Background Workshop II - Concluded

Started by loominous, Thu 04/06/2015 18:07:00

Previous topic - Next topic

Misj'

#80
Time to re-evaluate my design


original post updated

cat

#81
It's time for some more feedback! I hope I didn't forget anyone.

One general issue that puzzles me in several of the pictures is the lack of windows in the harbor master's house. Wouldn't he want to be able to observe the harbor and see arriving ships?

loominous I think it's looking great. While everything feels now more connected in the scene, in your last picture I'm a bit worried that the walkable area in front of the booth might be a bit small to walk there.

Misj' I like your last redesign. It is more interesting, less cluttered and I get a much stronger harbour feel from it.

ThreeOhFour I like the strong contrasts and different values. However, the triangular load of the crane draws a lot of attention. It looks like a huge warning sign like this. Is this intentional?

Cassiebsg Great progress since your first draft, the scene looks much more interesting now. Adding a human reference is probably a good idea that will help you with your design.

Myinah Also good progress here, the exits are much clearer now. The backlit scene might make it a bit more difficult but can lead to interesting results.

selmiak Ah, this starts to look interesting!I wonder where the harbor masters house will be?

Lasca Hard to tell at the moment, but I think the lighting of the house seems a bit off with the position of the sun and the light on the floor. Maybe you need to rotate the house a bit?

xil I like the idea, shape of the platforms, clear exits and general design. I agree that the space ships need more work. The big indentation at the front seems to have no purpose (it's not loading ramp because there is another opening and it also doesn't look like it is there for propulsion)

Daniel Thomas I think your redesign works very well, also with the bottom exit. Even though the decreased contrast gives a good indication, you might want to add more stuff to prevent the player from walking away from the camera.

Dropped Monocle Games Also great progress compared to your first version. I don't really get what that thing in the center is supposed to be.

Ykni Looking nice and interesting, but I see two problems: As you noticed, the south exit leads to the sea, and there would be some serious scaling involved if the player walks there.


Edit:

Click image for link to first post.

I tried various versions of different background houses, the cliff, even adding a channel or city gate. However, they did not really fit the setting. The picture above is the one I liked most, with the tower added back again and variations in the building heights. I also decided on the basic light direction.

Daniel Thomas

@Misj, I really like the new lineart, don't have much comment atm, but I would love to see the values be much bolder and clearer than the previous sketch as it was a little all over the place. Be brave and deliberate! :)

Here are the ones I had time to go over.(I realize it's not all of them, it was just a matter of time, nothing else)
A lot of good feedback has already been given, and I might have repeated something already said.
While they're sloppy, I hope I get the idea across.
Check out The Journey of Iesir Demo | Freelance artist, check out my Portfolio

Lasca

Here's an update on my work.

First of all, thanks for the feedback everyone! Once again, I'm sorry that I'm not returning it, it's only a matter of lack of time. The little I have goes to painting and reading this thread. Which is great. Also thank you Daniel for the paint over. Made me think that pehaps it would be a good idea to let the docks continue more to the left. I know it's not really clear from my sketch, but my original idea was to make the edge of the dock run by the boat up towards the vp. If that makes any sense. I'm also thinking, sole based on the others paintings, that it would perhaps be more interesting to turn the house towards the right. I will most definitely light up the background houses and the bottoms of the clouds.

I also wanted to ask the experts around here: Is there a good way to create a perspective grid in photoshop? Especially if you have vps outside the canvas? Do you have ready made ones or do you create new ones for every new bg? 

selmiak



Some more stuff happening in the foreground. The harbour master has his office on the upper level. He is a beardy old man and always swears. And he is fat and swears loudest when he has to climb up to his master viewing spot and in case of an emergency (or when he is feeling moody) ring the alarm or give other signals.

There is a sign ion front of his office, but this could look better. But atm the sun is shining on it from the wrong side so it is in the shadow from this view. Does anyone have a good idea how to place it so it is better seen?

