Adventure Game Studio

So for this Background Blitz I'd like you to take inspiration from a crusty old poem. How's that for culture and sophisication, sothiphisticon, class? ;)

This poem was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an 18th century Romantic poet (and a bit of a weirdo).
I always thought that Kubla Khan would make for an interesting setting. Hope I'm not alone in this...

Here's the first 11 lines:


In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.


More of the poem and a whole bunch of background info can be found on the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan#Poem

Requirements:
Make a background that references this poem in any way. Use your imagination;

• It could be an interior or exterior shot in Xanadu
• It could show the poem somewhere on a paper or painted on a wall
• Sure, even this (http://youtu.be/RC6GoTHX9OU) might work :D

Most importantly: have fun with it!

• The background can be any color, any size, but must be usable as an adventure game background in AGS.

• Deadline is Friday, April 19th

Looking forward to your entries!

Trophies:

[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/awards/kubla_gold.png[/imgzoom] First place

[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/awards/kubla_silver.png[/imgzoom] Second place

[imgzoom]http://www.miez.nl/awards/kubla_bronze.png[/imgzoom] Third place

Fancy, Miez! I think I'll give it a try. :) (Why is there no smiley wearing a monocle?)

Btw, flipping Electric Light Orchestra is the best.

Quote from: waheela on Thu 04/04/2013 03:29:07
Why is there no smiley wearing a monocle?)

WHAT?

There isn't?

  (http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/indubitably.gif)

Cool Waheela! looking forward to your background.

And we may have smileys sporting monocles ... but do we have smileys drinking laudanum and strolling wistfully underneath weeping willows? hmm? :grin:

Whoo, a difficult one.
Okay, challenge accepted  :-D

The trophies look absolutely beautiful, by the way.

Edit:
Here we go:
[imgzoom]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/Kastchey/xanadu_zpsea71b934.png[/imgzoom]
No lightening version:
[imgzoom]http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/Kastchey/xanadu2_zps5d8891d0.png[/imgzoom]

And finally, the reference:
(http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii203/Kastchey/xanadu-ref_zpse4bdf341.png)

Wow that's very pretty. Lovely colour and composition.

As this will be my first 'official' photoshop background I thought I would make it for the blitz.  It is appropriately shitty so far and lacking in detail, though I intend to fix that (mainly by adding a forest and lake to the left side of the castle where you see the waterfall).  Among other things I need to move the sun farther to the left.

Should be considered extremely in-progress.

(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/xanadu_zps4072aad1.png)

Wow, that's stunning, Kastchey! I love your art style so much. Every pic I see of yours I'm impressed by.

@Shane: I think it's an awesome beginning. I like the architecture and colors a lot.

Yeah Shane & Kastchey - those are awesome backgrounds!

Been making some slow progress.  Finally got the linework more or less how I want it for the castle so after adding basic highlights and shadows I'm going back and starting to add details starting with the rightmost building (which I've made into a cathedral for some reason).

[IMGZOOM]http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/xanatwo_zps477a6ce2.png[/IMGZOOM]

 Wow kastchey, just wow

Thanks for the comments guys! I tried to address this visibility issue that was repeatedly pointed out in the previous Blitz, hope this piece turned out a bit better :)

ProgZ, wow, that's new! Can't wait to see how this turns out. What made a master pixel artist turn to Photoshop?

Hello everyone! I have just registered because I like pixelart and old-fashioned adventure-games. For me, these contests and the critics-forum can be a good way to practice and improve painting/pixeling. Please allow me to participate with my interpretation of the topic.
I've focused on the aspect "paradise behind walls". In my imagination there's a stronger ancient-chinese influence on the mongolian architecture of Kublai Khan's Xanadu. Image size is wide-screen (scrollable).
Looking forward to a productive time with you. Have a nice day.

[imgzoom]http://s7.directupload.net/images/130413/mqwxkilm.png[/imgzoom]

@MeditativePixel - wow, NICE!

Wow MeditativePixel, that's a shiny way of making an entrance! :grin:
So far the entries are all very, very nice ... this is going to be some tight competition.

Beautiful, MeditativePixel!
The detail is excellent! *_*

Wow that's amazing MeditativePixel, hope to see more from you!

