My first background.

[raimo]

I just found out about AGS on monday and thought about starting my own game. I needed a background to test AGS with and tried some new techniques with this one, trying to get that classic "slightly antialiased but not too blurry" look. Haven't done anything quite like this before so I was surprised when it wasn't too difficult.

I don't quite like the water but I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. The scene is supposed to be high up on a cliff, but i'm not so sure if it looks that way.

Oh and the pillars are totally out of place, but I wasn't quite thinking and they're in the same layer with the floor and I can't bother moving them elsewhere.

so, any comments?



EDIT:
and yes I indeed had THAT scene from FoA on mind when i started

[El Drey]

It's a dang good background!

But if you want to make it look like it's high on a cliff, you'll have to (sorry) blur the water a bit, and lower the contrast. Objects in the distance tend to be less contrasted, less focused and more bluey (that's not a problem actually).

And the postion of the pillars doesn't bother me at all, it even fills up the compostion (Rocks on the right, pillars on the left... No problem there).

Great work!

El Drey.

[Redwall]

Inspired by FoA's Crete, I assume?

[Scummbuddy]

Haven't done anything quite like this before so I was surprised when it wasn't too difficult.

Yes, and please keep showing us more not-to-difficult backgrounds. Either team up with someone who is far into a game development with a high grasp of what they are doing with their game, although in need of a bg artist, or take the time yourself to plan out a game with the intensity of these backgrounds.

[MashPotato]

Lovely background ^_^   The only things things I suggest are to make the waves in the water less distinct to make it appear farther away (like El_Drey said), and perhaps make the leaves on the vines around the pillars and pit a bit smaller (they seem a little too large to me, assuming that the doorway and pillars are tall).
Keep up the good work! ^_^

[fovmester]

Wonderful!  :o How did you do the water ripples? I have tried many techniques, but this is way better than any I've come up with.

[A�rendyll (formerly Yurina)]

Can you do bg's for my game and/or make a tutorial about how you can get such quality bg's? Please?  :o

Serious, I like this bg and El_Dery is right. The pillars aren't out of order.

I'm looking forward to seeing more work of you!
~Yurina

[Tuomas]

Hello, and welcome to the forums from me too. I see the representation from my city is growing all the time

About the background, I'd like to see a more purposeful drawing... Especially with the tiles on the left. but your style is great, and it look sawesome, I'll tell more when I have time.

[Kweepa]

About the background, I'd like to see a more purposeful drawing... Especially with the tiles on the left.

I agree - it looks like you've started with a very rough sketch, and finished it beautifully without tidying it up first.
The tiles on the left could be smaller and in perspective.
The sky looks more like the bottom of a waterfall - you should hand paint it to match the rest of the background.
It looks like the upper stone arch overlaps the lower.
The water is great, except for the really obvious zigzags in the front. I think if you used a more sinusoidal pattern to distort it, it would work better.

Your technique is great. It reminds me a lot of Sektor 13's (another forum member) work.

[seaduck]

Now that's easily the best "first background" I've ever seen, gorgeous!

By the prickling of my thumbs, a great artist this way comes...

[raimo]

Thanks for the comments!

Wonderful!  :o How did you do the water ripples? I have tried many techniques, but this is way better than any I've come up with.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but the water is a just mirrored and darkened copy of the sky (which is nothing but a couple of random white smudges on a blue bg) with horizontal wave distort (wave length 4px) and some white noise.

Can you do bg's for my game and/or make a tutorial about how you can get such quality bg's? Please?  :o

I'm planning on doing my own game so I doubt I'll have time for other projects. I don't think I'll make a tutorial either because I'm not much of an expert and I don't have much to tell.

I use Paint Shop Pro and a couple of features i found really handy were lighten/darken and smooth brushes. If you set the size to 1px the lighten/darken brush is excellent for making small details and shadows. (That's how I made all the tiles and stuff) Smooth brush is THE anti-aliasing magic wand, if you ask me. To get the best results in low-res, always draw the shapes and lines without anti-aliasing and then do the anti-aliasing by hand. I used the 1px smooth brush for that. For example all the vines are first drawn with a single color, then shaded with lighten/darken and finally anti-aliased with the smooth brush.

I'd guess similar features can be found in other graphics programs such as photoshop.

And about the tiles... The idea wasn't to make them uniform so they got to look a bit funky. Maybe if I split up some of them it would be more clear...

[fertoff]

hey
mouse or tablet??

if mouse, how long?

and the background looks very nice
bye

[Anian]

this looks awesome, but I'm going to be an arse and ask - wouldn't it look better withouth that path on left, just without the whole thing, pillars etc. are not bad but somehow look unnatural (too perfect and new, the place is crawiling with plants so it wasn't built yesterday am I correct?)) and the path is a bit twisted in perspective, that part kind stings me in the eye, but the rest is great 

please feel free to ignore any of the above, most people seem to 

[raimo]

hey
mouse or tablet??

if mouse, how long?

mouse, about 4 hours

now got a tablet tho...

[nihilyst]

That's a very good background. I really like it. The two pillars look out of place, though. But other than that I say  :o

cheers
nihilyst

[fred]

I agree, it's also one of the best first backgrounds I've seen - good job! Did you make some backups along the way, they would be really helpful to look at while reading about your method? Like the vines - did you paint them in just one color, or more tones before anti-aliasing?

[raimo]

I didn't save any steps that would be any use here so I made new ones. I hope these help someone.



1. Painted in one color.
2. Added some basic highlights with 1px lighten brush.
3. Added shadows with 1px darken brush and shaded the flower. (which is in a separate layer)
4. Softened the edges with 1px smooth brush.

And next I would add some shadows to the background to make it fit into the scene...

[Saberteeth]

Thanks for the tutorial. I also have PSP10 but I don't use it much. I like GGale better. But PSP is great for FoA-like bgs.

I really love your art. Keep it up!

[fred]

Hey, great tutorial - thanks alot

[Sheepisher]

 :o  Seriously, Raimo, that's impressive - my jaw literally dropped open when I first saw it!

I think you're lucky that you find that level of accuracy and detail "not too difficult" ... or perhaps you're just naturally very meticulous!

Anyway, I can't fault the overall very high quality of the artwork, so a few specific comments:

1)  I agree with Steve McCrea and Tuomos - the layout looks a little hurried.  In particular, the foreground is mostly nicely realised but the background looks ill-planned, and there's a *very* strange jar in perspective.  At this angle, we appear to be looking down on the atoll from the above, so we shouldn't even be able to see the horizon (Like Steve, I thought it was the edge of a waterfall) so it would probably look better to leave it as water.

2)  Yes, the obvious zig-zags look very unnatural.  At this angle, ripples in water tend to look more like a series of interacting, wavery diamond shapes - the operative word being 'wavery' as opposed to strict zig-zags.  Perhaps you could create a tile pattern to clone and then add detail to.  Failing that, and if you don't mind using templates, some versions of PSP have a 'wave' spray-paint option.

3)  The tiles on the left-hand path look out of perspective - they should be more regular and in line with one another.

That's it, really.  The only other thing I can say is that I wish I could draw bgs as luscious and detailed as that!  But perhaps I just don't have the patience ...