Need C&C on my first REAL background attempt

[Rentin]

Hello, I need some feedback on my first "real" room. This is my first room that, in my opinnion, is halfway decent. There is still some work that needs to be done to it but I just wanted to go ahead and get some feedback before I continued with all the minor details. I think the room looks a little "bare" still. I want to add some more items to it like cloths in the closet. Although I cant make the closet too cluttered because the floorboards there that are darker than the rest is actually a hidden "secret stash" compartment so it still needs to be somewhat easily visible. I also want to add more stuff to the walls so it doesnt look so empty but I cant think of what exactly to add, some advice on what type of things I should add to the room would be very helpfull as well.

Well here are a couple images of my room, I have included both closed and opened door versions and a version with the bed and without it. I personally think the bed looks a little weird but I dunno, I can't really tell why, what do you guys think? Also the black bar at the bottom of the pics are just placeholders of where the GUI goes so I could use it as a reference. So on a scale from 1 to 10 how would you rate it? Also suggestions, advice, and comments would be great, thank you.

[DoorKnobHandle]

(1) Your perspective is completely off (google 1-point perspective for example).

(2) The design of your room is very, very simple (just a cube), so adding in detail will be very hard. Once you have the knowledge of proper perspective, it'll be easy for you to add in details such as lowered ceilings, walls connecting two perpendicular walls in a 45° angle etc. This makes for more interesting detail than hours spent pushing pixels around for visual stuff here and there (that's good, too, but you should not just fill an entire cube shape like your room with it or you'll go mad).

(3) You defined your light-source (the window) pretty well and added shadows that seem correct so far, but why choose blue for walls? Why pink for the ground? This gives it a very weird feeling, dunno if that's what you're after. This weird palette usually goes better with comic style rooms, not semi-realistic ones.

(4) Why that resolution? I'd strongly advise you to redraw the room in 320x200, that's the resolution where you'll learn the most in the quickest way. Like that, the room wouldn't import into AGS without scrolling.

[ALPHATT]

1)look up dkh's tutorial if you wanna know more about 1 point perspective.

2)The opened doors are not quite placed right. Also if you want to animate the doors I
recomend drawing closed/opened door veiws seperatly and implant them as objects in you game.

edit:

3) Why's the huge space for the gui?. If your gui takes up a smaller amount of your bg
you can develop your room way more easaly. I doubt your gui needs so much functions that it won't fit otherwise.

[Stupot]

You can do without the ceiling at all, to be honest.  I'd suggest having a big black block running across the top (about half the size of the black block you already have at the bottom).  This will focus the attention on the room, and will help the image to look less sparse.  Plus, it'll have a cool, cinematic letterbox look.

[Rentin]

I made my GUI just like DOTT, it's the same size they used. So on the left side you have your verbs: pick up, look at, use, give etc, on the right side is your inventory, and at the top middle of the gui is where you have the label that displays the text "Walk to object/hotspot".

Also, I do make make my doors objects and have it just like you said. I just wanted to show both versions with doors opened and closed so you could see the closet and give me some ideas on what type of things to put in it or whatever.

(4) Why that resolution? I'd strongly advise you to redraw the room in 320x200, that's the resolution where you'll learn the most in the quickest way. Like that, the room wouldn't import into AGS without scrolling.

Well I set my game options to 640x480 res so the background fits in just fine, no scrolling.

also, I know it's a simple cube room but that's really all it needs to be, I mean it's just a simple bedroom used for one small part of the game. I will go back and try and fix the perspective.

Thanks for the info on the tutorials I will look into them. My next room does need to be more interesting though being the main living area and kitchen part of the apartment which will have a couple cutscenes. So I will take all this info into account while making that room also.

[Khris]

Sorry, but: what?

DotT used 320x200 with the GUI going from 144 to 199. It didn't use square pixels though so that translates to 320x240 with the GUI starting at ~ 172.

If you're planning to use highres, that'd be 640x480 with the GUI starting at 344.

BUT: Your room is 500x376. Granted, the aspect ratios and GUI size are proportionally correct, but in-game, you'll end up with a huge black border at the right and bottom of the room (I tested it).
The only way to make it work as-is is increase the canvas size to 640x480 with the room in the center.

[Rentin]

Sorry, but: what?

DotT used 320x200 with the GUI going from 144 to 199. It didn't use square pixels though so that translates to 320x240 with the GUI starting at ~ 172.

If you're planning to use highres, that'd be 640x480 with the GUI starting at 344.

BUT: Your room is 500x376. Granted, the aspect ratios and GUI size are proportionally correct, but in-game, you'll end up with a huge black border at the right and bottom of the room (I tested it).
The only way to make it work as-is is increase the canvas size to 640x480 with the room in the center.

Looks fine to me. My room size IS 640x480. Maybe Flickr resized it when I uploaded it to the net, but trust me, it fits just fine. Sure the GUI isn't EXACTLY the same as the one used in DOTT but it's my interpretation of it and I think it looks and works just fine for my games needs.

[Khris]

Ah, ok then. Use imageshack.us then or some other host who doesn't resize pics. You don't even need to register there. Just keep in mind to use the link at the very bottom, the one they don't want you to use

Here are some 1-point-perspective lines (using the desk lines to determine the vanishing point):


There are different opinions on these forums on how strict one should follow rules of perspective; but with a room like yours that's basically made of just rectangles, you'll be far better of by following them closely.

The lighting is pretty off, too, but that's not a mistake as glaring as e.g. the way off top of the door.
The shadows suggest that the light source is right outside the window, but from this POV, the sun rays are all parallel which should result in the familiar rectangle of light on the floor.

The only other issue is using a lowres GUI with a highres background. A no-go IMO.

[Rentin]

How do these look? I fixed the bedroom one and tried to follow a fixed vanishing point. I still want to add some stuff to it like a bed which is what I am going to work on today.

Improvement from the previous version?

I also made another room, living room/kitchen, and added some foreground silouette type things like in Dott, what do you think?

[Ryan Timothy B]

I think you should either be drawing 320x240 backgrounds or draw larger characters.
You have lots and lots of empty space.

Hmm interesting.  I checked the dimensions of your backgrounds and they are 500x375?  Are you planning to scale down or crop these backgrounds?

[Rentin]

I think you should either be drawing 320x240 backgrounds or draw larger characters.
You have lots and lots of empty space.

Hmm interesting.  I checked the dimensions of your backgrounds and they are 500x375?  Are you planning to scale down or crop these backgrounds?

Like I said above, I think they got resized when I uploaded to flickr to post them on here. Normally I use photobucket but it just hasnt been working for me lately. The backgrounds are really 640X480. It just feels easier for me to draw in 640X480 while I am still getting the hang of AGS.

[Matti]

Like I said above, I think they got resized when I uploaded to flickr to post them on here. Normally I use photobucket but it just hasnt been working for me lately. The backgrounds are really 640X480.

Just use this site to upload your pics.

[Rentin]

Just use this site to upload your pics.

Oh wow! How simple.