Help for a newbie

[McArtney82]

Ok so I'm very new to this and like most people with a background more based in programming graphics scare me. I've been working on my first ever background for my first ever game and wanted to see if I could get some feedback. This is the first scene, inside a space station (police station), there is an exit to the left and right and a door to the captains cabin. There's an old fridge, full of nothing but old uneaten lunches and the room (like most of the station) is lit by green lights all over the wall.

Bearing in mind I'm not going to have the skills to enhance too much, can anyone give me some advice to step it up a notch>

[cat]

Not bad for a first background!

There seems to be lots of empty space in that scene. The floor is huge - is this intentional? Due to obvious circumstances, I'd expect corridors in space stations to be much narrower. You could do this by "zooming in" on the image, i.e. not showing so much floor.

[Cassiebsg]

What cat said, plus I'll add that that fridge is very very small... Double it that should make it look more realistic.

[Blondbraid]

What cat said, plus I'll add that that fridge is very very small... Double it that should make it look more realistic.

I agree, I is small. Or is the door supposed to be unusually large?
How does it look compared to the characters of the game? (If the game is supposed to have visible characters that is...)
Otherwise the background has a clean and polished feel and I like the color scheme, but the floor looks a bit empty.
Some lines or a tile pattern maybe?

[McArtney82]

Thanks for the feedback, I agree the fridge is too small and the corridor too wide. Really appreciate it everyone

[Stromvin]

Hi there

I agree with most what has been said, pluss adding my own crazy ideas
I would want it to be more dirty, more edgy(?) etc.

If this is a brand new Station, the fine, but in any other case, ist much too clean. Add some rust maybe some scratches, some open or closed Panels, electric etc. In reality there are no exact clean lines, so for me, everything that Looks like drawn with a line tool instantly Looks Little less real, but that maybe is just me

And YES, avoid empty space unless ist needed. If you only have a door and a fridge, and they stay this size, cut the rest.

greez Stromvin

[Gatata03]

Good start! it looks good but very empty and clean, you didn't say if the room is supposed to be scary or clean or whatever but when i looked at the room the first thing that i was thinking about was murder and blood (yea i know crazy) so i edited the room a little bit to make it more interesting and scary [imgzoom]http://s9.postimg.org/jrn3d732n/e_TMYaiv.png[/imgzoom]
I also made the fridge little bigger ( i hope its not too big now )
and i know that the blood looks kinda weird but i tried my best :c

[McArtney82]

Good start! it looks good but very empty and clean, you didn't say if the room is supposed to be scary or clean or whatever but when i looked at the room the first thing that i was thinking about was murder and blood (yea i know crazy) so i edited the room a little bit to make it more interesting and scary [imgzoom]http://s9.postimg.org/jrn3d732n/e_TMYaiv.png[/imgzoom]
I also made the fridge little bigger ( i hope its not too big now )
and i know that the blood looks kinda weird but i tried my best :c

That looks awesome! Pity it's not a murder scene -  I like the vent you've out in though and the Fridge looks much better bigger. Tiles look really good as well. Do you mind I use them as a reference for improving the scene?

[Gatata03]

You can do whatever you want with it , I edited it so you will have more ideas how you can improve the room so if you want to use something from it than its absolutely OK

[Stromvin]

Haha, someone has played a bit to much System Shock 2 right???
No offense, i like the style of Change, its about what i meant just a bit too much. The Station is not abandoned right? Then they should at least have the decency to clean the blood of their criminals
Still Kind of the right style

Greez Stromvin

[Gatata03]

Haha, someone has played a bit to much System Shock 2 right???

I didn't play system shock 2 even once I know I'm weird

[Stromvin]

WHAT??? not even once
One of the best games ever. Ok if you cant Play Ego for whatever reason maybe not.
But in any other case, DO PLAY IT NOW!!!! (Kidding... NOT)
But really, it reminded me a lot of Sys2. Run down Station, scratches on walls, help written everywhere and of course liters of blood (or gallons if you prefer).

[SilverSpook]

Everything is a bit bright and low-contrast?  I'd drop the brightness a bit and up contrast if you have that function in the program you're using. 

Good start though!  Art is scary, I know.  But just punch it in the nose and it will swim away! 

[JD_Mortal]

Not sure what real-estate the GUI, if any, will consume... or other things...

But, as stated, it seems like a wide open space, without any mentioned explanation or reason to justify it.

Good pixel art though.

I would think about the following, when designing a scene...
1: What needs to be seen? (Fridge, Door, Wall, Floor) * Floors are not often "looked at" or "seen", without reason. Eg, navigational purposes.
2: Important "things", (Fridge, Door, Exit-Left, Exit-Right)
3: Feeling... (Close and intimate, part of the scene... or... Distant and observational, third-person "looking in".)
4: Reality-scale + Artistic touch + Ability = The scene limitation.

The fridge, with those corners, looks like an old-old-old fridge... but not like the first electric fridges. (They have chillers on top 1920-1940.) That could be a pre-electric ice-box, or an older fridge from the 40/60's? If that is the time-period, then it is "fitting"... However, police-stations are not often filled with retro-deco or "period" stuff. I would personally square it up and focus on the handles to identify it as a fridge... Bottom vents too.

