2014 23:51:34

Thanks for the replies guys, they are here by noted!

I tried to fix the camper shadow and add some more shadow to the places pointed out by Snarky -thanks. I'll try to work a bit more on the transparent parts you are refering to as well.
Also tried to paint a trail mentioned by you.
And yeah, I guess that stream is a little out of place. It was painted before the telephone poles were there, and now I guess it could seem a bit crammed in that part of the background.
Flagpole is out. It felt outta place, as it looked to shiny and new.

The rock formation has also been reworked as pointed out by Gribbler, thanks man. I don't quite know what to do with the rather pixelated wires. Tried to give them some additional anti alias. Don't know if I were succesful enough on that part.

I've put in some additional objects in front of the trailer, to make it look more inhabited. Also added som vultures to the sky, pretty much to capture an overall desert vibe. Those should of course be animated if this room were to be used.

Mandle · Tue 19/08/2014 07:48:26

I hope to heck that trailer has some good air conditioning...

Because...

...THAT PICTURE IS HOT!!!

So amazing that this is your first attempt at pixel-art backgrounds. Keep us posted on future works please. It's a pleasure just to look at your stuff and imagine the possibilities of it in a game context...

Fred Five · Tue 19/08/2014 09:18:24

Haha! Thanks a lot Mandle

CaptainD · Tue 19/08/2014 10:04:42

I'm no artist so I have no criticism for you but it's a really nice background! When I first saw it I thought maybe someone was doing a demake of Runaway 2!

Fred Five · Tue 19/08/2014 10:38:03

Actually I've just finished playing Runaway 1, so guess I was kinda inspired by the setting. I felt it was a good way to start out doing some testing with AGS, by having 2 rooms. On on the outside, and one on the inside of the trailer. You know, just to find out how this engine works

Snarky · Tue 19/08/2014 11:54:46

The second version is a great improvement!

The only other things I can point out are that the rock formation on the left now seems even more weirdly shaped relative to the mountains, and that you may be overdoing the atmospheric perspective on those mountains. (I don't think the difference in distance between the base and the side of the mountain is so great that it warrants that much more blue haze.)

Also, if you're intending this for an actual AGS game, you need to think about resolution. Currently it's 798x506 at... double size I think? 399x253, in other words. That's nowhere near a supported AGS resolution; the closest would be 640x400, but you'd have massive empty borders on all sides, with the screen as a postage stamp in the middle. For a game in this low-res style, you'll want to keep to 320x200 (16:10 widescreen) or 320x240 (3:4 aspect ratio). AGS can then scale it up for you to fill the screen or a bigger window.

In the images you've posted there are also some higher-resolution pixels (e.g. noticeable in the camping trailer shadow on the left), but presumably that's just GIF compression artifacts. Unless you need animation, you're better off saving your images as PNG for upload to the forum.

Fred Five · Tue 19/08/2014 12:25:06

Thanks Snarky!

Okay, I'll work a bit more on that left rock, and minimize the haze a bit.

Resolution wise, I am running at 320x200. I've just taken a screenshot of the fullscreen image in photoshop, and cropped it. It's currently running in AGS now where I'm adding hotspots and so forth

Okay, I'll upload PNG next time around, and saving the GIFs for animation. I'll try to get those vultures animated flying in a circle. Just need to figure out how