Backstage color study - Help needed!

[Snarky]

The MAGS deadline just passed, and of course that means that I'm just getting around to making backgrounds for my entry. Here's a sketch for a scene, set backstage at a theater (this is intended as a scrolling background in a 320x200 game):



And here's a rough color guide:



I don't feel very confident picking colors, and have a hard time working out how the natural color of an object and the hue of the light interact. I used yellow light and blue-green shadows, but I didn't necessarily mean for the walls to be that color. How would I fix that? Also, how is the color composition? Is the range of values OK? Shadows, highlights?

And, of course, any other problems with the piece? I know the perspective is a little off (especially on the left side), I'll fix that. Also, I'll probably shift it up a bit to increase the walkable area slightly.

Oh, and I added a staircase going up to the rigging, just because I thought the sketch was a bit boring. It wouldn't have any in-game purpose. Is it too prominent for a completely useless piece of scenery?

[MashPotato]

Looks like a good start!
Heehee, I'm not great with lighting either, so take everything I say with a grain of salt
Right now the yellow light looks very strong, as if there's a spotlight being aimed directly at the wall (which I think was your intention since this is a stage ).  If the wall is meant to be white and the bluegreen colour is shadow, then the other parts of the room should be in shadow to reflect that same degree of contrast between dark and light (if there are no other sources of light) .  Here's a fast, extreme example:



This assumes that it's very dark, and the concentrated light of the spotlight is the only light source.  Is the highlight on the wall on the right supposed to be reflected light?  If so, I think it's a tad too strong.

While I like the stairs, I do agree they seem a bit distracting if you can't go up there--stairs in such a prominent place scream for exploration

I hope this helps in some way

[Snarky]

Thanks Mash! Your edit is very atmospheric, almost looks like underwater. Really cool! It is tending more towards monotone, which is fine. My problem, though, is that I can work OK in monotone, but I have a hard time getting the shades and tones right when I use color. So I wanted to be able to show, "OK, this curtain is red, these stairs are made of wood, this wall is white, this wall is brick" etc., without ending up with just flat cartoon colors.

You made some assumptions that were very reasonable from what I had, but weren't quite what I intended. That points at things I'll have to fix. Everything you see is supposed to be backstage (or off-stage, at least). That high dividing wall you see to the right of the stairs is the stage backdrop seen from behind, and the red (in my version) strip next to it is some of the curtains (back curtains, not front curtains--those aren't visible from this angle). Where the big highlight is is supposed to be the "green room", where all the actors hang out before going on (in the pencil sketch you can see a sofa and a couple of makeup stations... as well as a hastily drawn costume rack by the other wall). So the pool of light isn't mean to be from a spotlight, just a bunch of lights in that general area.

The highlight on the extreme right is a separate (much dimmer) lightsource, while the highlight on the backdrop wall is reflected light. My idea was that it should be pretty dark in the areas to the right, because those are just barely off-stage and you don't want the audience to see back there, but then centre-left you have this somewhat cozy hangout area, which is well lit. Then extreme left you have a nook that is in shadow again (but not deep shadow) for the back entrance. I don't think I really pulled all of that off, though.

[MashPotato]

Ah, that makes sense, I see what you mean now (I should have seen it before since my interpretation didn't really make sense in all points )
For colours, what I find helps a lot is using the ever-handy gradient maps in Photoshop .  That was what I used earlier, but for a more subtle (and less monochrome effect), I made it less opaque this time and added in another colour.  I slapped a second one on top for the darker areas as well (my edit on the bottom):


The gist of it is that the darker areas go toward the bluish colour you wanted for the shadows, and the lighter areas go toward a warm brown, then yellow.
Is this the kind of effect you were looking for?

[Snarky]

It wasn't what I had in mind, but I like it! You've given me a number of ideas, and I'll have to try and implement them.

[EldKatt]

I don't know how interested you are in the realism of the actual environment, but a few things strike me as odd.