I hope I have some time to write feedback to the other great scenes tomorrow.

ThreeOhFour

Thank you to cat and Daniel for the valuable feedback, it's given me a lot to think about!

Misj'

#86
I'm going to post a second round of thoughts here (for those not part of the first post). There has been a lot of new versions since my last thought-post, so I decided it would be best to create a new one.








loominous

#87
I like your edit Daniel (of my piece), any idea neat idea how to do it without pulling the camera back? I already feel like I want to be closer to the scene, so pulling back further feels so n so.

Edit: Btw, it's really nice to see people trying out value sketches, and the improvements that I've seen so far are quite substantial, so nice going with the comments everyone! I'll try to contribute over the weekend as much as possible, and apologies if I haven't replied to any critique of my piece, I've just had a very busy week.
Looking for a writer

selmiak

some feedback:

loominous:
not much to add, looks great! The light coming in between the houses is great!
some cool wrinkled sails on the ship could look great but also overlap the interesting background. maybe some worn out sails with holes in them.

misj':
are you starting anew?
the new lineart seems to have more room and thus more depth. Keep it and light it good.

ben:
Cool depth and composition. When standing in the front row I would be torn between walking deeper into the harbor or entering the first door. Nice way of leading the eyes. The other exits are also visibly placed. not much to add, I want to see this with more detail!

cassiebsg:
that's looking interesting already. the sail shaped building. either go cartoony with this shape for the building or make it a real sail that is there to cast some shadow on the people trading their fish below. And put a post for it right in the middle of the scene. Dunno, just an idea :)
cool that you use blender for sketching too, I haven't painted over a blender render yet, but should work out... somehow. I guess we can help eachother later on :)

Myinah:
I like how the image is floating from left to right and vice versa, the building in the top/background don't flow that nice, just overdo the flow on them some more.
Don't forget about the shadow on the pier and on the 2 stairlike walls and on the sign. Though the sign sould just have a lighter shadow so you can see what is on it
Do you really want to draw this in oil? really really? Cool. If not, I'm interested how to/you color this very bold lineart on the computer, please give some hints.

cat:
a broad open scene. The back row of houses is not in perspective, but that should be an easy fix in this stage.

Ykni:
I don't know if you are working on the first or second image in your first post or the third version later on, they are so different. for the second image, this is looking more crowded and less organised than the first one, I like it. But the perspective is totally different from the first one, I like the perspective in the first one better. The third one is different again and also interesting. It feels a bit empty on the right side, but stalls will fill this. The houses in the background might be to big compared to the boats in midground (and below?). Atm I'm having trouble deciphering if the boats are down a cliff of next to the wall of the house.

Lasca:
cool scene and moody sunset light. Great! It's interesting that you put the background church in the center of the image and the tree a bit to the side of the total center. And interesting is better than expected, like if you had put the tree in the center. The south exit is readable, to go foolproof maybe add one of these up arrows on one of the boxes in the foreground and have the box rotated, so the arrow points towards the player. Finally crates in a game make sense!

sox:
The harbour masters house is now standing out indeed. You could try giving it a special roof and/or a special window on the top front to make it stand out even more. The the building on the right behind the stands look like building backsides. Noone so close to the sea would have a buildingbackside towards the water. keep that in mind when fleshing out the sketch.

xil:
very cool tron like shapes. I'd have no external lightsource, a night scene and only the neonlight illuminates everything. more please!

Daniel Thomas:
very interesting to see how you built up a scene. I think the curved pier from the second to last thumbnail gives a nice variation but pushing the tower to the background is a good decision, opens up everything. That sign is a good idea for the south exit, though it is a southeast exit :P ;)



my mousewheel is burning, I hope I didn't miss anybody.


loominous

Looking for a writer

cat

This is amazing, loominous! I'll try that this weekend.

Also thanks for all the comments, guys.

