.NET Profit - screenshot C&C

[That Guy]

Gents,

Here's the first screenshot of the game I'm fiddling with, a cyberpunk adventure called .NET Profit.Ã,  It's a spiritual successor (I hope) to that great classic of yore, Interplay's Neuromancer.



I'm primarily interested in a critique on the art style and sprites, since it's my first whack at anything like this, but feel free to pick apart anything you see.Ã,  I can take it.Ã, 

Thanks in advance,
TG

* EDITED - new background, new EGO sprite.

[LilBlueSmurf]

The very smooth shading on the chairs looks out of place, You are going for more realistic looking, but the chairs look more like buttons or something.  I like overall style but the neck/head on the red head's sprite look odd.  Almost like he has a very think neck, or that his face just kind of sticks out a bit from a round topped cylinder.  I couldn't say what it is exactly that looks odd, but I am sure if you play with it a bit you can fix it, your other characters are nice.  On second look, the glass effect on the table may be a bit too real looking also.... May be the perspective, don't know, something about the table in general just doesn't look quite right.  With the intense perspective you have on the left wall, it seems like the chairs in back should be smaller than those in front, and the angle of the table, eh, I don't know, it's late.  Overall I like it, but I think you have the skill to make it better.

[ildu]

You want crits, do ya? Brace yourself.

Overall, it looks fine. I like the style, but I don't love it. The characters, especially the Japanese business men, look great. The glass table looks cool, as well. But there are some things I think you should work on:

1. First of all, characters. I like the general style of the characters. The skintone on the Japanese men is a bit too brown. Lighten it up a bit and try to make it look a bit more human-like. I like the grey suit, but I think the black one doesn't work. Try a darker shade of grey or a blue shade. In addition, most importantly, your player character needs work. The whole style seems to collide with itself. The jacket is quite intricately shaded, yet the face, pants and shoes are not. Why not make it all in the same style as the suits on the Japanese guys? It would make it look cartoonier and better in my opinion. Also, the head of the player character needs work. The glasses take away a lot of expressional options. The eyes do contribute most in showing our expressions and right now they're hidden behind those glasses. The style of the player character face also looks different from the other characters. I hate it when the npc's in an adventure look interesting, but the player character is flat.

2. Second, you could work on some of the details. The door, for example, deserves a good handle that extrudes from the flat door. As was said earlier, I think the chairs look really unrealistic. What you could do is add a frame to the back of the chairs (which would hence be visible in the chairs not facing the player) and add some texture to the fabric of the chair. In addition, the chairs closest to the viewer should be bigger than the farther ones. The image of the outside looks fine, but I would actually make the window a bit brighter, less transparent and somehow work in a reflection. The logo on the wall looks a bit out of place. What really craps the illusion is the sharp edge where the company name block meets the rest of the logo. You should have drop shadows for the edge as well as the text. Just imagine how it would be in real life. Would it be a sticker, a piece of topographic plastic or perhaps a light surface?

3. Third, I would like to comment on the color scheme. For my eyes, this scheme is way too bright. The wall is almost pure white and it doesn't fit. The ceiling and even the floor is way to bright as well. Also, you seem to have shadowing for everything else than the most important, the walls. Imagine where the light sources are and try to create realistic gradients for the walls and ceiling. Usually, we try to accentuate important areas by using bright colors. Right now, the viewers attention is driven straight to the bright wall and the logo, when in fact it should be directed at the characters and the door, as they are the most important aspects of the scene.

4. Fourth, you could actually try making it a bit less saturated. The color on the logo and the colors on the player character are very weird looking. Make them a bit greyer. I don't know what the game is about, but this image has a blue atmosphere. Does your whole game have a distict blueish hue to it?

5. Finally, I want to comment on the composition. I see that you have a regular letterbox used for verb boxes, but you also have 16:9 letterboxes. Why so? By doing this, you sacrifice a lot of the space. Also, the GUI looks odd when there's a black space under the verb boxes. A frame for the inventory items might add a defining touch to the GUI.

This is just my 2 cents. You don't have to take anything I say seriously. I'm just offering the same kind of constructive criticism I get from time to time. And it helps in developing your art in a better direction. I only started this rant, because I see the potential in the image. For any less, I wouldn't even bother.

[aussie]

I think the image is excellent. If you can consistently achieve that quality you game's gonna rock.

Some small things:

- About the player char: the shoe outlines just don't seem to match the character style. I would also make the belt a bit more visible.
- About the scene: somehow I think the player character looks a bit small in comparison with the others and with the table. I understand he's supposed to be further "inside" the background, and therefore should look smaller, but I just think there's not enough depth to account for the current difference in size.

But there's no need to touch these things. The background is perfectly functional already.

[Floskfinger]

Ok, I think it's a cool background and good looking characters (exept from the red outline on the maincharacters face).
there's one thing bugging me in the background however. The door is out of perspective. the right side of the door also seems (is) to be the same height as the main character (doors are normaly bigger than a person). Otherwise, like I said, it's really cool.
keep up the good work!

[That Guy]

Wow.Ã,  Lots of great comments, here.Ã,  Few responses and questions, to clarify some things.

I like overall style but the neck/head on the red head's sprite look odd.

That's probably due to the shadow under his chin.Ã,  It came out too dark.Ã,  I've removed it.

In addition, most importantly, your player character needs work. The whole style seems to collide with itself. The jacket is quite intricately shaded, yet the face, pants and shoes are not. Why not make it all in the same style as the suits on the Japanese guys? It would make it look cartoonier and better in my opinion.

