Outdoor scene WIP [finished]

Matti · Sun 05/10/2008 12:26:57

Quote from: abstauber on Sat 04/10/2008 20:11:51
The grass still looks like water to me and I'm not sure if I've done the shadow on the fence right.
Also, do you get a feeling for the depth or do I need more tree like blobs in the background?

Yeah, the ground does look like water. You should perhaps add some little bushes od at least some up- and downstrokes to make it look more like grass.

The depth of the background is okay and I must say the wood with the blue horizon and the little light do look just fine. Good work so far.

markbilly · Sun 05/10/2008 19:27:05

Quote from: matti on Sun 05/10/2008 12:26:57
You should perhaps add some little bushes od at least some up- and downstrokes to make it look more like grass.

Yeah, add another layer to the grass with this one and it'll look great. What you have there at the moment would make a really good 'base' for the grass...

Looking brilliant, by the way!

abstauber · Mon 13/10/2008 16:53:05

Thanks for your replies!
@Paolo, your tip has been really good. With this new contrast, the background appears much more interesting.

So here's the next step (hopefully the last?): adding some more grass and coloring the house.

Finding a good texture for walls in lowres has nearly been impossible for me. In the first place I wanted bricks so I've started with them as a base. But filling the entire wall with bricks looked ridiculous, so I erased everything and only left two rows. Then I've tried some photoshop patterns and failed again - hmm.. so maybe a low opacity brush and some random lines? - failure again :

So finally I've given up and used good old and boring wood planks. So if anyone knows or could teach me, how to do convincing low res structures (bricks and pantiles), don't be shy

Apart from that - does it look finished to you? I'm afraid I'm can't appraise it anymore - I just want it to be done

markbilly · Mon 13/10/2008 18:02:26

Why is there no light coming from the very top window? Looks like you've forgotten it?

Very impressive though!

abstauber · Mon 13/10/2008 20:31:22

Oh, the top window... well the room is not occupied at this stage, therefore it's reflecting the sky (I hope, it looks like that) - same goes for the door. So there will be a second version with lights on and the door opened.

markbilly · Mon 13/10/2008 20:51:31

I would put some of those trademark white lines across it to illustrate that it is reflecting. At the moment it just looks like you can see straight through it to behind...

Also, are you going to add some sections to the windows? I'm not sure windows that big would be one single pane...

cat · Mon 13/10/2008 20:58:51

The woodplanks look great! Just the windows don't seem right. There should either be something shown inside the house or curtains in the windows.

abstauber · Tue 14/10/2008 09:18:22

Okies, then I'll put some more effort on the windows. Curtains and sections are good ideas - although I've already sections. Looked as bad as the bricks

btw. I've just seen, that the shadows of the tree and the fence are leading in the wrong direction, compared to the house. I'm gonna fix that too.

abstauber · Tue 14/10/2008 11:44:14

Followed you advices on the windows:

Better or too blurry?

Miez · Tue 14/10/2008 12:01:24

Quote from: abstauber on Sat 04/10/2008 20:11:51
Almost forgot: Here's a wonderful photoshop plugin to do Deluxe Paint like gradients.
http://depthdither.graphest.com

Wow! that's a great plugin - awesome find

By the way, that's turning into a sweet background, the one thing that bothers me about it is the lightness of the fence - it seems a little too bright compared to the rest of the scene...

abstauber · Wed 15/10/2008 15:02:06

@ Yeah, this plug-in is a real time saver.
And by the way, I've read your tutorial about ten times and I'm amazed myself how good it worked for me

I've fixed the fence's lighting and also corrected this blurry edge on the far left window. Apart from that, I feel pretty finished.

Thanks for all your help and feedback, guys!

Darth Mandarb · Wed 15/10/2008 20:13:10

I did a quick, down 'n dirty paint-over ...

Just added some more lighting effects from the soft orange light of the windows. Felt like it wasn't hitting the environment right (not that what I did is necessary accurate of course). This is just a quick idea to show what I mean.

Here is the PSD File (~350k) if you want to see how I accomplished this (using adjustment layers)

I also adjusted the lighting of the fence but you posted an update for that already

Hope it helps!

Ryan Timothy B · Thu 16/10/2008 00:20:10

Nice touch up Darth. I like the light reflecting off the corner of the house, the tree and the fence.
The ground 'might' be slightly too bright, but I like it. Adds more interest into the piece.

abstauber · Thu 16/10/2008 12:14:43

I definately agree! The lighting give the atmosphere a huge push. And the filename even got my name

I usually work on a seperate layer and use brush/eraser. But working on a layermask by just hitting "x" to swap the colors is really more convinient. Thanks for that.

By the way, I've just realized, that I hardly gave you anytime to comment on the last step. Sorry for that.
Well, "temporary finished" would make a better topic

Kaio · Thu 16/10/2008 13:24:59

wow, very well done! good job

Miez · Fri 17/10/2008 13:36:06

Quote from: abstauber on Thu 16/10/2008 12:14:43
I usually work on a seperate layer and use brush/eraser. But working on a layermask by just hitting "x" to swap the colors is really more convinient. Thanks for that.

It also means you can "erase" bits of a layer without destroying them. I wouldn't be caught dead without layer masks.

Dualnames · Fri 17/10/2008 13:42:44

I think now it's perfect, excellent edit Darth..(I have a feeling my post is not very helpful)

Snarky · Sat 01/11/2008 17:46:37

Darth's light being thrown on the ground looks good. I think it would be even better (and make the grass look more like grass) if there was more texture to it, especially along the edges. Blades of grass would cast shadows even in the light spot, and other would be silhouetted against the edges.

The real reason I'm digging up a weeks-old thread is because of the question of why things look blue at night. I wasn't completely satisfied with the explanation I proposed earlier, and decided to keep digging. It turns out that I was wrong on at least one point. It does have something to do with human visual perception:

Quote from: Snarky on Tue 30/09/2008 21:15:03
I don't think it has anything to do with human visual sensitivity to blue, because blue is actually the primary color we are least sensitive to.

A colleague set me straight: In low light, our eyes rely more on the rods than on the cones to see. And the rods are more sensitive in the blue part of the spectrum. The shift in weight between the contributions of the rods and cones to our seeing means that we have a perceptual color bias that changes depending on the overall level of light. Light that looks white when it's bright appears blue at lower intensities (even if it's made up of the same wavelengths), and light that looks white at low light levels appears red or orange when brighter.

It's all explained here. Interesting stuff!