Cassiebsg

I subside to what cat said, and add that I've already learned more about drawing and painting from this workshop, than I ever did from drawing classes I had in school and uni!
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Misj'

#92


loominous

Misj:

I really like where you've taken the scene, much better in my opinion.

Regarding picking light direction, I agree it's like the silhouette thing in character design. I do however think that it's probably best to lay down a lighting setup for the entire scene, see which works best for the scene as a whole (interesting shapes, good highlighting of the important parts), and then move around any objects that aren't popping properly (silhouette-wise) to stand out properly.

It's always a back n forth tug-o-war when it comes to these things, one solution messing up the silhouettes, another fixing them but making the overall focus wrong, but I think it's probably best to focus on the scene as a whole, when making these decisions.

The good thing is that the more one does this, the more one gets a feel for how these things will work even when one is doing pure lineart, as you stop thinking in terms of lines, and more about collections of shapes that the lines will form, once values have been added, and have possible lighting solutions already in mind.
Looking for a writer

cat

A sudden shower made me go inside so I tried this sooner than expected:


Click image for link to first post.

Misj'

Quote from: loominous on Sat 13/06/2015 16:44:08Regarding picking light direction, I agree it's like the silhouette thing in character design. I do however think that it's probably best to lay down a lighting setup for the entire scene, see which works best for the scene as a whole ... but I think it's probably best to focus on the scene as a whole, when making these decisions.

I completely agree regarding looking at the entire scene when investigating light. However, in this particular case I knew that the left side would work out regardless of the sun's direction (yes, there's a big ship, but wherever it casts a shadow, it will be mostly outside of the walkable area and therefore not that much of a problem). Furthermore, since almost all the characters point left (and one is actually moving along the path I want the player to take to the docks), the player will automatically investigate that area.

The right side was much more important in that respect (discoverability). I made sure that the stairs would be visible when the player enters the room, so that helps, but I needed to make sure that this area would not feel off-limits, and shadows could cause that. So - as an exception - I decided to focus specifically on that area for my lighting and show the effect on it.

But your comments are absolutely valid.

---

Added some thoughts on Loominous' piece in a previous post.

loominous

Cat:

Good to see your experiments working out well!

One thing you could consider would be lowering the camera angle, so I whipped this up:

Looking for a writer

Misj'

I've added some thoughts on Loominous', Myinah's, and Selmiak's pieces. Two more to go (Xil and Ykni)...hopefully tomorrow.

I'll be glad to return to my own sketch again. I'm starting to miss my little harbor :)

Cassiebsg

Been struggling a bit with getting the camera just right after I'm scaled everything up.
But think It's okay now (or good enough for me to continue working on the model anyway). Also still not completely happy with the building. :-\ Anyway, this is what I managed to do today (don't mind much the materials chosen atm, they just help me visualise the model better atm.)



Guess tomorrow's work (if I have the time) will be to study lighting the scene a bit better.. (roll)

Selmiak, thanks for the feedback. :) Though, am not using Blender to sketch and paint over later on. I plan to render the scene with materials and hopefully get a decent scene out of it. ;)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Daniel Thomas

QuoteI like your edit Daniel (of my piece), any idea neat idea how to do it without pulling the camera back? I already feel like I want to be closer to the scene, so pulling back further feels so n so.
Not on the top of my head. But I don't see it, it feels very very close, or atleast too close to the bottom of the screen. The character walking past the stand would almost make it go outside screen or create a little weird tanget with is feet almost as it was walking on the bottom. I would leave any those "close to the screen experiences" for leaving and exiting.

So maybe one way would to just move the camera up, then there would be space for the South exit, but you keep the close camera. Similar to what Misj's edit is doing. Although I don't like the foregroud rope cutting straight through that area.It's somewhat odd parallel line that goes straight in the middle of the stairs (and my edit didn't really solve that problem, maybe add some bend on the rope if you really want it)
Check out The Journey of Iesir Demo | Freelance artist, check out my Portfolio

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk