Struggling with the graphics

Started by TheBlindRabbit, Sat 03/12/2016 23:26:24

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TheBlindRabbit

Hey everyone :)

I finally joined the forum after stalking you for all theses years :P Happy to be among you
I have always played Point'n'Click games, I've done a looot of them since my childhood, especially old-school ones (The Longest Journey, Myst, Runaway, Monkey Island, Amerzone, Syberia...)

Recently i've finished nearly all of the Wadjet Eye Games game's and I've been surprised they only used A.G.S. to do them, so I decided to give it a try!
Well, long story short, I understand how the software works (after following densming's tutorials on youtube) but it's been some days i'm trying to draw a correct character and to animate it and man, i'm really having a hard time since i'm not quite the visual artist :-X
Here's my best work so far, it's merely a test for now but any critism is welcome :-D (yes you do have the right to laugh)
I really wish to improve myself since I have a lot of ideas for my first point'n'click adventure!
Oh and I work on GIMP...

My first character, StrangeBot.png :-\ :
Spoiler

My first backgrounds/scenes:
Spoiler


Play Tester for SilverSpook's Neofeud !

Cassiebsg

Hey it's not that bad! (nod)
Basically, on the walk cycle you are just missing the "bounce". Which means that when the legs are side by side he's higher, and when his legs are further apart he'll g lower.
Just search the forum or google for "walk cycle" and you'll get a lot of examples on how to do it.

Don't what the 1st BG is suppose to be, but looks disturbing. 8-0
Love the wind/fog effect you have on the second. (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Danvzare

It takes quite a while to get good at drawing, but you're certainly better than I was when I first started. :-D

Personally, I think what you've got is good enough for a nice stylized game. They look quite nice to me.

If you want to know how to improve on your art in general though, I have only two recommendations. Draw with pencil and paper every day (you'd be surprised at how much those skills transfer to all other types of art), and draw pixel art in a much smaller resolution, then double it, and carve it out. That's how I improved.

TheBlindRabbit

#3
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sun 04/12/2016 00:08:56
Hey it's not that bad! (nod)
Basically, on the walk cycle you are just missing the "bounce". Which means that when the legs are side by side he's higher, and when his legs are further apart he'll g lower.
Just search the forum or google for "walk cycle" and you'll get a lot of examples on how to do it.

Don't what the 1st BG is suppose to be, but looks disturbing. 8-0
Love the wind/fog effect you have on the second. (nod)

Hello Cassie,
thanks for the feedback!

Yup that background is kinda creepy :-D It was my first attempt to do a perspective-room and I thought the textures looked interesting, I may try to do something with it

Indeed, I forgot the "bounce"
I've been studying the walk-cycles to do my character, just missed that part!

Here it is, but It still looks kind of floppy in my opinion :-\ :

Spoiler

Quote from: Danvzare on Sun 04/12/2016 11:44:19
It takes quite a while to get good at drawing, but you're certainly better than I was when I first started. :-D

Personally, I think what you've got is good enough for a nice stylized game. They look quite nice to me.

If you want to know how to improve on your art in general though, I have only two recommendations. Draw with pencil and paper every day (you'd be surprised at how much those skills transfer to all other types of art), and draw pixel art in a much smaller resolution, then double it, and carve it out. That's how I improved.

Hey Danvzare, thanks for your feedback.
Cheers :) I'm glad it looks nice to you

Yup i've been thinking about this, but as you tell me i'll definitely start to draw with the good ol' pencil and paper again, I'm sure it helps out as it has helped you improved.
I've been trying to do the smallest character I can come with but I always end up doing something more "detailed" (call it blurry :-D) for some reason :-\ Thing is I didn't wanted this character to be like this because it don't feel like pixel art to me... But I heard you and i'll try to start over with something smaller maybe.

Any tips about character's resolution? This one is in 60*110, like one of the default game's templates
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Cassiebsg

Character resolution is something you decide on. How big/small you want it to be in your BGs? Size of your BGs and walkareas? resolution of your game?... etc.
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

cat

About your backgrounds: They are in two rather different styles and even another style compared to the character. It is generally a good idea to have all art in the same style, especially when starting out making games.

TheBlindRabbit

Quote from: cat on Sun 04/12/2016 12:54:43
About your backgrounds: They are in two rather different styles and even another style compared to the character. It is generally a good idea to have all art in the same style, especially when starting out making games.

Hey cat, thanks for your feedback

Yup i'm quite aware of this, theses 2 backgrounds were merely tests :-D

I tried to do something more in my character's style but... yeah :-\ :
Spoiler
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Cassiebsg

Hey, it' got a lovely atmosphere! Very eery/spooky. (nod)
Though that picture seems to jump out of the BG... is it floating in the foreground?
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

TheBlindRabbit

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sun 04/12/2016 21:53:53
Hey, it' got a lovely atmosphere! Very eery/spooky. (nod)
Though that picture seems to jump out of the BG... is it floating in the foreground?
Thanks, I guess creating an atmosphere is the only thing I can achieve right now :-D

...It's supposed to be a window (laugh)
But I think I overmade the frame :(

I really have trouble with perspective
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Cassiebsg

You know, it it's suppose to be in the background and even further away, then you need to de-saturate it, more than your room... try looking at stuff that are very far away. When you make it that brightly colored into a room like that, it'll just up and be in your face all the time.
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

TheBlindRabbit

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sun 04/12/2016 22:12:17
You know, it it's suppose to be in the background and even further away, then you need to de-saturate it, more than your room... try looking at stuff that are very far away. When you make it that brightly colored into a room like that, it'll just up and be in your face all the time.

