Background Blitz: Kubla Khan (WINNERS in LAST POST)

[selmiak]

had lots of fun painting this and learned a lot about painting with a tablet, but of course I hope to get one of these cool and shiny trophys

[Andail]

Great topic and nice entries!
I for one love the poem by Coleridge.

Nice to see Progzmax try his hands on hi-res painting Feel free to put it in the critics' lounge for some feedback!

PS:
I believe Neuschwanstein is in Germany, btw

[Miez]

Ok, truly fantastic entries this time (even though no one went with the Olivia Newton John angle, which is a shame! )

Voting begins now and concludes Thursday April 25th

Please pick your favourite background in each of these categories:

Atmosphere: Is an interesting world created? - Did the scene evoke a feeling?
Composition: How well are the elements combined to create a pleasing whole? do they lead the viewer to the points of interest?
Functionality: How well would it work as a game background?
Technique: How well is it rendered? (within the chosen style, in no way meaning the more elaborate the better).

(categories mostly stolen from Waheela's Background Blitz, as it's a pretty comprehensive list)

Here are all the entries side by side:

MeditativePixel
[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/meditative.png[/imgzoom]

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens
[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/progzmax.png[/imgzoom]

Selmiak
[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/selmiak.png[/imgzoom]

Kastchey
[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/xanadu_kastchey.png[/imgzoom]  [imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/xanadu2_kastchey.png[/imgzoom]

Kasander
[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/tmp/BB13/kasander.jpg[/imgzoom]
(I know Kasander labeled this as 'a sketch' and 'unfinished' but I still regard it an entry).

[waheela]

(In all fairness, I stole my categories from Kastchey's Background Blitz, so it's all good.)

Atmosphere: Kastchey
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

[CaptainD]

Hmm...

Atmosphere: Selmiak
Composition: MeditativePixel
Functionality: Kastchey
Technique: MeditativePixel

[cat]

Atmosphere: Kastchey
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: Kastchey

Too bad there is no category for "Idea" this time, this would have gone to Selmiak for the faces in the rock 

[Ilyich]

Another excellent round, hats off to all the participants! And it's nice to see 3 high-res entries in one blitz.

Atmosphere: Kastchey - love the colours and the rays of light
Composition: Kastchey - great composition, with Xanadu being a point of interest, but not the main attraction, which creates a sense of anticipation, discovery and adventure. And the readability is good too.
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel - it's like this background came straight from the golden era of adventure games - very impressive rendering and a great way to introduce yourself to the forums.

It was also great to see ProgZ try his hand at drawing a background - shame we won't get to see it finished, but it's a worthy entry as it is too.
Selmiak's piece has a lot to offer too, and it's clear that a lot of work went into making this, well done!
And I love Kasander's sketch for it's fluidity and rough energy - with a bit of work it easily could've been a winner.

Well done, everyone! Very much looking forward to the next blitz.

[selmiak]

Atmosphere: Kastchey
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

So I stole my votes from waheela, does this make things even more fine now?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm definitely going to do some things different next time (like use a lower resolution for starters).

Atmosphere: Kastchey - I love the way the colors work together to set the mood for this background.
Composition: Selmiak - It's bright, bold, and the scope of the castle is rather awe-inspiring.
Functionality: Kastchey - This one is a bit difficult because none of them would work very well as a 'playable' background but would work fine as establishing shots or cutscenes, but still I find this background as having the most potential.
Technique: MeditativePixel - The art style actually reminds me a lot of Miez' work with the selective dithering and manual touches.  It's a very nice approach!

[kaput]

Atmosphere: Selmiak - a very interesting world you created there. Love the mountains and the waterfall is very well detailed.
Composition: Kastchey - what can I say except great composition? Would make a good backdrop for a cut-scene me thinks.
Functionality: MeditativePixel - I can totally see that in a game world.
Technique: Kastchey - Blends well. Really well.

Nice work.

[Abisso]

Atmosphere: Selmiak - very imaginative and catchy, with all the funny shapes in the mountains, and the dozens of towers. Quite original.
Composition: Kastchey - the idea of the tunnel over the river Alph encasing Xanadu in the distance and focusing the attention on it makes this the best composition.
Functionality: MeditativePixel - It would fit perfectly in a game like Fate of Atlantis, though I have to admit none of the bg (even this) is really "that" useful.
Technique: MeditativePixel - It seems the most coherent style of all, though Kastchey's one is almost there.

