Adventure Game Studio

This fortnight, your task is to make a background with a theme of your choice, and I mean that: if you want to paint a cathedral in space, do it, if it's a giant hamburger with doors and windows, be my guest, and if your end result looks like something from Bob Ross, I'd be happy to see it.

Just one thing: Do it in a way you never have done your backgrounds before. You all know how 304's backgrounds look like, you can spot your zyndikate from miles away, and you even can name a loominous blindfolded. Many artists have their own distinctive style; so do you. You have your paint program, your workflow, your colours, your line arts all figured out. This episode's task is to forget about your usual way of doing backgrounds.
For example, if you're into pixel art with limited colour palettes, try a classical painting with different brushes. If comic-style backgrounds like in DOTT are your way to go, then try something more realistic. You may even switch from digital painting to oil on canvas and then scan it for us to see, if you like. As a bonus, it would be great to see other stuff of yours to compare your new style to.

Restrictions: no resolution restrictions this time. Go as you please.
This Blitz ends April 12th.

And now go for it :D

cheers
nihilyst

Eh, pencil sketch scanned in, a bit of matte and blob coloring and light gradients.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5479044/Background_test.png)

The perspective is off.

Premise: Earth has been teleported near Jupiter and is now orbiting Jupiter harsh weather has killed off the human race. Giant perfectly square blocks of granite fell from the sky wrecking what the people of Earth once saw. Heavy rains covered the earth for many years. Now your ship has wrecked and fallen into earth. It stands floating in the atmosphere over sprawling metropolises. Can you escape earth?

EDIT: After looking at it for a bit I'm going with this, high camera on an avant-garde mini-set with strange backdrop and huge Styrofoam blocks.

Quote from: nihilyst on Wed 28/03/2012 00:55:16Just one thing: Do it in a way you never have done your backgrounds before.

Well Nihilyst, I both love and hate this theme (love, because it was one of the ideas I had for the previous Blitz, hate, because if I find the time I definitely can't resist joining this). I love playing with and developing styles. But, of course, I can always pick out my own work (the movement of the lines, the color-choices, etc). But the task is to do something I've never done before, so that's going to be a nice challenge.

QuoteAs a bonus, it would be great to see other stuff of yours to compare your new style to.

I'll add some of my Blitz entries (and two other pieces) of recent years (the first Blitz I entered was with the birdy...wanted to go all vector in that one).

(http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa412/misj1270/Misj_Collage.png)

Anyway...this is going to be fun (or frustrating...not sure which one yet)

@Armageddon: That's one hell of a fast entry :D I like it.

@MisJ: I see you have fiddled with many different styles before. I wonder what you're coming up with :D

I might try to make this contest, I'm a bit busy though...

Quote from: nihilyst on Wed 28/03/2012 15:34:33@MisJ: I see you have fiddled with many different styles before. I wonder what you're coming up with :D

I wanted to revisit once of my pieces: the Damsel and the Dragon. I love the way it tells a story...and I never got to finish it (some of the rendering is way off). I also wanted to get out of my comfort zone (which is basically the whole point of this Blitz), and I wanted to do something I've never done before. So I decided to recreate this piece as an homage to the Space Quest 2 era; limiting myself to 160x120 pixels and the EGA colour-palette, and a style that fits Sierra of those days (though I wanted to keep some of myself in there as well). And then, to top it all off, I wanted to turn the piece into 320x240 with CGA-coloured dithering to see if it would still work.

Yes, I did cheat on the CGA and EGA screen-resolution to match the original image proportions ;)

QuoteThe Damsel and the Dragon (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=44126.msg589739#msg589739)

Everybody knows the story about the brave knight who set out to slay to dragon that imprisoned the beautiful damsel...well...sort of...

