forest background needs c&c

[Venus]

I have made this little forest background for my new game:



I used this tutorial. I'm quite satisfied with the overall look of it, but there are still some details that bother me, like the pathway for example. Any idea how I can improve this background?

Thx in advance
Venus

[prowler]

imo it's a bit too blurry... also you could try to change the black foreground a bit, by adding some highlights or smth.. also, the handle on the door does't fit..

otherwise, a fine bg

[Babar]

the smudginess of the grass is a bit odd when compared to the detail of the bushes. Also, the sharply different colours also look a bit odd

[Developer]

I like it, Much better than I've been sien' around here.  8)

[Iwan]

Nice background. I've been meaning to have a go at that tutorial.

Thre trees look nice. The orange bushes contrast too with the rest of the image in my opinion.  lowering the contrast with some of the bushes could help, especally with the orange ones. I see what prowler means with the grass. The ground is quite blurred though the door is quite detailed. Try using the gras brush if you have it like it says in the tutorial.

[Indie Boy]

Nice, bt I agree with gamma with the yellow colour. Also the blue does'nt work with the background

[Venus]

Alright, thanks for all the c&c. Keep posting. I've tried to improve the bg by following your advices. Here is my latest version:



Here is what I did, or at least tried to do  :

- removed the orange bushes and replaced them with some green ones
- sharpened the grass a little
- sharpened the trees a little
- blurred all the bushes a little
- added space holder for GUI
- changed pathway

What do you think now? Better? What else is there to improve?

[loominous]

Some sloppy, exhaggerated modifications lacking detail:

Around 80 kb, requires flash v7

One problem is the lack of brighter values. When peeking at the tutorial, it seems to feature the same oddity, which I guess may be part of the style.

Especially when using very dark shadows like in the original (pretty much pure black), it needs to be compensated in the higher tones as well or it'll look odd and unnatural.

Another important thing is the cool hue of the lit parts in your version. If the sun is the lightsource, it will add a yellow tone to whatever it shines upon, just like a lamp with a yellow filter. The greens in your version for instance, have a blueish hue, when they should have the opposite (yellowish).

The parts that aren't lit up by the sun, will be lit up by the sky which is blue, as well as by bouncing light. The same thing should therefor be applied to those areas, which should have blue added.

Another thing is the trees, which have a flat look to them. This is due to how the values are distributed on the object. Regardless of how dark you make the shadows, the distribution of the tones will define the shape of the object, and will render it flat if done, I hate to use the word but, incorrectly.

My modified version has been exhaggerated to illustrate the points, so if you're going for a more realistic look, you may want to reduce the saturation and the yellow channel.

I preferred the first version of your image with more lively colors. The details are well done as well,  though I don't like the black dither.

I'd suggest that you wait with starting on the details of the image before you've painted a sloppy version where you just pay attention to the vaules and colors, kind of like mine.

Edit: Btw, don'f forget to add cast shadows, they make a hugh difference.

Also: be careful when using the smudgetool. It may seem like it gives the image a more realistic look, since you don't see the sharp edges between fields, but I'd recommend that you do this by hand to get better control over the values.

[Venus]

Thanks a lot, loominous, for pointing this out. That was exactly what I was looking for! I really like your paint-over and I'll try to use your advices to get a more realistic and better look for my background. I'll post a new version as soon as possible.

Can't put my gratitude into words 
So, I'll just simply stick to THANK YOU 

[InCreator]

A truly nice forest scene!
I used first version to edit.

Though loominous totally edited it (nothing better to offer now , at least not if it comes to proper shading ), I saw the tree-leaf tech *I'm using* on your picture and since I also just got an idea for new grass making style, this was great chance to test it:



* Grass was made just by drawing one-colored line mess, then using it as brush, I covered the grassy areas with this green stuff.
And then, started using same thing as 5% brightening brush, I made this green void randomly brighter and darker.
Easy.

* Road was covered with 10% of noise and some random paintover with 10% darkening brush, w/ antialiasing
* Door knob was desaturated a bit and 10% darkening ellipse became a shadow
* Trees are better on your picture. In tutorial, they were too blurry. Well, to make these leaves properly (using the technique you did), you have to make smaller bunches of leaves, and use smoother brighter/darker leaf transition. I started with pure green and darkened/brightened them by 5% at the time.
I think it worked out quite well.
* You can't really mix blur and detail. Blurry grass and road won't work with pixelly leaves. That's why I suggest to use one technique at a time.

extra notes:
I only worked with the grass and road, since it was most problematic part. Tree leaves were done to give you some idea about using pixel-swarm technique properly. It's quite clear that other bushes-trees-leaves must be fixed too.

Your second edit is alot better because you removed all this blur from door and trees.

Less blur, more detail. More detail, better image.

While treehouse looks very pretty in artistical way -- in reality, tree looks actually very flat. And when taking door's size into account, tree seems to be too small to even contain a toilet, not to mention any rooms/house.
So, it would be quite weird if opening the door in your game takes character to a huge room inside the tree.

[Venus]

Wow, that looks a lot better than my original. The grass and pathway just look great and fit a lot better to the other sharp things. I also like your leaves. I had quite a lot of problems with them while following the tut, coz they never really looked how they should and I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Thanks to your paint-over (for which I'm just as grateful as for loominous' one btw.  ) , I know how to do it properly now.

While treehouse looks very pretty in artistical way -- in reality, tree looks actually very flat. And when taking door's size into account, tree seems to be too small to even contain a toilet, not to mention any rooms/house.
So, it would be quite weird if opening the door in your game takes character to a huge room inside the tree.

Actually it's not supposed to have a room or house inside. The house will be on top of the tree and the door just opens to an elevator which takes the character up then. In the finished game, the player will be able to look at the top of the tree and see the real house then.

So, to you too a very big THANK YOU, InCreator. You have helped me a lot.

[InCreator]

You're welcome.

I'm working on some video tutorials right now, so--

If you have wondered about how I did the grass, there's first of my tutorial videos, which shows how to do this.
It's based on drawing program ArtGem (which you can download from the link in my signature).
Video is in real time, i didn't cut or modify it any way - the grass I made in video DID take only a minute to do.

Video takes about 3 MB, is in quite high (800x600!) resolution and requires Xvid MPEG-4 codec to play.

http://www.terran-x.com/increator/tut/grass.avi

[strazer]

Wow, thanks for the video!
I really like your background style, it goes well with my characters, so I'm trying to learn to draw your way. This was very helpful!
Can't wait for your next video tutorials. Rock on!

[Venus]

Wow, that video tut is amazing, InCreator! I spent about an hour for my crappy grass and you did this fabulous piece of art in less than a minute. I bow to the master. Thanks a lot. I will try this as soon as I've finished downloading ArtGem.

Oh and yeah, before I forget. Merry Xmas to all of you forum people out there.
Venus

[InCreator]

Ah.
I should point out the question that has been asked sooo much from me - in the video - and ArtGem overall, when using brightness processor - LEFT mouse button brightens and RIGHT mouse button darkens.

When using normal color processor (Mix/Erase or Color/Erase), right mouse button erases.
Processor is something that tells program what to do with the brush at next mouse click. Draw or brighten or smoothen and so on.

All processors use two-mouse buttons interface, so LMB works always as plus and RMB as minus. For example - LMB adds saturation and RMB decreases saturation and so on.

Tree leaves were done exactly as grass - I used airbrush to make green void, then worked over it with brighten/darken.

To be honest, 99% of "my technique" goes like this: I make one-color shapes and then brighten/darken (SHADE) them to something cool.