Adventure Game Studio

I am starting on my Episode 2 of my game now. And this is my first background. But I am not happy with it so can I have some idea's on making it better please.
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/c151103f30.gif)
criticize on everything cause I want to improve this a lot.

I made an example to show how you could rearrange the different parts to make it much clearer. I'm assuming it's a modern house so I've changed the colour to an off-white rather than grey.


By all means use what you have already, but look at this to give you an idea of what you could move around.

PS. Backgrounds for the first one are almost finished! ;)

AtelierGames for some reason your picture doesn't show on my PC.  ???
I think it is your image host.  ??? or maybe your link cause I can see  ur signature and thats from the same image host ???

Here is one improved version
I took AtelierGames advice on making the house white and does look a lot better Improved the shape alot and changed the grass to make it look more like grass.
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/61dc51f746.gif)

Really would like more criticism.

Is the darker area at the top the roof? If so, then you've got some major issues with perspective.

Take a look at the road, this is what you have defined as the horizontal plane, and the roof sits clearly at a differen angle (granted this should be true to some extent, because the roof is higher, but the perspectives here are way too different not to be noticed.

Also, if you look through the windows, you can see more of the floor in the upper level than the lower level, and this just wouldn't happen (remember the planes!).

Furthermore the water in the corner doesn't look like water mainly for these two reasons:
     

• It has no texture
       
• It has no effect on the grass around it, and looks like it has been painted on
  
  In short, one colour is not enough to make water look like water on what appears to be four shades of grass.
  
  Also, the horizon is a bit plain, perhaps a skyline, the ocean or some mountains could help break up the monotony.
  
  Peace,
  Scarab
  
  p.s. The grass looks great!

Hi Danman,

The picture is starting to come together, certainly. I wanted to point out that the house's perspective is a little out of whack, causing it to look a little Escherian. After you sheered off the front (left side) of the house a tad, it didn't quite look anymore like it's part of the driveway, but it's still hard to get a sense of depth.

I don't want to say you should completely redraw the picture, but the house could use some tweaking to help the player understand from first glance that it's a house..

Now, regarding your background - I think one issue I'm getting out of it is that the horizon is completely flat - that also makes it harder to get a really detailed feeling of depth. There are a few steps you can take, but I think the easiest to accomplish would be to add in some movement to your horizon, maybe a few layers.

Of course, mountains or hilly regions are an old favorite. You can do wonders with some jagged lines in the background and a washed-out color that suggests haze.

(http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss21/SpacePirateCaine/Screenie.gif238040753)
This is an example that I pulled from my backlog of work. The horizon is still flat, though I pulled the sides up in a growing foresty area, and in the back, just added the outline of mountains, and a big cloud bank in the back.

Heavy, ground-bound cloud banks can help to give the feeling of a cold morning. You can also create wispy clouds with a few uneven off-white areas on your sky - if you like I can try a quick edit of your background to show you the idea.

If you don't want mountains, there's also 'ocean', but it's a little hard to pull off in some ways. Is the black area behind the house a freeway or something of the like?

Thanks for the replys. The water I was going to make reflections and more detail too but I was going wait a bit maybe look at some tutorials first on reflections.


This is a real house that's in a neighborhood so I could draw more houses in the background and hills.



I am definitely going to add some more trees and plants and things in the garden I just haven't had an idea on what texture or color to do palm trees and plants.


Great advice on perspective I really needed some help on that thanks.

The black behind the house is a wall but I need to add a texture to it I will do it but maybe when I get photoshop.

SpacePirateCaine: if you could do an edit of my picture to see how you do clouds it would be great.
I never really had a good idea on how to do good clouds. Thanks

I will give an update on the picture on Thursday :D .

Alright, so this only addresses the issues of the background.

(http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss21/SpacePirateCaine/61dc51f746.gif262117634)

In regards to clouds, there are plenty of ways to do clouds, but I like generally to stick with the good ol' cumulus, which is usually flatter on the bottom and bumpier on top. The main thing to keep in mind with clouds is though, yes, they are basically amorphous white masses, they can still be shaded.