I would zoom-in a lot more, to turn it into a scene, not a scenery. (Scene = Intimate area), (Scenery = Landscape)

I would lower the fridge so the feet are not aligned with the floor-to-wall corner. Your floor, is simulated 3D, so the fridge, which has depth, would touch outward from the wall. Thus, the front would be touching the edge of the first tile in the horror-version. If it was a side-scroller, there would be no floor, and thus, that would be cement-foundation we are looking at. (Or naturally blackness as it is unseen, like in these classic games.)

I would put the door at 1/4, the fridge at 1/4 and each exit at 1/4, scene-space for width of the screen. Each within those 1/4 cells, but not occupying more than half of each area.

[Exit]---[Door]---[Fridge]---[Exit]
not this...
[Exit]------------------------[Door]------------------------[Fridge]------------------------------[Exit]

Also staying within the "2/3" or "3/5" golden-zone, for heights of the doorway and fridge. Use lights for the ceiling to fill space and make the floor a lot less consuming. We stand higher than 3/5ths of the room horizon, we see more ceiling and top-stuff than floor and bottom-stuff. Plus, time is money/fun... The less time you/they spend walking around to get to something, the better. Walking across a wide screen that is zoomed-out, takes a lot of time. You walk 4x faster close-up. (Plus, if you don't see the feet, that is less to deal with in animation.)

Also adding... Foreground fill-in, will help to bring depth to the scene. Directly in front of the camera, put "stuff"... As if the camera is looking in a window and seeing over a shelf or counter, or the back-side of lockers and chairs and tables. Stuff you might find in a break-room, that does not need coloring. You could get away with using silhouette shadows as fill-in foreground, or even just shadows of things on the floor, to look like there is something just out of view of the camera. (That will occupy some floor real-estate without actually occupying real-estate on the floor.)

[Gatata03]

Wow that looks amazing I really like the shadows on the floor.

[loganworsley]

Definitely great for your first background. I would definitely think about proportions. For example, the space between the door and ceiling is about as high as the door itself...usually that is a much smaller space. Also with the floor that big it will cut back on realism.

But regardless, this is far better than the first background i drew.

If you haven't done so, try using perspective lines as a guide. I can post a. Example if it's helpful. I feel like once I learned to use those things got so much easier.

[McArtney82]

Definitely great for your first background. I would definitely think about proportions. For example, the space between the door and ceiling is about as high as the door itself...usually that is a much smaller space. Also with the floor that big it will cut back on realism.

But regardless, this is far better than the first background i drew.

If you haven't done so, try using perspective lines as a guide. I can post a. Example if it's helpful. I feel like once I learned to use those things got so much easier.

If you can post an example that would be great, I'd be keen for any guides to help me improve. Haven't had much time to look at any of this for a loooong time because work has been so hectic. I am attempting my first MAGS entry though, so see how that goes

[Anarcho]

Hey, I posted before under the name loganworsley...I was finally able to log onto my old account thanks to some assistance. So, here's some examples of how I use guidelines. Let me preface by saying I'm no expert, just self taught, and I'm sure there are better or smarter ways to do things, but this is what works for me.

Ok, so below is a picture of a creepy (hopefully) cellar done in one point perspective. What do I mean by that?



Here is the image with perspective guidelines. It's one point perspective because all the lines originate from...wait for it...one point. The horizon is the straight horizontal line. Using these lines, I was able to draw things like the stairs, tables and walls in a way that looks a little more realistic than if I just guessed.



Here's another pic of a hopefully creepy bathroom. Sorry if it's small, you can probably save it and open it in your art program of choice and zoom in without it being blurry. Can you guess what is hiding behind that door? Do you think its something dark and foreboding? Hopefully, cause that was the idea.



This is another one point perspective drawing. Notice how the lines where the walls meet the floor are drawn along these guides. The horizon is much much higher in this pic. If the horizon gets too high, then for it to be realistic you would have to be looking down on your character like some kind of RPG...the side walk view would be all wrong. I wanted to post this one because it has an example of something at an angle that isn't along the lines of that single point *gasp!*. There is a towel that dares to be original. I was still able to keep it in perspective by drawing a line off the horizon.



So in summation, google "one point perspective" or "two point perspective" and there's lots of good tutorials. In fact I'm pretty sure there are some adventure game specific ones. I enjoy using one point perspective. As someone who isn't a trained artist with tons of knowledge and tricks, it helps me come up with something that looks very playable. The key is often horizon placement...if the horizon is too low, then objects start to look really out of wack, same goes for it the horizon is too high. In the style of classic adventure games, we're often trying to cheat the perspective by drawing 3d-ish rooms with a completely 2d playable character. It's a delicate balance, but once you find it, things look pretty good. Play around with it though, it can be very helpful.

[McArtney82]

This is brilliant, thanks so much. I've already looked at a lot of tutorials on it but I've never seen how it can be used for pixel art, your examples are great! You should consider writing a "how to article", your graphics look amazing

[Anarcho]

Thanks man, I'm glad you found it useful and I always love compliments [emoji5]. I have so much artfork kicking around from unfinished projects, maybe doing some tutorials would be one way for them to actually see the light of day. I just figured that kind of thing should be left to the art students, not the (now) middle aged hacks.

Anyway, I hope you stick with it. Finishing my first game was a truly amazing feeling...I'm sure you will feel the same way when you finish yours.

Cheers

Logan

Oh p.s., the tutorial I always come back to is the one that use to be on the Kafka's Koffee website. He was an early AGSer but I don't remember the name. I did see one of his tutorials on sprite drawing updated and online somewhere.