Another practice BG (New Style)

[Neutron]

Hi, one way to make the walls less plain:  select them by region with the magic wand tool, then go to a big brush, and hit them just slightly with some black or brown, at low opacity, especially in the corners.  You might want to give them some slight tonal variation relative to each other, depending upon the position of the light source.  also, I wanted to mention, that one of your sprites from the first page looks a bit flat backed from the side view.  making his shoulder blades protrude slightly past his arm might help this condition.   

[cpage]

here you go

this was my idea


Edit:

Okay but seriously if you could post a copy of thisÃ,  Non- Jpged it would help alot I'm having a hell of a time seperating the layers

edit2:
okay here is a quick paint over to maybe give you some ideas. PLEASE NOTE: this version sucks i did it 15 minutes to show you what i saw in my head

[Damien]

Like I said, it's for practice purposes only, it isn't going to be used anywhere. But yes, I used the MI BG as a reference when sketching.

cpage, could you tell me what you did with the walls, did you use a noise filter or...?

Thanks neutron, I'll try that. Oh, and the characters from the begining of the thread are something I did a very long time ago, so I guess I won't be working on them anymore. But thanks for noticing.

Sorry for posting a jpg MrFrisby, but the file size was around 150kb's for png or gif, and around 40 for jpg.

[cpage]

I took a gravel textre resized it to 50%(for the sides, on the back wall it was about 35%)  And picked a color slightly darker then the walls color. Then just a little fiddling with the layer opacity and i came up with that and i was pleased.

[Damien]

Well, here's my go at texturing the walls, I drew some random lines with the dodge/burn tool, an then I used the nouse filter. I also added three levels of shading (actually four if you count the girders and the room to the left), but i think I screw up the BG there.

Any comments?

[Pft!]

You're doing great work!

[cpage]

looks great man! 

Only crit is the straight verticle lines on the sides make it look a bit odd but other then that awsomeness

[Phemar]

When I saw this the first thing i said was "Hmm... CMI!". Very Similiar.

All in all a good BG. I would either shorten it or make it wider.

Be sure to add more detail.

[Damien]

Thanks cpage and SQ4.5.

Zoraphus: Yep, I know about the detail, but I'm done with that one.

Next I wanted to practice with open spaces, but some problems ocured, and I need your help. Here's the pic:



I know that it lacks a sky and shadng and texture on some objecs. I actually needed your help with texturing the leaves on the closest tree, and the path next to it. So if someone could help me with it I'd be really grateful.

Pretty please?

[Pft!]

You should add more shading for the tree & the back bush, it looks out of place.

[Damien]

You should add more shading for the tree & the back bush, it looks out of place.

Like I said, I need help with the tree's texturing.

Anyway, I tried to texture it myself, and all I could come up with was this:



But it looks weird. I have no idea how to texture it.

[cpage]

 :o

That is beutiful

The Tree's and bushes are perfect!

two things that bother me

1) the "squigly shade: to the left of the bottom of the tree, in the grass
2) the Ocean in the back seems really flat

That is a beutiful picture Did you use the same style? (ie Paper, Paint, and gimp)

[Alun]

But it looks weird. I have no idea how to texture it.

Does look a bit weird, yes; the tree's foliage looks more bulbous than leafy.  I think the problem is that the outlines of the highlights are too rounded; they need to be more broken up and irregular.  Maybe start with what you've got now, but use the Smudge tool (smudging outward from the centers of the bright areas--or heck, inward might work too) to break up the shapes of the highlights a bit?

[Damien]

Did you use the same style? (ie Paper, Paint, and gimp)

Yep.

Thanks alot Clewe, that did the trick! Here are the resoults:

[cpage]

and again as always your final is perfect    Great job man

[BlackMan890]

plese edit your post, cause this is 1.2 mb
that is, showing that this is BIG

[BlackMan890]

humm about that guy above, the tepestry looks so flat....
sorry for double posting

[intermalte]

A few minutes on this one. Well I think the sky looks good - the Rest...

[Andail]

There is a certain mixture of styles; sometimes flat and cartoonistic, sometimes gradated and smoothly shaded.
The newest version is quite good, but still....compare the fence with the clouds in the sky...they clash, simply.

Damien's last try was allright, although the shadows were out of place. They were far too defined, considering there isn't even a sun visible. A bright sky wouldn't cast shadows that exact.

I think the shading is the main issue with this picture; it's not consistently done, and not very realistic.
The shadow behind the tree is just awkward (and why doesn't it affect the path?), and the entire left part of the picture - with the tower in the forest - isn't shaded at all.

[intermalte]

You are right. It was just a quick suggestion to show, which way I would go to get the picture deeper. I concentrated on the tree and the sky, I didn't change anything on the left side of the landscape at all. When I thought, the idea would become clear, I stopped working on it - there was a GUI-Design waiting for me