BG c&c yo rly!

[vict0r]

And with textures. First of all, i made the wall lower! I also added a cardboard box, made the lightbuld a hanging one, moved the mousehole to the other wall, lowered the picture and widened the door-frame. Which of the versions do you like the best, and what else can i do to improve it?

Had a hard time trying to add glass to the window Maybe someone can show/tell me how to do it?

[Nikolas]

The second one is much better!

[Traveler]

Your 2nd edit is a definite improvement, good job!

Here are a few minor things that you can think about to improve (some of these could be considered as nitpicking):

* shade the backfaces of the boxes (the faces farthest from the bulb)

* a few more personal items would be a nice addition, like a book somewhere, some magazines, papers, etc. When I moved to a new place, I didn't have shelves, etc. in the first days, so everything was in boxes or on the floor.

* What is the ceiling made of? The walls are of wood, so I would expect the ceiling to be wood as well - a flat "paint"-like color doesn't fit well with the rest of the room.

* For the window glass, in Photoshop (or PSP) just create a new layer and draw a polygon that covers the window (inside, but on the left include a bit of frame, since the glass is not at the edge of the frame but in the center.) Fill the polygon with some dark color (like dark blue) and set transparency to about 65-75% and the layer mode to overlay or screen (I don't know for PSP.) Create another layer and draw a dark brownish frame on the left and bottom part of the polygon as the glass frame.

* the stain in the upper-right corner somehow looks weird, out of perspective. Try tweaking it a bit.

Otherwise, nice room!

[esper]

Wow... I don't think I've ever seen one of these things in C&C come along so far. Normally people change one little thing and never touch it again.

Sorry about the outlet comment... In America, outlets are so big, they look like someone painted a light socket that covered their buttocks and then smooshed their buttocks against the wall... Not only that, but they normally come in groups of two. For both those reasons I passed completely over it.

The hinges were a good idea. Traveler had a good idea, as well, about shading the backfaces of the boxes. Not just the boxes, and not just the backfaces... Everything needs it's backface shaded, and the side facing the viewer should also be shaded a slightly lighter color than the backface. With the source of light you have (one uncovered bulb hanging in the middle of the room) one might expect the shadows to be a little more stark. The shadow of the bed is right, because the light is hanging directly above it, and I like how you've shaded the other objects in the room to corespond with the direction the light is coming from. However, I think, just as the shadow of the matress is short, that the shadow of, say, the far box, should reach up to the wall!

And lastly, think about shading the corners of the rom farthest away from the light. Lights like that (smaller wattage, most likely) have a short falloff distance, and the corners of the room would be darker than the area of the room closest to the light. Maybe someone with more skill in lighting techniques could show you... Maybe also this could be one of the rare times when a gradient could be used (maybe an overlay of the room, gradiented darker as it got closer to the outer edge of the room, gradiented to alpha as it got closer to the light, with the center of the gradient being the light source... Then you could alpha the result... Just an idea, but I know gradients are frowned upon, especialy in low-res graphics.

EDIT: I think there should only be three wires hanging from the ceiling... A positive wire, a negative wire, and a ground... But I'm no electrician, and I'm probably wrong.

[Afflict]

Its improving... Well Done!
The window too me somehow doesnt look right!
PLus add the actual window.
Lastly the first or original box you had shading needs to be looked at...

[vict0r]

First! Thanks for all crits! Going to improve it more later today I noticed something that I'm pretty surprised that none of you noticed! Why would the wooden walls peel?

EDIT: When i think of it, the walls could be covered with some tacky "wooden" wallpaper

[Andail]

It's progressing nicely, but I think I'm gonna help you skip a few steps and make some drastic changes (and hopefully improvements).



The brushtrokes are fast and sloppy, and you need to redo them yourself, in a manner that you think would fit the style.

Basically, you need to bring together all details, blow them up and make them overlap eachother. To have tiny objects spread out in a vast space isn't very appealing to the eye.
I have also cropped the image to get rid of unnecessary and boring surfaces. You probably need to resize it to fit your desired resolution.
Good luck!

