C & C for outdoors BG

[S]

Hi

You might remember my witch's house interior and other stuff from earlier (go to wqpd.blogspot.com for a reminder). Here is my first outdoors background, featuring the exteriors of aforementioned buildings.



This is a work in progress - but I am pretty much pleased with it so far. However, seeing as I learnt so much from the last time I posted here, I thought I'd post this up just to see if there's any constructive criticism out there.

BTW, apologies for the size. I'd post a thumbnail if I knew how.

[tube]

I like it. My only nitpick would be some weird blurriness around the tree trunks, but that's probably due to this being WIP and all. Although you might also want to remove the smoke from the background and add it as an animated sprite on top (or whatever the correct AGS method happens to be).

BTW, apologies for the size. I'd post a thumbnail if I knew how.

The manual way would be to upload a smaller version of the same image somewhere, include it in your post and use the [.url] -tag to make it a link to the big image. Something like this might just work:
[.url=http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/OutsideHut&Boat.png][.img]http://www.whatever.com/thumbnail.png[./img][./url]

Remove the dots from the beginning of all the tags of course.

[makerofgamz]

Looks like you drew this background, then scanned it in and added color... Is that what you did, if so, awesome looking job! I like it alot.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I don't like the door to the 'basement' or where ever it takes you (the green door).  It kinda looks like it's JUST a door laying on the hill.  If it weren't for the path leading to it, I would have just assumed it was a door laying down.  It needs a little bit of wall that goes through the grassy hill, to show where it's going and what the door is connected to.

The blue door is really dark compared to that bright yellow handle.  Almost can't see it.

I would definitely be removing the smoke, like Tube had mentioned, and apply it to the game background as a sprite.  That way you can also add transparency.

Your clouds look insane.. good job.
And that boat laying on it's side will add an incredible feeling to the game.  I'm hoping you've got some really cool stuff inside of that boat.  And I would love to see 'skylights' in the boat (which would be the portholes that were once windows -- of course not on this background but on the inside background.).

I'm looking forward to more backgrounds.

[nihilyst]

I really like what you've done here. But doesn't the sky usually get brighter the nearer it's to the horizon? Is it possible the other way around?

[Ryan Timothy B]

I really like what you've done here. But doesn't the sky usually get brighter the nearer it's to the horizon? Is it possible the other way around?

Yeah, if a storm was on it's way.  You're right though, it's brighter at the horizon.

[Alarconte]

a few things... The Rigth ... how it says... (Santa Claus uses it to enter the people houses xD) seems too drawed, not painted. Maybe needs a color retouch.

And yes, the door of the hills seems put in the grass, not a real door.

Mmmm One important thing to coherence:
- The top clouds are something wrong with they. The bottom clouds (stormy) were great... but the top clouds... (the top-rigth cloud especially), i thing fails in perspective or form... If you see real pictures of coming storm, is strange see this cloud-formations you've drawn more closer. Something strange with Wind were been passing, not?

[S]

OK, I think I'll go for animated smoke, then. Is a cycle of backgrounds not recommended? I know the file size might be a bit much for a big BG such as this...

tube: yes, the blurriness is something I'll see to in the very end. Thanks for liking it (the bg, not the blurriness)!

makerofgamz: yes - that is what I did, and thank you.

everyone who commented on the door: I think you are right - I'll have to do something to fix this. Also, I thought I'd change its colour; green worked fine when all the grass was yellow, which it isn't anymore.

You can see the inside of the boat if you go to wqpd.blogspot.com - it's nothing fancy, but it is the starting room - so upon leaving it you will realise it's in a boat. It doesn't have portholes, but a window has been sawn into the ceiling (which used to be the side of the boat).

About the sky: this is more or less exactly as it appears in the photograph that I used for reference. All colours and gradients (as well as the colour of the sea and the clouds) were taken from that photo, which, incidentally, was taken on the west coast of Norway on a chilly day in early spring. That's the overall effect I'm looking for in this game - yellow patches of grass, clear but cold-looking skies, not too many leaves on the trees (these are pines - evergreens - I will add more green on them later). I think that attaching the game firmly to a season gives it more atmosphere and uniqueness. Most games are either summer or winter - or desert or jungle or spaceship. This is more real to me.
I must admit, tho, that I found it strange too that the sky got darker towards the horizon. Might have been a trick of the camera rather than natural. Or a storm might have been brooding out in the ocean, which is not unusual where I come from. It makes it sort of gloomy, which is a good thing.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Actually something I just noticed.  Your water horizon isn't the same level from right to left.  It actually gets about 6 pixels higher on the left and the center is 2 pixels higher.

