Background Blitz: Animated Background - WINNERS in LAST POST!

Miez · Mon 17/03/2014 22:16:22

Background Blitz: Animated Background

For this Background Blitz I would like you to make an animated background. Animation can be full screen (as in a scrolling/looping background) or it can be animated elements in a static background.

Additional rules
Entries should be designed as playable backgrounds within an (imagined) AGS game, so they should have: a walkable area, at least one exit, and some clear hotspots.
Any resolution permitted.
Image should be an animated GIF (so there's an implied 256 color maximum).
Animation should run for a minimum of 3 frames.
Any theme or setting is permitted.

Dates
The contest part of the Blitz will run for two weeks, with submissions due on Tuesday, April 1st (no joke

)

EDIT: the deadline has been extended to Sunday, April 6th, 24:00 in whatever your time zone happens to be

Additional Info
There's online websites that will help you turn a number of images into animated gifs, if your graphic software does not support this: www.gifmaker.me

Awards
The following awards are up for grabs:

Most importantly: HAVE FUN!

HanaIndiana · Mon 17/03/2014 22:51:30

Oooh fun! I'm in!

jwalt · Wed 19/03/2014 01:31:59

To boldly go where none have gone before...

This would also work in "that other thread," but I choose to dump it here. The light panels were a pain.

Miez · Wed 19/03/2014 22:06:50

Hahaha, nice one. Love the cow!

CaptainD · Thu 20/03/2014 00:05:21

Red alert! Red Alert! Turbolift malfunction!

Cool entry jwalt.

HanaIndiana · Thu 20/03/2014 02:17:44

Haha!

Miez · Fri 28/03/2014 10:11:12

So, only a couple of more days to go and only one entry sofar

Are more in the works? Do I need to extend this compo for a couple of days?

HanaIndiana · Fri 28/03/2014 13:57:05

Mine is still in the works, I should be posting soon.

HanaIndiana · Sun 30/03/2014 22:09:25

Okay, here's mine. A visit to the traveling fair.

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/rqo207t.gif[/imgzoom]

Snarky · Sun 30/03/2014 23:00:41

I'm working on something as well. As usual, no idea whether I'll finish by the deadline (or at all)... Depending on how it's looking tomorrow I might ask for an extension, if that's OK with you Miez.

Miez · Sun 30/03/2014 23:02:58

Nice background, Hana! There's so much going on...
And just let me know Snarky - extensions are available

Eric · Mon 31/03/2014 01:43:25

I may request an extension as well. I never get these things done on time.

Miez · Tue 01/04/2014 20:53:16

Good news everybody! The deadline has been extended to Sunday, April 6th, 24:00 in whatever your time zone happens to be

Snarky · Mon 07/04/2014 01:59:31

Damn, still couldn't finish it by the deadline. Well, here's the WIP, anyway:

Spoiler

[imgzoom]http://s0.uploads.im/StbeU.png[/imgzoom]
The animation was meant to be the water (yes, that's supposed to be a river) and the leaves, primarily, with maybe slight movement on the mist as well.
There's obviously loads of stuff left to do before it would be even halfway ready, and these are definitely not the final colors.

[close]

selmiak · Mon 07/04/2014 13:25:58

I like the trees and the colors already. If this is not a game where you play jesus... where would be the walkable area?

miguel · Mon 07/04/2014 14:15:23

I also love the colours, Snarky. Full of ethereal drama. There's really nothing wrong with it.
I'd say the walking (in this case swimming) area is the river, yes?

Snarky · Mon 07/04/2014 14:19:30

Like in MI2 or that bit in Conquest of the Longbows, this would be a paddle-able screen. (It's very loosely inspired by the canoe outing at the last Mittens.) For some reason, my idea was that you'd be using a big cauldron for a boat...

Also, there was supposed to be a big flower hanging down from the big tree branch, providing the required hot spot, but I forgot to turn on that layer.

Edit: And thanks guys. I think the main tree came out pretty well (though the boughs of leaves are tough to get right); I worked pretty hard to make it 3-dimensional with branches heading towards and away from the viewer, not just out to the sides. But it took so long to do that part that I couldn't finish the rest, or work out a layout or color composition I was happy with. Or, you know, do the actual animation...

Miez · Mon 14/04/2014 19:41:02

Oh sugar - I almost forgot about this one!

So, without further ado: It's voting time.

We have three entries this time:

Jwalt

HanaIndiana

Snarky

(I know Snarky didn't actually finish his entry completely - as there is no animation, but I've decided to include it anyway).

Voting is open till Saturday April 19th. Just vote for your favourite entry (one vote per person). In case of any ties I'll make Final Judgment

selmiak · Tue 15/04/2014 00:52:46

so while I'm here, let me say Snarky's piece looks great and promising, but I don't want to vote for unfinished entries that don't fit the contest criteria so my vote goes to jwalt because I like the humor in it

Snarky · Tue 15/04/2014 03:23:08

Ah, shoot! I actually kept working on this throughout last week, and almost got it ready before Miez called the contest.

[IMGzoom]http://i.imgur.com/8rLYolV.gif[/IMGzoom]
(As mentioned above, I wanted to animate the leaves and mist as well, but I've spent way too much time on this already. Well, at least now it adheres to the blitz theme.)

Miez · Tue 15/04/2014 10:24:00

Well, as I was woefully late with calling for votes, I think we should simply allow your entry Snarks...

Ilyich · Tue 15/04/2014 13:16:08

Since it is now officially allowed, I'm going to vote for Snarky. Really great background with interesting sharp rendering, atmospheric colour palette and very convincing water animation - hats off!

