Sprite+background, does it go together?

[Kastchey]

I want to finally decide which graphics style should I pick for my game. I would be really grateful for opinions, if anybody would care to give one.

So basically I have this character sprite:

and this background:

and I need to make them fit together.

I suppose I have two main problems here. One is a saturation difference between the background and the sprite - I should either use more vivid colors for the sprite, or desaturate the background.
The other is that the background is painted and the sprite is pure pixel art. It doesn't yet mean they won't go together, but perhaps I could start a new set of pixel art-style backgrounds to match the sprite better. Or maybe simply resizing the background would do the trick, I'm not sure.

So I came up with these three possible solutions so far:
1. 300x240 background, warm colors + vividly colored sprite


2. 240x170 background, desaturated + vividly colored sprite


3. 240x170 background, desaturated + cold colors for the sprite


I haven't yet made a sample of a pixel art background designed specifically for this game, but it could be something of this sort (but a different color choice). This might be considered the fourth option, but I don't have a good sample for that.

Does anyone feel like expressing their view on this, or have other ideas? I know there's not much difference between them and all, but still I'm a bit puzzled.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Of the three choices, the first definitely seems to mesh the sprite and background together, but perhaps too well.  Parts of the character's jacket are lost in the surrounding colors.  In contrast, the third example has the character standing out rather clearly against the background, which I think is a step in the right direction.  You definitely want your characters to seem to be part of the world, but at the same time the players need them all to stand out and be identifiable.  One way to achieve this would be a colored outline shaded properly for each area of the sprite, but this sacrifices a little realism (if that's what you're going for).  One potential problem I see is that the background looks enlarged to fit the current resolution, with blocky aliasing around the clouds and especially the trees.  This makes parts of the image clash with the clean style of the sprite.  One more thing to consider would be higher contrast in the actual colors of the sprite to bring out the desired shapes.  I've made a quick edit to show you what I mean.

1.  Altered coat shades to have higher contrast.

2.  Made skin tone lighter to stand out better from the coat.



After pasting this on the background I could see the shapes of his arms more clearly, so if the clarity of your sprite is important then the colors are something you want to work on.  Also, I noticed that you did not use any particular lighting scheme for the sprite, which leaves the sprite looking a bit randomly shaded.  I added some highlights along the top of his shoulders in each view and along the top of his hat to show you what I mean, though more could be done.  Hopefully this helps!

[Kastchey]

Thank you very much, that's a lot of interesting thoughts. You clearly have a point about shading. I didn't pick any exact light source with the main version of the sprite because I'll probably have to use different shading in different locations (and it is only half my fancy - weather and time of day are important to the storyline also in the original short story I'm basing on). I applied more identifiable shading to the contrasted version of the sprite (in pictures one and two), because of the light coming from the west in this particular background (which is my character's right-back side), but perhaps I could still put some more work into it.

In the first versions of my sprite I also had a clear outline similar to what you did in your edit, but exactly as you figured out, I thought it might spoil the effect somehow. But that's why I asked for opinions - I wanted to know if it would be pointed out as an issue or not. Now I'm pretty sure I'll use your advice, I definitely want the game to be functional.

Blocky outline around the trees was my attempt to 'pixelate' the painted background, sort of a walk around for the painted bg+pixel character problem and apparently it didn't work. I guess I'll stick to the conventional methods then.

Good you mentioned the resolution problem. I still have a feeling that in the first example the background looks rather enormous when compared to the sprite, making the character look like a midget. Is it just me or is the background in the examples two and three better scaled? Or the opposite?

Thanks again for your reply, this is exactly what I was hoping to get and it's going to help me a lot.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Since the only foreground items we can compare the character to are the tree and road, I'd say the scale doesn't impact the character one way or the other.  Both trees and roads can be quite large, and neither version makes me think he's too small.  Adding something like a broken wagon or road sign off to the side of the road would help establish the character's scale vs. something on the screen with a size we can more or less mentally compare it to.

[Neil Dnuma]

I tried reducing the saturation and also contrast of the background, by adding some color perspective (and fog..). I felt the blacks in the far distance reduced the feeling of depth, and thought it might - as a bonus - help bring out the character more (which I sloppily gave even more contrast)

Very quick job, and exaggerated, but hopefully of some help.



BTW, this game project sounds very interesting!

[Kastchey]

Thank you very much, both of you. You gave me a lot of useful hints to consider and I'm sure it'll be much easier for me to pick a version now.
ProgZmax, I made a quick sketch a random background object scaled to fit the character sprite and added it to the picture, worked just fine. So I guess you were right.
Neil, your approach to color perspective in my background is quite atmospheric and adds some depth the picture was indeed lacking.

Thanks again.

[Dualnames]

I think the graphics overall don't seem to fit perfectly, but somehow it gives a unique graphic style to the game that's not bad. I say you stick with them and just do minor changes to make them fit a little more.