(http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa412/misj1270/20110818-BB-Misj-DamselAndDragon_640.png)

Now in glorious 16 colours:
(http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa412/misj1270/Misj_BB_20120412_DamselAndDragon_SierraStyle_EGA.png)

You with 4 colour-machines are not left out:
(http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa412/misj1270/Misj_BB_20120412_DamselAndDragon_SierraStyle_CGA.png)


Ps. Nihilyst, it was more fun than frustrating ;)

Quote from: Misj' on Thu 29/03/2012 14:04:10Ps. Nihilyst, it was more fun than frustrating ;)

You can tell from the result. Groovy :D

Quote from: nihilyst on Thu 29/03/2012 14:44:20You can tell from the result. Groovy :D

Cheers!

just for fun I've also included some (cropped!) in-game screens:

(http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa412/misj1270/Misj_BB_20120412_DamselAndDragon_SierraStyle_inGame.png)

I didn't have a colour-screen back then, so I remember these games in gold-plated monochrome (and that kinda made Roger look even cooler...as they would say back in the day).

I haven't really locked in a consistant style as of yet except maybe in the last six months as proof by a small board of my art :S

(http://digitalartist.com.au/sitestuff/art/varied_style.jpg)

I decided to give my hand at something animated and moody using watercolours for the first time.
Below is my entry for the compo, hope you guys like:

A Rainy Day at the Palace Theatre

Recently boarded up but the automatic lighting is still on.
A homeless man has made it his new nest for the evenings.
Fresh graffiti mark the walls as crates containing contents of what was in the inside of the building get shipped out to collectors

(http://digitalartist.com.au/sitestuff/art/palace_theatre_anim_640.gif)

Very nice, the rain really sells it. ;D

Nice ones, Armageddon, Misj', Matt.
(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/101/7/c/ten_thousand_by_oraxon_by_oraxon-d4vroid.jpg)
I just tried to keep things fast and use some new brushes. For once I didn't use thick outlines. :)
Maybe with a moving fog layer it would tie things together in a real game...

Hey mattcoles, nice art there. In general, everyone in this topic so far gets a kudos from me.

Two days left. Anyone out there who wants to venture into new spheres of his background-making abilities? ;D

Cool theme. Decided to throw something together for this. :)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/missy_L/a_promised_future.png)

So.. this is my puny attempt at what the future might look like (or, if you want - A Parasites' Paradise, something along these lines).

As for a distinctive style, hmm, I don't think I have any?
Well, I still tried using as many new approaches as humanly possible, like faster strokes, different colour palettes, a wannabe old-school-comic look, aaand.. I didn't use any reference pics, for once. That has to count for something, right? :P

Here's some of my older stuff, if you're interested:
Click (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/missy_L/well_full_res.jpg)
Click (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/missy_L/doors_inprogress.png)
Click (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/missy_L/highup.png)

 Ok, I thought I will give it a go. Didn't have much time, so it's quite plane and could use some more work. Saddly I can't  work on this piece more - not only because of the deadline. I googled for different images. Downloaded them and mixed together in GIMP. Never done anything like this before, but it was very interesting.

Thanks for this topic!

Ok here is the BG. It's supposed to be 320x240.
(http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/2809/imageshop3.png)

Well, I've been lurking for quite a while now, though I did help make a game some time ago. Here it is: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1339

Some of the backgrounds are mine, so that gives some idea of what I've done so far.

For this blitz, Cuiki convinced me to draw something, so I decided on doing an EGA 320x640 post-apoc themed background. I call it 'Outta fuel'.

x1
(http://static.kiberpipa.org/~oskar/pictures/games/outtafuel.png)

x2
(http://static.kiberpipa.org/~oskar/pictures/games/outtafuelx2.jpeg)

Used mspaint for drawing and GIMP for layering and color palette reference.

Fun topic. :)

Alright, time to vote. The categories are:

[b]Idea:[/b]
[b]Atmosphere:[/b]
[b]Functionality:[/b]
[b]Technique:[/b]

That are some pretty cool entries. Thanks for participating.

Voting will end on monday 16th.

