'Concept' background for post-apocalyptic game

[Winston]

Hello everyone.

I've been thinking for a while about an adventure game I'd like to make, set around a post-apocalyptic city.

So, here is my first attempt at a 'concept' background. I say concept because I made this mainly to try out a photo-montage approach, and to see how long it would take to make backgrounds in this way.

This image was made using Gimp, taking photos from google, and was the result of a day of experimentation.

I'm not talented enough to start from skratch and draw everything, however for the actual game backgrounds (which will obviously be in the correct aspect ratio) I intend to take most of the photographs myself.



I would love to hear what people think about this image.

Thank you so much for your time.
W.

[DazJ]

My first impression was 'excellent'. I really think that style works. Yeah, definately

[space boy]

The two towers in your picture look like they are standing on the grey building. If you want to push something into the background you can use aerial perspective(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective). I did this by putting a transparent layer over the towers. The color I used in the layer is a mix of 3 different colors from the clouds.
I also reduced the saturation, changed the tone of the road and applied a stronger contrast to that piece of whatever on the road.

[Winston]

Thank you for your encouragment Daz.

Space Boy, thank you for your suggestions. The aerial perspective tip is excellent, and I will be making much more use of that. Also, your adjustments to the tonal properties of the image really make a big difference, I can see now that the original is much too vibrant and saturated.


thank you both.
W.

[Matti]

I really like that image, but use a background with less noise (the sky).

Hey, I once planned to make a fallout-like adventure too, no real post-apocalyptic games around here yet it seems..

[Evil]

It's not bad. I think you were more on track with the first one. It's a little dark, but rather than lighten it up, I'd throw some long cast shadows from the building.

So I ended up doing an edit. Poorly, but maybe this will help.



Threw some shadows, darkened the walls with some gradients, blurred some of the unantialised lines, and adjusted the hue of the towers.

Another thing, there are some bad focal points. The gouges in the roof are pretty bad but that big tear out of the tower is an eye sore. It just grabs all of the attention and pulls it to a point with very little depth anyway. Same goes for the bottom story window in the foreground. The big opening intersecting with the horizon grabs a lot of unnecessary attention.

Also, when making damaged buildings, don't forget there's another wall we'd see. The right hole on the left tower particularly. We'd see some of the far wall and it'll give the buildings some depth.

[Winston]

Thank you all again for your comments.

Evil, I particularly like the shadows. I hadn't thought about doing that, but it adds so much atmosphere. Thank you!

Just one question, how did you get the line for the shadow of the stuff on the road? Did you just free-hand it?

Winston.

[Evil]

Yeah, I did it by hand.  I you have the buildings separate you could distort the out line, but because there's a lot of different depths and I set the "light source" so low, it's probably easier to do by hand. Just some black shapes and some gradients on multiply layers and the opacity lowered.

The sun in the background will make the shadows a lot different than where I had my shadows going, but with them going that direction it gives the image a bit more flow and visual direction.