It looks to me like you're using a 'spraypaint' type of tool to make your clouds, and though you get plenty of spatter doing such, I generally advise against using a spray tool of any sort like that when doing pixel art - I much prefer a sense of 'controlled chaos'.

The mountains I added to the background are also mostly just for filler, but hopefully it looks to you like it breaks up the monotony of the skyline. Remember - very few places in the world are truly flat, so unless you're on a huge stretch of flatland or looking over the ocean, it's best to put something in at ground level.

Something that far in the distance doesn't necessarily need detail more than a silhouette, though more patient and dedicated artists than myself may deign to add in some shading or even more detail to the mountains as well. There aren't a lot of flat colors on your image here, so you may actually want to do that.

All up to you - this is just one set of ideas.

(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9589/housetemp2.png)
(http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7269/housetemp.png)
just a quick perspective correction. Not close to perfection but you should see what is wrong :) also try to draw clumps of grass (Mine are just messed up :P Didn't try too much, just wanted to show you how perspective affects their size :))

I love your edits their a lot better perspective and good clouds and hills.

But I am going to do some house's (maybe just roofs and a couple hills but green forest like hills and lots of trees.

To do my clouds I used a tool on Pro motion called the smear tool which doesn't work well. the way you do clouds does look a lot better than my funny looking white blobs.   ;D

With the perspective I will show another background I made tomorrow of a close up of the upper window.


Thanks gave me some good ideas. Great Help  ;D  ;)

Hey Danman,

Good stuff. Always better to really work on ironing out all of the bugs in your technique before you have to go back and fix multiple images.

I noticed that you also mentioned water reflection - put very simply, to get a convincing reflection, all you really need to do is flip objects so that they're mirrored (obviously) and darken them -- as a general rule of thumb, water reflections will be darker - chromatic reflection will be the same color, so anything reflected in them is going to look a darker shade than its actual counterpart. Of course, having the water right at the base of your building there, without anything it can really reflect and show to the viewer as a reference, will more likely look like a patch of concrete.

I'd suggest maybe taking your little pool and extending it to the right or left (or both) to have something to reflect (Either the window to the left, or the edge of the building and sky to the right).

just to a ask quick question about the reflections what could i do to make it look more like a pond maybe I should use a green shade like a transparent shade ( i forgot the word a low opt--something). and then to animate should I use a layer and distort it or something ???

I wouldnt go animating a pond. It's a still water. A static reflection and maybe a water lily and you're all set :)
the word you forgot is opacity :P make the pond greenish and make the flipped reflection semi transparent :)

Opacity that's the word  ;D . But I do want to animate something there I don't like static water it just doesn't look right to me ;D and I am the director  :D of my game. What I will do then maybe I will make an animation of a fish moving in the water or jumping out the water. Great I will give a huge update on this tomorrow very likely 24 hours from now. 

Updated I took most of everyone's advice. But i couldn't do the clouds like Space Pirate's
But I did my own style. For now it will be a static reflection until I decide on how to do the fish.

(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/0b0ea24093.jpg)

So please criticize.   ;)

Umm..I can't see updated version...Is it just me? :)

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%20edit%202%20Wall%20copy.gif)

Here can u see this one.  ;) . I think it was the image host coz I can't see it either.

To me the perspective looks good, but you have some scaling issues. Those parking spaces are diddy and the furniture inside the rooms are much too small. I suggest you make all the windows a uniform size (at the moment all of them are bigger or smaller than each other) and blocking them out with curtains so there's no need to pixel the inside. The grass (great textures by the way) could have a path winding through, towards a main door on the front.

Just some suggestions, but it might help to stop the background being too top-heavy.

I think AtelierGames was quite right about the windows. So i changed it.

I added a gradient to the sky.
  But had to reduce the colors so a some of the colors are different.

I added a path changed the parking.
 
(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%202%20new2.gif)

And I would like some criticism on this close up of the top floor Room
I am going to make the windows bars but I was going to edit other things first.