Idea: 2DMatty
Atmosphere: 2DMatty
Functionality: Eazy-O
Technique: Eazy-O

Idea:Cuiki
Atmosphere: 2dMatty
Functionality:Misj'
Technique:Misj'

Idea: Eazy-O
Atmosphere: 2DMatty (Just barely beats out oraxon this time for me)
Functionality: Lad (Could see this being spiced up quite a bit by some objects)
Technique: Misj

Yay, cool entry, Eazy-O :D

Idea: Armageddon
Atmosphere: Misj'
Functionality: 2dMatty
Technique: 2dMatty

That was tough..  :-\

Idea: Cuiki
Atmosphere: oraxon
Functionality: 2dMatty
Technique: Misj'

Idea: Misj'
Atmosphere: 2d Matty
Functionality: 2d Matty
Technique: Lad

Quite a turnout with some really nice entries :)

Idea: Eazy-O
I'm bias as its got a sweet car in the scene and I get death proof vibes :P

Atmosphere: oraxon
Your piece feels eery and brings a feeling that the player is alone. Really like it!

Functionality: Eazy-O
I could see the character walking right up to the car and then heading down to the windmill getting lost in the distance

Technique: Misj'
Very impressed with how you pulled the oldschool pixel style art off :)

 Here are my votes.

Idea: Cuiki
Atmosphere: oraxon
Functionality: 2dMatty
Technique: oraxon

Really liked your BG oraxon, very impressed. All were cool, but man the first time I saw yours, it evoked emotion. Well done!

Once the winner is decided, I will upload the new version of my image. So you can see how well or bad I used the technique I chose. (I think I improved the BG quite a bit)

Sounds cool Lad, I'd like to see your updates when the comps ended :)

We have winner, and his name is 2dMatty. Congrats! With 11 votes, you were on top of the list, closely followed by Misj' with 9.

Thanks for all the entries.

Armageddon: Your background has a gritty, expressionist tone which I like. The pencil strokes add to that. However, the irritating perspective and the details on the village are hard to read, so the functionality is, in some way, disabled.

Misj': You've done a beautiful 8-bit rendition there. The limited colours give your background value and contrast which I thought the original lacked. I can clearly see this image in-game. The 4-colour-version are a nice addon, but the dithering, I think, should have been the same resolution; now, they're double the resolution as the non-dithering pixels, which gives it an awkward look.

2dMatty: Great colours (although the bottom half is a bit too green for my taste), and the rain effect really adds to the scenery. Like Misj's bg, yours succeeds in telling a story.

oraxon: A chilling image. Everything is just hinted at with a few strokes, but yet it seems so well detailed that one can feel a cold, but soft wind on your skin.

Cuiki: I dig the alien looking building and the hills, but for some reason I'm not a friend of the foreground. There's nothing really interesting there.

Lad: That style works for me, and I could easily imagine it in an adventure. However, I'd like to see it with more details.

Eazy-O: My favorite of all. The Paint-style airbrush and the harsh colour scheme nails the post-apoc theme you were going for.

Quote from: nihilyst on Mon 16/04/2012 21:41:42
for some reason I'm not a friend of the foreground. There's nothing really interesting there.

Thanks for your comment, nihilist :)
I started drawing that as a simple background, but somewhere in the process it seemed to have taken on a whole new level and I began thinking in terms of an actual game, with story and puzzles and dialogues and stuff (a game that I'll probably never even start working on, but still). The way it ties in the story, it's sort of cool that you think there's nothing interesting there. :P

And if you meant anything else (perspective, style, colour, shading, inspiration, whatever) I agree it looks pretty lame. :P
This (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/missy_L/bgblitz-1.png) was my innitial idea, but it seemed like a bit too much work.. and the colours were just a bit too painful on the eyes.

Thanks for the votes everyone :D

I'll get a new blitz up and running in a few minutes :P

 Promised to upload the newer version.

Made three different types of it. Take a look. It is made of 8 different photos/

(http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6519/streetviewnew01.png)(http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2884/streetviewnew02.png)(http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/4330/streetviewnew03.png)


Gongrats, Matty

Nice work Lad - my favourite one is the last one with the heavy contrast :P

Everyone else - I've posted the new background blitz:

100 Years in the future:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=45795.0 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=45795.0)

Good luck!