Really like HanaIndiana's entry too - lots of cute little animated details, especially the tiny ducks.

miguel · Tue 15/04/2014 14:04:59

My vote goes to Snarky as well. It is a great background indeed like Ilyich said. If the WIP was already gorgeous the end result is close to perfect.

bicilotti · Tue 15/04/2014 14:16:22

I was undecided, but I can't stop staring at those water reflections: Snarky!

selmiak · Tue 15/04/2014 18:28:37

Snarky, are you crazy? This is great. I change my vote to this nice piece of pixelart. Sorry Jwalt (and HanaIndiana, both your entries are great too but this is better)

Snarky · Fri 18/04/2014 16:25:54

I vote for HanaIndiana. I wish all backgrounds were as bustling as that!

jwalt · Sat 19/04/2014 12:40:42

Snarky made a beautiful background, but the fun-factor in HanaIndiana's won me over. HanaIndiana.

dactylopus · Sat 19/04/2014 23:19:56

I can't not vote for Snarky, that's just very well done.

Miez · Tue 22/04/2014 21:29:40

Ok, time to call this one. All entries were great this time; JWalt's was very zany and funny (I like the 'jokey' nature of the reveal), HanaIndiana's is a cutscene in itself - so many little animated elements, it must have been a nightmare to make. And Snarky's is just phenomenal; great color, composition and atmosphere and first class animation. My vote goes to JWalt - just because I believe you all deserve recommendations!

But after counting the votes we're left with:

FIRST PLACE (6 votes): SNARKY

SECOND PLACE (2 votes): HANAINDIANA

THIRD PLACE (1 vote): JWALT

Congratulations winners! Up to Snarky to host the next one, I guess!

Snarky · Wed 23/04/2014 07:49:27

Thanks everybody, you're much too kind. There are all kinds of things wrong with the piece as it stands, but I'm glad you like it: it was a lot of work, and it came out tolerably close to what I initially had in mind. (I've captured snapshots from earliest sketches on, so I might post a process animation, which should make it clear that endless fiddling is the only way I know how to compensate for my limited skill to produce something halfway decent.)

Thanks also to Miez for a great topic and to the other contestants for creating such a varied range of cool entries.

I have a few different ideas for the next blitz, so as soon as I decide which one to go with I'll announce it.

Andail · Wed 23/04/2014 10:27:52

Nice one, Snarky!
Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

arj0n · Wed 23/04/2014 19:18:03

Snarky, that's awesome!

dactylopus · Thu 24/04/2014 00:13:35

Don't be modest, that's a great piece you made Snarky! Very well done.

Congratulations to you, and to the other contestants. This was a really cool theme, and I was happy to see all of the entries.

Snarky · Thu 24/04/2014 08:31:52

Quote from: Andail on Wed 23/04/2014 10:27:52
Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

Of course, it's not real pixel art, as you can probably tell from the earlier version. I paint in Photoshop at 3:1 scale and then resize it down with "nearest neighbor". It may not be the most efficient way to work, but I could never get a grip on the pencil tool, and this lets me paint the only way I know how while producing acceptable (though a bit noisy) texture and nice crisp edges.

@dactylopus: No, I mean, I'm proud of it and pretty happy with it overall, but there are a hundred things I'd like to fix, particularly the roots of the main tree (all out of perspective and balance), and the leaves of that tree and the one on the right (which look too much like just blobs of static noise; I'd like to give them some better volume). There's also the one branch on the tree that uses a completely different color scheme, and the highlights on the leaves didn't come out at all (I realize now that I have to think of them as metallic)... and so many other things. $:-\$

selmiak · Thu 24/04/2014 19:40:19

Quote from: Snarky on Thu 24/04/2014 08:31:52

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

I lol'd

Quote
Of course, it's not real pixel art, as you can probably tell from the earlier version. I paint in Photoshop at 3:1 scale and then resize it down with "nearest neighbor". It may not be the most efficient way to work, but I could never get a grip on the pencil tool, and this lets me paint the only way I know how while producing acceptable (though a bit noisy) texture and nice crisp edges.

I think you also used some tool (probably some easy online tool) to create the reflection animation. The result is pretty cool indeed!

Snarky · Thu 24/04/2014 21:03:25

Oh yeah, that's absolutely not done by hand. I use Sqirlz (and then a bunch of Photoshop tweaks), based on a copy of the bg where the positions of all the objects have been adjusted to approximate the reflected POV, in order to reduce some of the most obvious artifacts, e.g. so you don't see the ground reflected in the water. (However, it's not in general possible to create accurate spatial reflections of a 3D scene from a 2D picture, so some errors remain.)

It is a bit fiddly to work with, so if anyone knows a better tool, I for one would be interested.

Andail · Fri 25/04/2014 15:39:54

Quote from: Snarky on Thu 24/04/2014 08:31:52
Quote from: Andail on Wed 23/04/2014 10:27:52
Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

It was meant as a sincere compliment! Maybe I haven't paying attention lately, but I haven't seen this kind of art from you before. Of course, it's not technically pixel art, but it's at least down to a level of detail where every pixel has its function and place.

If you put this on the critics lounge, I'd only have a couple of suggestions.

Snarky · Fri 25/04/2014 19:15:17

Yeah, no worries.

Apart from any progress in skill (which I personally consider modest at best), I think this looks different because (1) I'm scaling with NN instead of with bicubic or drawing with PS brushes at the native 320x200 resolution, and (2) for once I actually had time to finish it up to a respectable degree of polish before the contest was declared over.

I'd like to hear what you have to suggest, so I posted it over here:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50391

Background Blitz: Animated Background - WINNERS in LAST POST!

bicilotti