BG: back of truck

[shinymans]

hi

for the past week or so I have been trying to get this background looking just right, I have tried a bunch of approaches but something that I cant put my finger on still irks me about it

I realise that the shading on the door and the crates is done differently to the rest of the picture (I tried a bunch of different shading styles), and that the perspective on the poster is a little wonky. but otherwise I can't think of a way to make this picture look right.

anyway, heres the BG


thanks

[miguel]

Hi there!
The poster has to be drawn in the same perspective as the doors of the van. that would fix it.
I believe, and it's only my opinion that you should put the poster on other wall and make the doors bigger, the same size as the back of the truck. Get the 3 dimensions working right and then worry about the shades. Remember, if the van is closed and there are no windows then it should be really dark.
hope it helps

[shinymans]

Hi there!
The poster has to be drawn in the same perspective as the doors of the van. that would fix it.
I believe, and it's only my opinion that you should put the poster on other wall and make the doors bigger, the same size as the back of the truck. Get the 3 dimensions working right and then worry about the shades. Remember, if the van is closed and there are no windows then it should be really dark.
hope it helps

thanks for your suggestion!

I have pretty much done what you suggested and the BG is looking better already, I have also lowered the roofing a little to give it more of a claustrophobic feel and also to make it scale better with my character sprite

here is the updated version

I plan on adding a light source by the door to make the BG a bit more visually interesting

also for the sake of reference here is my character sprite

[Afflict]

The character as general rule of thumb is like a third of the height of your back ground.

Your character looks way small to the comparison of the back ground. The box looks bigger than him.

Anyway this feels way way way too big for a truck, even the moving vans I've seen are not this big. They never had windows, either if I remember correctly, and no light??

Also the boxes perspective can be worked on maybe set your Vanishing Points further apart and lift your horizontal line.

[shinymans]

alright then, I cut down on the BG a bit more to make it more claustrophobic, and i think it looks a bit nicer now, I also added a tiny winy bit of shading from a new light source as well, and I detailed the poster so it looks like a poster now

Insert Quote
The character as general rule of thumb is like a third of the height of your back ground.

Your character looks way small to the comparison of the back ground. The box looks bigger than him.
.

that is sort of on purpose, I was going for a monkey island 1 style effect  where everyone is a tiny bit taller then the player character.


EDIT: I calculated a new vanishing point using the door to re-draw the boxes, and I added a little block that the player character will stand on to grab an item on the box

[miguel]

hello again, I'm glad I could help ,
well, the last screen you did looks a LOT better than the first, you got that perspective working, but I advise you to (save the screen you have of course, this is only my opinion):
     cut off the lights, change the colour palette to a darker one and paint bucket the screen,
     give your character the same treatment, darken him and shade him,
     get a second background ready, this one with light coming from the opened doors, so that when the hero   solves the puzzles there will be a visual reward for the player.
I'll be around if you need my humble opinion,

[shinymans]

hello again, I'm glad I could help ,
well, the last screen you did looks a LOT better than the first, you got that perspective working, but I advise you to (save the screen you have of course, this is only my opinion):
     cut off the lights, change the colour palette to a darker one and paint bucket the screen,
     give your character the same treatment, darken him and shade him,
     get a second background ready, this one with light coming from the opened doors, so that when the hero   solves the puzzles there will be a visual reward for the player.
I'll be around if you need my humble opinion,

thanks for the kind words. I tried your latest suggestion and I think it is looking very nice

here is the truck with the doors closed


and here is the truck with the doors open



I'll make a little lines on the road animation later

crap, ignore the mishmash of stuff to the left

[miguel]

Looking good!!! I'll be around if you need anything