Yup I do understand that in theory :-D
Spoiler

I may retry from scratch, definitely not happy with this, everything looks out of place
Play Tester for SilverSpook's Neofeud !

Cassiebsg

Think it mismatch our character.

Your BG is painted with a soft gradient palette (also, nice improvement (nod), you might want to try to de-saturate it even more, as now it looks like it is a painting sticking to the wall) and your character is a very clean free from gradient shadows, or even block shadows.

(Oh... after zooming I noticed that he IS shadowed... you might want to give more distinction on the colors, and also avoid the so called "pillow shadow"... pick a light source - normally upper right, and shadow him from there...)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

cat

I like your last background version! No need to put it in spoiler tags, it's easier to read the thread when you immediately see the pictures (spoilers would only be needed for very big backgrounds that wold break the forum layout).
I also think that the background fits the character much better than the ones of your first post.

The next thing you should think about is resolution. If you take a close look, the pixel of your background are twice the size the pixel of your character. If you make them the same size, it looks more uniform.

Danvzare

Looking good, but like Cat says, you need to make your pixels the same size all around.
And like Cassie said, you need to sort out that pillow shading (which is unfortunately something I haven't learnt to do yet :~().

Overall, I really like the atmosphere you created. Although the fancy lighting pattern on that background really does not match with your character at all, unless you could some how overlay that lighting pattern onto him as well.
The picture in that background also looks like it's over the lighting pattern, rather than under it.

TheBlindRabbit

Thanks again to all for your feedback, It really helps me to envisage things and I'm considering this a lot :)
Haven't been able to work on my projects so far because I'm doing some testing for another AGS game and it takes time...

Anyway, here is what I plan to be my first scene in the game... it is, again, merely a test but do you think it's something I can work from?
I tried to adjust the background's pixel size to my character's (and overall I think it matches a little bit more) and desaturate a little bit the wall in the back to give it more perspective, but I can't really tell if this works:

[imgzoom]http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/50/1481980396-back1.png[/imgzoom]


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Snarky

Perspective-wise it looks OK. (In one-point perspective it's usual to have the vanishing point centered horizontally, but that's not an absolute rule.)

However, the composition is probably not ideal for an adventure game. It depends a little on how you plan to fill the room, but usually you want to choose a view that shows more wall, less floor. (You can try this for yourself: if you look straight out at your room, don't the walls take up most of your view?) The exception would be in long corridors or huge halls where you want to emphasize how far away the back wall is.

Here's an example from another recent thread:
Quote from: Fred Five on Thu 10/11/2016 16:43:09
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/qufvN9a.png[/imgzoom]

Notice how the back wall takes up well over half the height (actually 58%) of the screen, with the rest divided between floor and ceiling, and some of the floor covered up by foreground objects. In your screen, on the other hand, the back wall takes up less than a third (30%) of the room height. That's a big difference!

Here's another couple of examples, from the Ben Jordan games:

[imgzoom]http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/images/games/1295.jpg[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/images/games/513.jpg[/imgzoom]

The last one shows a bit more floor, but at the expense of not showing the ceiling at all. This kind of view (common in Sierra games) is good if you want to emphasize the size of a room, minimize scaling, or if there's something interesting on the floor you want to show clearly.

TheBlindRabbit

#16
Thanks Snarky, that's some precious advices you gave me here! Great examples too.
Yeah I haven't noticed that indeed, about the Wall/Floor ratio

I tried again, but there's still way too much floor and now I'm struggling with the colors :( (lost cause here :-D)

[imgzoom]http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/50/1482073841-test.png[/imgzoom]

With some objects (supposed to be a radio in foreground):
[imgzoom]http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/50/1482098930-testobj3.png[/imgzoom]
Play Tester for SilverSpook's Neofeud !

cat

Very nice progress!

The next step would be to look out for tangents. For example, the left edge of dresser seems to merge with the frame of the wardrobe. And the second wall panel from the right looks as if it is directly facing the viewer.
By slightly moving or resizing the dresser, you could avoid these problems.

Have a look here: http://emptyeasel.com/2008/11/18/avoiding-tangents-9-visual-blunders-every-artist-should-watch-out-for/, especially 7. Stolen edge and 9. Skimmed edge.

TheBlindRabbit

#18
Quote from: cat on Mon 19/12/2016 11:12:40
Very nice progress!

The next step would be to look out for tangents. For example, the left edge of dresser seems to merge with the frame of the wardrobe. And the second wall panel from the right looks as if it is directly facing the viewer.
By slightly moving or resizing the dresser, you could avoid these problems.

Have a look here: http://emptyeasel.com/2008/11/18/avoiding-tangents-9-visual-blunders-every-artist-should-watch-out-for/, especially 7. Stolen edge and 9. Skimmed edge.

Thanks! And thanks for the advices, I didn't know someone had referenced theses
Yeah I wondered what looked a little "off" about it...

I tried to correct it somehow:
[imgzoom]http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/51/1482169051-testobj4.png[/imgzoom]

Play Tester for SilverSpook's Neofeud !

TheBlindRabbit

#19
My very first exterior scene, to train/try on one-point perspective drawing, colorizing and exterior background, but I plan to use it in-game:

First Version:
Spoiler

Now:
[imgzoom]http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/52/1482964159-8.png[/imgzoom]

With some kind of post-processing:
Spoiler





Play Tester for SilverSpook's Neofeud !

SilverSpook

Hey does anyone happen to know how I might be able to get in contact with TheBlindRabbit?  Haven't been able to get in touch with him through the forum for a while.

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