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/Out%20side%20window.gif)

So let the criticize begin please.  ;)

I urge you to look at the windows of Spacepaw's, mainly looking at the amount of floor shown in the upper and lower windows. That magic word beginning with P comes to mind ;)

In regards to the pond, look at the roof of the lower level, on the left of the picture. This is a dead flat area, and think how big it is (the size of a large room).
If you compare that to your pond, you can see that the shape and size is all wrong considering where we are looking at it from.

I'd recommend putting in some perspective lines on a different layer just to help you keep things consistent (because on its own, it's a very nice looking pond :))

With the close up, I'd suggest adding a character as a size reference, because the table looks either very big, or very low to the ground, and as such it is hard to tell how big the drawers at the back are, and thus how far back the room goes.

peace
scar

More updates

[Background house update]

changed the parking spaces

added trees.
The trees are the same but I will make more different trees in the future. also I didn't know how to do the leafs very well.

Changed the perspective more like Spacepaw. Was a lot better perspective.

Changed the pond more to the perspective well I think.

[closeup of upper room]
Added a character to the close up. To show a reference.

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%202%20new2%20with%20trees.gif)

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%20Outside%20Character.gif)

Criticize please.

Hi Danman, would this program be of any use to you. Good luck with your project

http://www.sweethome3d.eu/index.jsp

http://sketchup.google.com/

StarLite, this is the Critics Lounge not the 'suggest a program' lounge.  If you have some advice to offer Danman about his drawing then please do so, and if it relates to a particular program then show him an example of what you think could be improved using the program rather than just some links.

As far as the background goes, I think it would look better perspective-wise if you chopped off about half of the grassy area below the house.  It's not really doing anything for the image so there's nothing lost but wasted space.  Remember, you can always letterbox backgrounds that aren't big enough for your resolution so they still fit.

Starlite:Thanks starlite for the program links but doing 3d in a 2d game would look to me kinda weird. But thanks for the links.  ;)

ProgZmax: You are right it would look better perspective-wise to chop off the half the bottom of the grass area. But in the game a character walks up to the house so I cant really do that.

I got another update I did today. But I really want someone to critize on the Trees. I think that's the real problem. To me. The leafs look wrong on some of the trees cause I was playing around to see what texture would look good and what shape.

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%20with%203%20trees.gif)

In regards to the trees, what strikes me as a problem is that the trunks are pretty detailed while the leaves have no detail at all.  A quick google images search for palm trees will give you a better idea of what the leaves should look like: a central stem with narrow "leaves" hanging off, not a solid leaf as you have (that probably makes no sense, sorry, just look at a few pictures and I think you'll see what I'm talking about).

One other thing I noticed that no one has commented on yet is the way your grass is colored.  It has gotten much better, but it still goes from light green at the lower right to dark green at the top, giving the impression of a strong light source in the lower right.  However, none of the rest of the background is shaded this way; in fact it appears to be shaded with a light source from the left.  I think if you just take out the really bright green pixels in the lower right corner of the latest version, that would completely fix the problem.

Thanks Jasmine for the criticism  ;D I will fix the grass on my next edit and
The palm trees I will also edit them to look more like leafs it is quite difficult in low res but I think I figured a way to do it. I will post a new edit tomorrow in one hour or so to criticize.  ;D  

I decided I to edit my picture now.
{Update}

Fixed leaves and grass.

Tidied a few things

(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/House%202%20with%20leaves%20Tidied%20up.gif)

Nice work Danman.
The new leaves are definitely an improvement, but they still lack texture and shading.
The fact that everything but the walls of the house and the leaves is textured makes them both stand out in a bit of a harsh way.
Also, as the sky looks fairly clear, there should probably be some shadows. At the moment it all looks nicely diffused, but that would only make sense if it were overcast.
The house a least should cast a semi-hard shadow on the grass and the big tree, or similar.

OK I did textures on the house now.
And a texture on the road.
I don't know how to do a texture for the palm tree's leaves.   ???
I might redo the sky when I have more patience with it . ;D
I did add a cloud on the top-right .
(http://www.fileupyours.com/files/270827/New%20With%20textures%20copy.gif)