Duly noted, and ironically, the original draft (good thing I still have itÃ,  ) of Our Hero was flat-filled like the other two, but it just bugged me for some reason.Ã,  Didn't look right at all - but I can't shade to save my life.Ã,  Every time I tried it just looked like someone dumped a bucket of paint over him, so finally I just half-transparencied a leather jacket and slapped it over him to give some kind of surface to the character.Ã,  Guess I'll be taking that back out.Ã, 

The style of the player character face also looks different from the other characters. I hate it when the npc's in an adventure look interesting, but the player character is flat.

Can you clarify this somehow?Ã,  The character's American instead of Chinese like the other two - or did you mean something else?

In addition, the chairs closest to the viewer should be bigger than the farther ones.

Noted.

The logo on the wall looks a bit out of place. What really craps the illusion is the sharp edge where the company name block meets the rest of the logo. You should have drop shadows for the edge as well as the text. Just imagine how it would be in real life. Would it be a sticker, a piece of topographic plastic or perhaps a light surface?

I'd envisioned a flat plastic oval imprinted with the pseudo-3D logo itself, but that's apparently not coming across very well.Ã,  The logo looks good when it's not stuck in a wall, so I think it's a little shadowing issue.Ã,  I'll look into that.

Third, I would like to comment on the color scheme. For my eyes, this scheme is way too bright. The wall is almost pure white and it doesn't fit. The ceiling and even the floor is way to bright as well. Also, you seem to have shadowing for everything else than the most important, the walls. Imagine where the light sources are and try to create realistic gradients for the walls and ceiling. Usually, we try to accentuate important areas by using bright colors. Right now, the viewers attention is driven straight to the bright wall and the logo, when in fact it should be directed at the characters and the door, as they are the most important aspects of the scene.

The room's done in CyberWatch's corporate colors, which are blue and white.Ã,  That's probably not a good idea, in hindsight.Ã,  Hmm... well, believe it or not I sat there trying to figure out how to shade the room for a long time, but I got stumped.Ã,  It's a morning/midday setting and the overhead lights are on (tried to draw them, they looked like poo), plus there's light streaming in from the window.Ã,  To me, that'd leave no room for shadows - if I'm wrong, can someone offer some suggestions as to how to place some shading?

Does your whole game have a distict blueish hue to it?

No, the game's going to be mostly urban greys, neons, and what-not... but the two corporations have blue/white and green/white corporate colors for their offices.Ã,  The title screen is black and green to give a faux-holographic/digital look.Ã,  I'm re-thinking that, now.Ã,  Guess you'll see another C&C request from me for the title before the weekend is over.Ã, 

Finally, I want to comment on the composition. I see that you have a regular letterbox used for verb boxes, but you also have 16:9 letterboxes. Why so? By doing this, you sacrifice a lot of the space. Also, the GUI looks odd when there's a black space under the verb boxes. A frame for the inventory items might add a defining touch to the GUI.

That's just the way the screenshot came out.Ã,  The game's in 640x480, which looks square and takes up all the screen real-estate in-game... but for some reason it letterboxed when I did a printscreen.

(exept from the red outline on the maincharacters face).

Oddly enough, in Photoshop that color comes out as a tannish hue, kinda like a slightly-lighter version of the businessmen's skin tone.Ã,  Looks fine, but when I import it into the game (16-bit high-color, although the image itself has been reduced to 256 colors to filesize) that tan turns into a deep pink.Ã,  I also lose most of the gradient shine in the hair, and as you can see it looks like a stripe.Ã,  Any hints as to how I can clean that up?

Thanks everyone,
TG

[ildu]

The style of the player character face also looks different from the other characters. I hate it when the npc's in an adventure look interesting, but the player character is flat.

Can you clarify this somehow?Ã,  The character's American instead of Chinese like the other two - or did you mean something else?

The Japanese characters look much more interesting than the player character. It's mainly due to the fact that I like how you've drawn their suits and I'd like the style to be used on the player character. I would definately change the clothes on the player. Some mixture of colors, not just blue. I would also add some distinctive details to make him more pleasing to the eye. About the face, I think the glasses pretty much ruin it. What I meant about different styles is that the Japanese men have a wider mouth, distinct eyes, a more detailed nose and a chin dimple, whereas everything is simpler in the player character. So make the char bigger, the size of the other characters preferably, and lose the glasses or make them transparent.

[AlbinoPanther]

cyberpunk hurray
finish it

[That Guy]

cyberpunk hurray
finish it

yes sir. 

Just so y'all know, I figured out why the play screen was letterboxing while the title screen wasn't.  If you import an image that's less than the full-size resolution of your game, the game'll letterbox it somehow.  The CyberLink boardroom was 640 by 280, and didn't have any filler space at the bottom... so it was getting shifted down somehow, so I shifted the status bar up to compensate, and it all got squashed.

I just fixed it, and I'm re-doing the boardroom pretty much from the ground up to try and incorporate everyone's critiques - and I'm also re-drawing Justin (the redhead, our hero) from scratch.  New versions for you to look over later today or tommorow.  Should go a lot faster now that I'm not fumbling through the process as well as trying to make some good art. 

[voh]

Ego's head is too small, boi 

[That Guy]

*bump*

I re-drew the background and the main character's sprite.  Better?  Worse?  I'm still at a loss as to how to shade the room itself, so I may just leave it.

[Snarky]

Worse.

I don't agree with ildu's criticisms. I actually liked the original sprite a lot, and don't think the NPCs looked more interesting. The glasses were cool, and depending on the personality of the character, the emotionless look might be exactly what you're looking for.

[That Guy]

such is life... can't please everyone.    The sprite needed to be re-drawn regardless, 'cause the scale was off and the legs... ick.  I think a combo of the two might work - the new sprite's cleaner style with the old sprite's more impassive face and opaque glasses.

[Floskfinger]

I argree with Snarky. the glasses where really cool on him. It gave him personality and a original look. I also liked the jacket the way it used look.