Sam and Max 2 2D bg

[Matt Wilson]

I got bored and redrew/roto'd one of the Sam and Max 2 conceptual art pieces into a 2D background. I did it in the 1992/1993 Lucasarts style so it's flat shaded rather than textured. This isn't a serious or fine-tuned piece of artwork but I did it to show a couple of people in a chatroom that someone with a lot of time on his hands COULD do a fine stab at a Sam and Max sequel, if he were given the script and dialogue.

I know the purple glow on the wood is a little weird. With flat shading it's hard to transition from brown to purple.

[[Cameron]]

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!
SAM AND MAX
SAM AND MAX
SAM AND MAX

[Kweepa]

It's got some nice touches!
I like the bucket and the light fixtures.
But it's not worthy of Sam and Max yet. The light cones look more than a little odd, for example.
Is it 640x400 scaled down?

[James Kay]

Nice image!

If you want to make a S&M game but are not confident in writing the dialogue or story, get the comics. There is some great source material there. Giant cockroaches, spacesuits that are merely paper bags on the head, pushing a cult leader into an active volcano, discrediting the alien rulers building the pyramids by pulling down his trousers. You could just pick one story and make it into an AGS game, then take all these little throwaway lines from other comics to flesh it out.


"Look, we could go through this time portal on the bar!"
"No, Max, that's just a puddle of beer."
"Oh, in that case..."
"Ah, here we are in ancient Egypt. All drawn without any source material apparently."
"That's the ugliest cat I've ever seen."
"You crack me up, little buddy!"

[remixor]

The style and overall feel of the background is great; very authentic.  My only real criticism might be that it's perhaps a bit TOO flat.  You need more of those bizarre and random little details that one expects from Sam and Max.   Also, as was mentioned earlier, those cones of light are probably a bit too bright.  It might be easier just to add them using the AGS engine so they can affect character sprites as well.

[Matt Wilson]

Yeah, actually, the light cones I need to work on. They need to be a little less powerful, and I need to give it a yellow tint. And have it fade off at the end. That's not very easy in Flash, let me tell you.

Yes, I saved it as 320x200 and scaled it up. I prefer the lo-res feel. But I also like how the antialiasing works. If I recall, Sam and Max was the first Lucasarts game to really experiment with antialiased backgrounds (since it was actually painted, right? Weren't DOTT's just drawn in the computer back then with DPaint? I can't recall).

[Scummbuddy]

MI2 backgrounds were oilpainted and then scanned in...

but nice job! I couldnt tell this was flash.

As you were saying about a need of a storyline, I once considered taking all the cartoon episodes and making them mini-games.

[Iwan]

I love it

I cant really think of anything thats wrong with it that hasnt been mentioned. I'm playing Sam & Max 1 at the moment and I think that the bg is worthy

What program did you use to make it?

Iwan

[Matt Wilson]

Here's the St. Livinia's Day danceroom. It's not complete, I guess. It's also only part of it, cause the actual thing would be scrolling BG at the usual 320x200.

[Erwin_Br]

Here's the St. Livinia's Day danceroom. It's not complete, I guess. It's also only part of it, cause the actual thing would be scrolling BG at the usual 320x200.

Wow, this one's even better. Very cool stuff indeed.

--Erwin

[Nacho]

Yes! This second bg is really cool... I was not very happy about the first one, I can't really say why, maybe for the colours....

But this second is supperb and actually matches perfectly with the S&M style.

[jaz]

Matt,

I may be the only one here with this but... oh well.
Firstly, I do really appreciate amount of work you put into redoing these pics. BUT! I don't understand why? I mean you redrew concept screenies which were bloody excellent. I suppose everybody here knows them, if no, here you go:



I must admit you have created the original feel of S&M but in my opinion you just downgraded the pictures that were perfect already.

Those people who are talking about S&M fan sequel sure wouldn't mind if the game was in superb hi-res. Personally I' d prefer S&M 2 in 2D And those concept screenies would do just fine for me.

Anyway, what I was to say: You seem to have a lot of tallent but I would like to see it go another direction, you could use your own artwork and make your own S&M 2 2D BGs. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see BGs like these even in low res but original ones.

[MattWilson]

Eh. If the game were going to be designed in hi-res like Curse of Monkey Island, I would've preferred they go with the background artist who worked on the animated series because he did a great job of mimicing Purcell's comic book style. The concept art is just supposed to be groundwork. No matter what it'd be redrawn and retooled, whether it's 3D, oils, DPaint, or Flash. I simply chose to go for old-school style.

[Synthetique]

[Paper Carnival]

Your backgrounds are great Matt, but I think I agree with Jaz. It's just a matter of preference though, because some guys prefer old-style graphics.

[Kweepa]

Here, I retooled it for 320x240

[jannar85]

I may be the only one here with this but... oh well.
Firstly, I do really appreciate amount of work you put into redoing these pics. BUT! I don't understand why? I mean you redrew concept screenies which were bloody excellent. I suppose everybody here knows them, if no, here you go:

I must admit you have created the original feel of S&M but in my opinion you just downgraded the pictures that were perfect already.

Those people who are talking about S&M fan sequel sure wouldn't mind if the game was in superb hi-res. Personally I' d prefer S&M 2 in 2D And those concept screenies would do just fine for me.

Anyway, what I was to say: You seem to have a lot of tallent but I would like to see it go another direction, you could use your own artwork and make your own S&M 2 2D BGs. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see BGs like these even in low res but original ones.

Well, you know artists start copying styles? To learn something? I think this can work both ways.
I like the new backgrounds as well btw. Nice work. Hope to see something new soon