OK, so you've got a cozy green room, with a couch and all, for hanging out. Right behind the stage? No way. It would be somewhere else, behind doors. You wouldn't see people sitting in that couch having a chat during a show. And the makeup mirrors? They would probably be elsewhere, in a room specifically for dressing and makeup, and not for hanging out. Not least for hygienic reasons, because makeup is about the most effective way of spreading disease at a theatre.

And nothing would probably be well-lit in the areas immediately around the stage. That back wall really isn't enough to prevent light bleed.

Compared to the above, this is very much a minor issue, but (assuming this is an ordinary proscenium theatre) I would expect the whole side of the stage (where there is now a wall) to be open, with legs (curtains) obscuring the view to the audience. In my experience the areas at the sides of the stage, not behind it, are generally the most spacious of the areas immediately off-stage.

Bottom line is that the immediate off-stage areas are business-only, so to speak. There will be sets and props and stuff, and it will be dark. There will not be a soda machine or ambient lighting. Those are my thoughts upon seeing this.

[Uhfgood]

As far as the staircase goes, why not make it an interactive area, the character just can't go up the stairs, because either they're in such disrepair that they break stopping the player from going up there, or they're blocked off by something.  Of course blocking the area off might mean that it makes the player even more curious in trying to figure out how to get up there.

Or you could let the character go up the stairs out of sight, and then come back down and report there wasn't anything worthwhile up there.

[radiowaves]

Learn to use a bigger brush and less strokes for such basis, it makes life easier in the end.

[Snarky]

I'm at work, so I can't post an update, but I've been fixing the perspective and started tweaking some of the light. Will put it up once I'm happier with it.

I don't know how interested you are in the realism of the actual environment, but a few things strike me as odd.
...
Bottom line is that the immediate off-stage areas are business-only, so to speak. There will be sets and props and stuff, and it will be dark. There will not be a soda machine or ambient lighting. Those are my thoughts upon seeing this.

Thanks EK! You've apparently spent more time backstage than I have. I don't think I'm going to worry too much about these points, though. While the green room would probably be separate in reality, I'm compressing and bending space for gameplay reasons, to fit everything on a single background, and to make it look more interesting. (In my first sketches, all of these rooms were to the side of the stage, but I found that it looked much more dynamic with the back wall and curtains and stuff.)

To rationalize it, you could consider that the game takes place in the 1930s, in a small, cramped theater, so they make do with the space they've got. By the way, the back wall is solid, and nothing behind it is directly visible from the audience, nor is any surface that could be illuminated from there visible.

I am making the right-hand area of the background darker, though, to represent the immediate off-stage, business-only area.

As far as the staircase goes, why not make it an interactive area, the character just can't go up the stairs, because either they're in such disrepair that they break stopping the player from going up there, or they're blocked off by something.  Of course blocking the area off might mean that it makes the player even more curious in trying to figure out how to get up there.

Or you could let the character go up the stairs out of sight, and then come back down and report there wasn't anything worthwhile up there.

That's probably what I'll do. I've even been having ideas for a couple of ways to weave it into the plot and the puzzles. That's how it usually is, isn't it? If an idea is cool, you can always figure out something to do with it later.

Learn to use a bigger brush and less strokes for such basis, it makes life easier in the end.

Uh, cheers, I suppose. Any comments that might be more... immediately helpful?

[Theme]

So I wanted to be able to show, "OK, this curtain is red, these stairs are made of wood, this wall is white, this wall is brick" etc., without ending up with just flat cartoon colors.

The strong yellow light will bounce on the objects and the courtain will have some yellow tint and maybe a little mix of green (from the walls) and brown from the floor. Because light bounces and take some of the object colors http://www.sparks-media.com/images/vace.jpg

This scene has this very strong yellow predominant color and that influences on how the overall ambient color will be. See the real life exemples
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue21/images/001_blue_light.jpg
http://www.c7f.navy.mil/news/2004/June/blue%20light%20low.jpg

So what I'm saying is that this color bleeding give a more realistic non flat colors
sorry, hope you could understand me

o/