 :shocked:

Kastchey-  I've been planning to learn how to make hi-res backgrounds for awhile, something I simply cannot do effectively with pixel art, so I finally bought a wacom and started playing around with it.


Also, I'm not sure if I'll be done in time.  I mistakenly thought this was a month blitz like many of them have been, which is my mistake.  I'm still really slow with photoshop because I don't know all the tricks (or even most of them) and I'm still learning shortcuts and how to use my wacom effectively.

when painting with PS and tablet I mainly use the shortcuts b for brush, alt for color picker, ctrl+n for a new layer and e for eraser. Sometimes undo. I wish I could change the opacity with a shortcut.
and yes, I'm also painting something, but I don't know if I finish it in time.

Selmiak - isn't it just pressing the numbers 1 to 0?

Yep, it's 1 for 10% up to 0 for 100% opacity. I also use 'v' for move and 'space' to drag the canvas a lot. But then, I tend to work at 400% magnification or more.

And Selmiak and Shane: I have faith in you guys! keep it up! :D

Excellent! Everything proceeds as planned. *rubs hands* I figured some cool guy will teach me these opacity shortcuts if I sound desperate enough, thanks guys :D
and yeah, v and space are also really handy! Also useful is m for the marquee tool or ctrl+click on layer to paint within some boundaries. We should just have a 'useful shortcuts for paint programs' sticky thread in an appropriate forum. Maybe even with shortcuts for mac users :P

I'm really scared of all these newcomers with their mad skills, taking over competitions, I might not even enter this time. Nah, I'll enter, they have to beat somebody to win.  :grin:

Quote from: selmiak on Sat 13/04/2013 00:48:34
Excellent! Everything proceeds as planned. *rubs hands* I figured some cool guy will teach me these opacity shortcuts if I sound desperate enough, thanks guys :D
and yeah, v and space are also really handy! Also useful is m for the marquee tool or ctrl+click on layer to paint within some boundaries. We should just have a 'useful shortcuts for paint programs' sticky thread in an appropriate forum. Maybe even with shortcuts for mac users :P

Well Mac/Win for Photoshop is basically just substitute Alt for Option etc. (they're basically the same combo of keys).
Also cool things - Ctrl+J copy a selection into a new layer,
Ctrl+click on the layer picture in the Layer panel turns everything in that layer into a selection (good for making masks quickly),
Ctrl+D deselects,
Alt+holding right mouse click and moving it changes the hardness and size of the brush,
if you can't see what you're selecting because of the "ants" around the selection -> Ctrl+H (after you're done, don't forget there's a selection active though)
if you want to select some element but you have many layers and don't know which one it is on -> Move tool(V) then Ctrl+click on the element and it'll jump to that layer...
For people using tablets, combination of Alt and Ctrl and buttons on the pen are awesome for zooming and changing the brush size

a bit off-topic but you can change the opacity with a shortcut: 0 to 9 on your numpad :)

edit: whoops didn't see all these replies above! :P

Here's where I am now.  I originally planned to hand texture the mountains but I just don't have time so I applied a texture and did some touch up work on it instead (still need to do some along the skyline so it looks less generic).  I should be able to get the castle portion finished the way I want to, at least.


(http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/xanathree_zps862e7f5c.png:original)

Nice progress, Shane! It's quite an ambitious BG, at this resolution...

If no miracle happens I guess I'm out. My power supply unit just burned down and I'm here with my laptop now. Not only that the laptop is slow and it is a pain to draw on it, also the files are of course on the other PC :(
But I called around to find someone who can spare a power supply unit for a few days, maybe a miracle happens (and not everyone switched to mac :P).

That sucks, Selmiak - fingers crossed for a miracle! :D

Yeah, very sad to say this, but I think I might have to duck out of this one as well. I love the theme, but I've had a really really busy couple weeks and haven't found the time to work on my piece. :~(

Well, that's a shame... :(

I'm sorry! :~(

hehe, the miracle is called electronics store. Even though I wanted to test if it is the powersupply or even the graphics card that went down before just buying something new, but i just got a new part and with some fiddeling it works. I even have 2 plugs left over after installing it. Back to business then, dunno if I finish but at least I have access to my files again and will upload as far as it goes...