[vict0r]

'lo there. Nice paintover Andail! Made some changes to my own as you probably see
Added shadings all over the place. Made the right power-socket look abit burned. (hopefully) made the window look like it has glass in it....... And made the light look brighter. Keep the crits coming! Think ill start on a new bg soon, but all crits are always welcome

[InCreator]

I don't like what you did with light: it's like 2-Watt bulb up there... what for?

Since it's quite interesting bg, I tried some ideas of detailing stuff up, and on Andail's edit, since your version is too dark.
I didn't intend to make an "edit", just try out things. But I'm showing this anyway.

Get rid of the outlines on walls. Especially this pointless red/brown outline up there, where wallpaper's torn.

Anyway, if you see anything that may generate ideas on my image, I've done something useful.

[vict0r]

I don't like what you did with light: it's like 2-Watt bulb up there... what for?

¨
It's for atmosphere my friend It's the starting room in my ongoing production: the Dread of the Dead

Anyway... I'll drop the wall-outlines, try and make the window look abit more realistic and maybe add the white-wallpaper-at-the-bottom-of-the-wallpaper thing you got going


BTW! You did do something useful!

[esper]

The second pic on this page is as far as this should have gone. The newer backgrounds are some of the best I've seen for a standard room, but the character won't fit in them. You guys have essentially taken a Roger Rabbit and taken him out of Toontown.

Although, I must admit, for the style of game (you said survival horror/zombies, right?) the more lighting (and more SHADOWS) the greater the atmosphere. I would work on the character now to make him conformable to the room, and don't skip on the tinting effects. Walking to the light, the character should turn yellowish. Walking near the window should make him turn a little violet, and up in the corner, he should be tinted fairly dark. If you can make the character fit this room, and do tinting properly, this will be the game to look for...

[n3tgraph]

Hey I liked the progress so far, but with that lightbulb / blur stuff it just ruined it in my eyes!

This is a pixelly character in a pixelly room, don't change that because it is so cool! The image flattens out when doing this.

That's just my opinion

[Khris]

I agree that the soft lighting clashes with the pixelly bg.
Maybe something like this:


More a draft than a serious paintover, to give you some ideas.
I shaded the boxes, too.

[vict0r]

Hmm... Okay, i'll try something like khrismuc did! Ill just try to add some shading without ruining my obvious pixelly art

EDIT: Anyone have any idea on how i could make the window look more realistic?

[esper]

Why not try setting a crossframe into it?

[vict0r]

Riiiiiight.... Crossframe... Dont really know what it is tho

[esper]

Right now, your window is just a piece of glass set into a hole cut out in the wall. There is no way to open it. Put it inside its own frame, complete with locking mechanism. Alot of the houses I've seen, living in New England until only recently, have crossbars running through them (I think it's to make the sections of window smaller to better protect them from breaking out in inclement weather).

Pretty much, add a secondary inner frame to the pane of glass itself...

EDIT: I just tried doing one in MSPaint with a mouse.... I couldn't. Once I get home, I'll Dogwaffle it with my tablet.... Unless someone beats me to it.

EDIT EDIT: Here it is. It still sucks, but at least it sucks less. I didn't do this for good art, but to show you what I meant by "crossframe."

[vict0r]

Duh! *smacks my own head* Understand now. It was just my imagination stopping me from understanding what you ment Going at it now!

[Traveler]

I think you should try Andail's lighting, with less blur. Even though InCreator's paintover is nice, I, too think that it's a bit overboard. Khrismuc's paintover looks as a big balloon around the bulb, not as light falling off. I feel that it makes the image flat - no offense intended, khrismuc. You'd also have a hard time tinting the character with a spot like that.

If you don't use a lot of blur (just very minimal), your character will still blend in nicely, and you'll have a great backgound with a good mood.

If you go with Esper's idea of having a crossframe in the window, InCreator's glass looks very nice, you could go with something like that.

[vict0r]

Made something similar to Krismuc's version, but, imo, made it work better. Unfortuantely im on a different computer right now, and wont be able to upload it right now