Bedroom background

[Buckethead]

Hey,

I've been messing with this style/technique I've been using for quite a while now. And I think I've finally hit on the right spot!  =)

I still, perhaps, need to do some cleaning up in some spots. But no drastic changes



This is done in 3d first and then modified to work for 2d.

Please tell me what you think of it. Advice and critics are welcome.

Thanks in advance 

[Nikolas]

It looks GREAT!

But some comments maybe:

It looks a little dark. don't know how well it would look in other monitors, but my monitor is set fine...
And the lights here and there might be cause "shadow" issues with the character. (the lack of shadow I mean).

but it does look great, let me tell you! Well done! And I'd love to play a game with such graphics!

[DoorKnobHandle]

Two points:

1.) AA the left edge of the lit table in the front a bit.

2.) Show us a character that fits this style, I suspect it's going to be very hard to draw these.

Good luck though, the rest looks fine.

[Buckethead]

Thanks for the comments! And so quick too! 

It looks a little dark don't know how well it would look in other monitors, but my monitor is set fine...
And the lights here and there might be cause "shadow" issues with the character. (the lack of shadow I mean).

You are right it is rather dark. I'll try to bright it up a little. My monitor might be set on very a high brightness. But in the end the darkness might add to the spooky horror feeling. Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by your second statement. You mean that the character will block the lights?

1.) AA the left edge of the lit table in the front a bit.

2.) Show us a character that fits this style, I suspect it's going to be very hard to draw these.

1. Yes, certainly. It was "to do" list 

2. Ok I'll post a version with a character in it later on. I don't think I can manage to really make fit with the backgroud though. Maybe the person who drew the characters for Warthogs is willing to help me. I think that style would fit quite well with this one.

Thanks for the comments so far 

[bicilotti]

Thanks for the comments! And so quick too! 

It looks a little dark don't know how well it would look in other monitors, but my monitor is set fine...
And the lights here and there might be cause "shadow" issues with the character. (the lack of shadow I mean).

You are right it is rather dark. I'll try to bright it up a little. My monitor might be set on very a high brightness. But in the end the darkness might add to the spooky horror feeling. Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by your second statement. You mean that the character will block the lights?

I think Nikolas was rightly pointing out that your charachter can't cast shadows whenever near a light source (vampiresque!), so the two lights in your background may be a bit of a problem (I personally think that if you use a couple of regions to darken/lighten the character colours most player won't complain about missing shadows).

Apart from that, it is one of the scariest/most beautiful/darkest backgrounds ever made for AGS! Very well done!

[Buckethead]

oh right I see what he meant now. Indeed right but also as you said not a too big deal. I'll try to keep this in mind when building the next background.

Thanks alot! I'm going for trilby's notes creepy! =)

[MrColossal]

Hey, just a couple comments:

1: Can we see the background before you colour reduced it? Looking at this in Promotion and you're only using 81 colours. Are you making a 256 colour game or are you just colour reducing to get a low-res look? Either way I think there are some colour reduction tips that could be given if I see the full res background.

2:



The red circle: You have a lot of colours to make up your dark shadows and gradients between shadows but not a lot to represent the light areas. It really shows in this spot. It's so bright and a focal point for the scene but there are only 4 colours to make up the lighting on that wall.

Purple circles: These areas are very undefined. They're very noisy parts of the image and they have very few colours. The same with the bed stand cabinet under the red circle. You made it in 3d but the transition to 3d has left it a shadow of what it's supposed to be and only because it's an object next to a bed do I guess what it is.

Green circles: I'm guessing you used some sort of level editor for a 3d game? I'm also guessing it's either UnrealEd or something like it? The reason I guess this is because the shadows from these boxes don't quite line up. You can see where the light is leaking from under the brush that made up these boxes and casting an unrealistic shadow. Some photoshop touch up in these areas is really all that's needed.

Generally the scene is really noisy with a high contrast between pixels. This a result, mostly, of bad colour reduction. Also, the center of your scene kind of just smudges together in a mush of shadow and colour. The box on the left is brown, so is the floor, so is the bed. Both blue and brown box have no clear edges. The tops are lit but not enough to really show it.

Here's a REALLY quick test I did in photoshop:




I light the tops of the boxes a little more. Did very quick AA on the side of the green box on the right. Messed with the levels to try and get some of the grey out of the room and make those lights warmer. Added highlights to the door decorations and boards.

[Sparky]

This exudes style- I would love to play a game with this much atmosphere. Maybe an outline-free, slightly noisy 3d character style would work well. Sort of like 1996-era polygonal characters such as those in Quake, but rendered as sprites? I have faith that you'll come up with something appropriate .

In terms of feedback, the doors and windows are perhaps a bit too wide in relation to furniture such as the bed. Also a bit of framing around the doors and windows, some window sills, and a few beams on the ceiling would be neat.

Another potential issue is the perspective. It really looks great as a picture, but as a room in a game it will require a lot of character scaling. A shot from a more distant camera with a narrower field of view would give you less scaling. I hope that makes sense, I don't think I said that very well. Also in terms of angle, a camera closer to eye level might be neat; it would make the floor take up less vertical space and enlarge the ceiling a tad.

The colors and textures are really professional. Could you tell us a little about your workflow? How did you make your textures?

Edit in response to Mr Colossal's post: those are all valid points, and depending on character and GUI color you could probably get away with more color depth. But personally I like the washed out, desaturated look and low color fidelity. I think both add to the piece, if that makes sense.