[Anian]

Atmosphere: Selmiak
Composition: MeditativePixel
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: Kastchey

[MeditativePixel]

Atmosphere: Kastchey (mysterious, calm atmosphere)
Composition: Kastchey (i like non-symmetrical compositions)
Functionality: Kastchey (walk-area and object interaction in the lower right part of the image; possible "floating-area" on the river)
Technique: Kastchey (fine low-res-/low-colour-style; interesting texture of the blue wall to the left and the plants in the upper right)

[Kasander]

Props for all the folks that took part in the competition!
My nominees are:

Atmosphere: Kastchey
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

@Ilyich: Thanks:) I shouldn't have entered the the competition anyway. I did only 30 or 40 % of the work that I should do on that one :/

[Snarky]

Atmosphere: Selmiak - so.much.gold!
Composition: MeditativePixel - the wall across the picture (and the contrast between inside and outside) creates a nice tension
Functionality: Kastchey - I see exits, hotspots, all that good stuff!
Technique: Kastchey - this cleaner, softer style suits the scene really well. Love the texture on the vegetation! The trees are a little too doodle-y for my taste still


MeditativePixel: Great entry, amazing for your first! No real criticisms (I don't see the point in dithering, but I guess that's a subjective matter). However, I'm not sure this screen is "necessary"; as in, if I imagine an adventure game around this setting, this feels like a BG that could be eliminated without detracting from the game design.
ProgZmax: Very interesting to see you pushing yourself and working outside your accustomed style! I feel like you got a bit hung up on the detail rendering, and the overall design and composition isn't as interesting as it could have been. The perspective looks a little wonky to me, too. The pastel color scheme doesn't blend with the green of the landscape, but would would look nice in a different setting, I think.
Selmiak: Spire-tastic! It reminds me a lot of medieval Byzantine or old Persian art. Guess there's no point questioning the logic of the scene (like pointing out that the windows in the big tower are as big as some of the smaller towers themselves!), as it's a fantasia. But I still think a more unified, somewhat simpler design would have been more effective. Its game role is unclear to me.
Kastchey: Looks great.
Kasander: I like the composition with an overview screen dominated by a huge foreground rock/statue, and the design of the sculpture itself. Hard to say much more at this stage. Is this your intended color palette? Maybe try for something slightly more realistic/filmic.

[Kastchey]

Atmosphere: MeditativePixel (Selmiak as a VERY close second, though)
Composition: ProgZ
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

(I'll try to edit with comments later.. it's being a hectic week at work!)

[Armageddon]

Atmosphere: Kastchey
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

[kconan]

Atmosphere: Selmiak
Composition: Kastchey
Functionality: MeditativePixel
Technique: MeditativePixel

[Kasander]

Kasander: I like the composition with an overview screen dominated by a huge foreground rock/statue, and the design of the sculpture itself. Hard to say much more at this stage. Is this your intended color palette? Maybe try for something slightly more realistic/filmic.

Thanks for the comment! No, it's not my intended color palette, it's just a less-than-hour Painter sketch, not much more. I was surely going to refine this into something definitely more traditional (in adventure-y sense), I just started it too late. Then I went wrong way with rearranging all elements of the composition, instead of sticking to my initial idea and finishing the damn thing

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The perspective looks a little wonky to me, too. The pastel color scheme doesn't blend with the green of the landscape, but would would look nice in a different setting, I think.

Yes.  I had actually made an edit to fix some of the perspective (especially the left half of the castle) and to try and correct some of the damage done when I applied a pixelated tree texture I wasn't happy with but for some reason cs 6 crashed after having been open for several days and I lost those edits as well as the ability to undo the mess the tree texture made of the overall appearance.  No matter, I learned some lessons the hard way of things I won't be doing again or doing differently next time.  I also don't have experience working with backgrounds of that magnitude and even after downscaling it from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 I realized I wasn't going to have time to detail everything the way I normally would .  I think I'll dial it back to 640x480 for the time being and see if I can accomplish a competent background at that resolution before trying something bigger in the future.