1 BG, Main Character & 1 Midi

[FrasierCrane]

Hello, I want to show one of my BGs, my Main Character and 1 Midi I composed today for critics.
It's for my first AGS Game with the working title "City Lights Blues" or "The Lost Trombonist" or someting else, I'm not sure. It's a Film Noir Game about a Detective who investigates in a Jazz Musician Milieu.


The BG should be a very dirty old office of the owner of a dirty, old Jazzbar(x2):

It's not finished now, it needs a lot more objects, but I'm not sure about all the puzzles at the moment.(

This is my main character (x3):





This midi should be the BG-Music for a small logical riddle, it's played in loop over and over again, till the riddle is solved (a kind of punishment )
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Music22.mid

[Tom S. Fox]

About the front view of you character walking: When the legs get into the forground, they should get thicker and when they get into the background they should get thinner. Otherwise, it looks like his walking on the spot.
I hope you understand, what I mean.

[Khris]

Background:
I'd loose the black shadow in the lower right and the brick lines on the grey parts of the wall.
The lamp needs to stand out more, and the shading of the desk looks weird.
The black outlines on the left wall don't fit the rest, and the wall needs depth at the doorway.
Add some shadows to the floor at the desk and stove, and the stove's base should be rounder.

Char:
Looks good, the forward walk cycle is a but jumpy, but I know those are hard to make. Raise the head a bit, too, it looks like he'd duck in a low corridor.

[SinSin]

i like your style but i reckon his legs on the top one almost seem like there walkin backward

Also like Khris said let his head move

Heres a tip next time your out try acting like your character if people look at you strange then you know it may be incorrect LOL

[FrasierCrane]

Thank you very much for your good advices.
I polished the BG and the Front View of my character up a bit and I hope I could convert some of your critics in my graphics:

[R4L]

About your front walkcycle, the way his legs move looks like he's walking backwards. Also, maybe add some shoulder movement as well, give him some swagger you know? 

[Saberteeth]

BG:

1. The bricks on the left wall aren't using the point perspectine but are just following the line of the wall.
2. Bricks in general are weird in your bg. Instead of using straight lines, you draw it with the pencil?
3. Gradients suck big time. Especialy those from photoshop(at least the built-in ones)
4. The 'Stage' sign is anti-aliased, yet many objects in the background are not.

[FrasierCrane]

3. Gradients suck big time. Especialy those from photoshop(at least the built-in ones)

But how can I make gradients without this built-in functions. I'm too lazy and a too bad artist to make them all by hand, pixel per pixel.
Can I make some good ones with photoshop or should I use another program for gradients?

[DoorKnobHandle]

Make sure you don't use too many colors in your gradient.

To do this, you should first create the gradient normally (as you did in your image). Then select it all (the complete gradient) - I hope you used layers respectively (if not, you'll need to select the gradient by using the magic wand tool and its "tolerance" factor, cut it (ctrl+x), create a new image(ctrl+n), paste it (ctrl+v), go to image->mode->indexed color, select "Local (perceptual)" as palette, adjust the number of colors (something between 4 and 12 should be looking good, make sure forced is set to "none", transparency is not selected, matte is set to "none" and dither is set to "pattern", then click "ok", select the image (ctrl+a), cut it (ctrl+x), close this image (ctrl+w), go back to your original background image, paste the new and improved looking gradient (ctrl+v) and make sure it sits where it's supposed to be.

Sounds hard at first, but once you get it, it's really easy to do and gives you a better nostalgy-feeling to everything. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any trouble following my guideline above.

[FrasierCrane]

Thank you very much for your great (and fast) advise. I used the technic on the BG:


It's not polished up but I wanted to ask, if it's ok how i've done it and if the pic looks a bit better know. Thanks.

[zabnat]

For the background:
Perspective is a bit off. Draw those infamous lines and you'll see they don't meet in one point. Most noticeable place is the bookshelf. On the walls you could try shading with a large black brush with low opacity instead of using gradients. I would at least make the center of the backwall lighter. Otherwise it look good to me.

For the character:
I would suggest looking through other walk cycle related threads in critics lounge.
Here are couple of good ones, see the reference walkcycles by big brother on this one and there's a scan from the book The Animator's Survival Kit (a must have) on this one.

I hope this was any help.

[2ma2]

The designs and concepts are great. I have one thougt on your background though. It is a very large open space for an office. He basically has his corner, but unless you are about to put something else in that room, it's awfully vast and open.