[Mazoliin]

Nice work you got there, but here's the few little things that I noticed:

The cloud on the right is grey, when all the others are white, why? Is a storm comeing, and if so, why is it only one gray cloud?
And if it isn't a storm comeing I would like to see it all lighter, or atleast some higher contrast in the light (like it is on a sunny day), because I feel like the sky are saying, hey it's sunny and warm, but all the other is saying it's not.

Other than that it's, as said before, very good indeed.

[SinSin]

OK, I think I'll go for animated smoke, then. Is a cycle of backgrounds not recommended? I know the file size might be a bit much for a big BG such as this...

Cycled backgrounds will up the filesize so yeah i'd go for the animated objects
I like the bg its pretty but the grass near the boat just doesnt seem right (the yellow strands) it seems a little to patchy almost like someone has mown the green areas. and left the yellow bits . 
Good work keep it up

[S]

Ryan Thimoty: You're right! I didn't notice the bit in the centre - that needs to be ironed out. The left-hand side of the image is not finished though, that's for later.

Mazoliin: I've pretty much slavishly copied the reference pic I had, becasue I thought it had a nice mood. The storm is there, out in the ocean - we'll just have to wait and see whether the weather will worsen later in the game... I think that one cloud is grey because it is in the shadow of another cloud, outside the frame. I dunno, I might erase it if it looks too odd.

Sinsin: object it is, then. You are right about the grass, I think. I'll mend it by adding green grass straws as well, so it doesn't look as if some very selective lawnmowing has been going on.

Thanks all for constructive crit!

[Questionable]

I'm going to agree with everyone about the smoke. But, the only thing that bugged me about this image is the sky. Something seems odd about it. Maybe it's that horizon thing, maybe it's that there is a lot of it and it's a little bland (though i'm not exactly sure how a sky can be "not-bland.") I dunno...

Other than that I could 100% see this working AMAZINGLY as is.

[JuuJuu]

I love it! so artsy!

But the little green door is really hard to see, and kind of odd looking to me.
As if it is laying on the side of the hill wrong, or something.

[S]

Here's an in-game pic of another back. Any comments on the GUI? What have I not noticed in this bg? There's always something...

EDIT: Btw, how to you change the title of a topic to indicate that it's been updated?

[Matti]

EDIT: Btw, how to you change the title of a topic to indicate that it's been updated?

Just click modify in the upper right corner of your first post.. (edit: just like you did with your last post)

Nice scrennshot. It has atmosphere and i really like handdrawn pictures/games..

The GUI is okay, though I prefer changing cursormodes..

[Questionable]

Owl should probably be a seperate sprite.

I don't like the aqua colored outline on the GUI, it's distracting.

Only about 1/3 of the screen has anything to look at. This could be intentional, or not, though it makes the screen shot feel empty.

[pslim]

I like the GUI a lot. The one thing that bothers me is that continuations of the strokes beyond the lines they cross feels kind of busy and they don't really go anywhere. I think the basic shape would give the same idea and be alot cleaner.

[S]

Questionable:
I should have remembered to tell you all to ignore the horrible owl; it's ugly and it'll need to be an object anyway, because I'm going to animate it.

I might consider changing the outline, although there used to be no outline and that did not look good - the GUI would disappear into the background. It needs to be clearly defined. Suggestions are welcome.

About only 1/3 of the screen being something to look at: is the sky nothing? What about my rather smashing cloud? go look at Dutch landscape painting. You'll find plenty of low horizons and shit there.   

Pslim: I might be daft, but I don't understand what you mean... Please elaborate, or paint over.

[GarageGothic]

I'd recommend instead setting the GUI apart from the background by enhancing the shading it already has (a bit confusing by the way, from the shadows where the lines cross I can't tell if the light comes from the left or right), so that the edge facing the lightsource would be highlit and the opposite one shadowed. Does the game use 32-bit color? If so you should definitely consider using alpha channel for the sprite.