Well, I messed up quite a few things including having to recover from a photoshop crash but this is about as done as I'll have time to do.  I didn't get around to fixing the perspective on the left side of the castle or the sky really (not that it needs clouds, but it's kind of boring right now) and due to a screw up the trees ended up more pixelated than I wanted.  It's also lacking considerable detail I wanted to add (including a town to the right and a mountain lake connecting visibly to the waterfall) but oh well.

It's pretty shitty but it's there :).

Oh, and I wanted to add that I used Neuschwanstein Castle in Austria as inspiration so some of the architecture is similar in parts.  Other bits I just made up.

[imgzoom]http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr218/ProgZmax/xanathrough_zps17f8ca0d.png:original[/imgzoom]

I've sketched this yesterday, but I'm afraid I won't have time to finish it before the deadline. It's pretty much useless for AGS right now. I had this image of woman weeping for her demon-lover stuck in my mind all the time and I'm thinking she sent me wrong way with this background :/ Well, so much for my effort :)

(http://i.imgur.com/AO41kkj.jpg)

Damn, I won't make. Well never mind, lots of great entries.

EDIT (for Trampoline):
Humblest apologies my good sir,
and my changes causing a bigger slur.

Shame my pixeling did not conclude,
and I am sorry if I seemed rude.

But there's still hope, do not fret
I am not finished with Blitzes yet!

Quote from: Anian on Fri 19/04/2013 14:46:54
I'd like to finish something up today, so I'll hand it in tomorrow if I may.

If all requests would rhyme so fine,
how could anyone reject your act.

As under the auspice' of Miez,
at his behest, leniency is a frequent guest!

So, do not fret, I wager he'd agree, it is a bet.   

To all of you, as ever,
all yo' entries appear 'sweet ass' and very clever! :tongue:


edit: Dang, Anian. :tongue: You changed it, it doesn't work anymore!!
edit2: Uhh, saved it, thanks to the invention of the 'back' button! :cool:
edit3: Also: I tip my hat to you, good sir, well played!

still painting on it (should stop browsing the forums...). When is deadline?

The mystic megapolis of Kubla Khan. Where even the people have pointed heads...


[imgzoom]http://selmiak.bplaced.net/stuff/kubla_khan.png[/imgzoom]


as this blitz focuses on architecture of course I painted the background first and lost some time painting the actual building, so you might notice some copy+pasted 'houses' but I tried to mask this as good as I could.

Wow Selmiak - that's pretty impressive

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 :D

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

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

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).

(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

Hmm...

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

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  :)

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. :)

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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)

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 :/

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.

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!)

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

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

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 24/04/2013 19:57:40
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 :)

Quote
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.

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 24/04/2013 19:57:40
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.

thanks. Yeah, the windows in the big tower are as big as some of the smaller towers. But now you can imagine what people/creatures live in the big tower. </fantastic explanation>
And if I reworked the huge windows to the size of the windows of the smaller towers the huge tower wouldn't look as impressive in contrast as it does atm. </design choice explanation>
But actually I just painted like I felt and didn't care too much about logic in this world </boring but inspired artist explanation> That's also why there is no clear use for ingame besides as an eyecandy inbetween overview map for having a really downscaled character go from the tower to the edge of the screen :D

Gut picks:

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

Ok, voting has ended and the results are in! There was some very VERY tight competition here (especially between the first and second place winners).







Congratulations to all the winners, feel free to claim your trophies!
Compliments to all the artists that participated - I was impressed by each and every entry.
And finally thanks to all the people that posted, voted and commented ...

I guess Kastchey is next up to organize the next Background Blitz, looking forward to it!

So, to conclude with some words by the great bard himself:

Thanks :) I'll be extremely happy to claim this beautiful trophy, but I was thinking.. perhaps I could pass the honor of hosting the next competition to MeditativePixel? They made a stunning entry in their first post here and were very close to winning the competition. They totally deserve it.

cMiez.Say("Approved"); ?

That would of course be fine with me - it's mostly up to MeditativePixel: if he would like to organize this, then I'd say "go for it!". :D

cMiez.approve = true;

MeditativePixel, it's your call :)
I'll of course be happy to organize if you're not up for it.

Thank you for the compliment and the generous gesture, Kastchey! I appreciate your offer and have already tried to make up a new contest.
Thanks @ everyone for participating and making this kubla-khan-blitz an entertaining contest! :)