Hallway background C&C

[Anarcho]

Hi,

I'm hoping to get a little C&C on this background.  I've tried a few things that I don't have much experience...namely this  shadow/texture you see on the walls and a bit on the floor.  How's it look?  And how about those indentations in the doors?  I couldn't get them to look exactly right...

Thanks

Logan

[Kweepa]

Looks good!
It's a bit washed out, which makes it look melancholy. Based on Emily Enough, I'd say that was deliberate.
The walls look fine.
The tops of the door bevels are a bit odd - if you just reverse the bottoms they might look better.
I'd add floorboards.
I'd also change the colour of the wall next to the stairs, probably to the same colour as the rest of the walls.
The light on the floor from the windows, shining through the banisters, doesn't seem to match the size of the windows or be exactly in perspective. A quick fix might be to remove the sixth light bar. It just seems too coincidental that the light ends exactly where the banisters do.
The top of the image is almost featureless. Perhaps you could add a picture rail.

[ildu]

I think it looks good. I especially like the color scheme. However, the door on the 0 angle wall looks kinda small compared to the two side doors (especially the right one). This whole image is portrayed from below the horizon as the vanishing point is somewhere at the top of the image, so I think you should show the top of the 0 angle doorframe. Also, the two first poles should show some light coming through between them.

I imagine this isn't a complete background, but if it was, I would advise you to add more detail to it. Good job, anyways.

[Anarcho]

Steve,

Actually there are floor boards.  They lost their definition through the shadowing method i used.  Here's the floorboards without shadow:



What i did with the floor shadow was color layers of darker shadows and then decreased the transparency...this is what it looks like with the shadows at 100&:



I set that shadow layer at 50%.  The only problem is the floorboards look even more washed out.  Is there an easier/better way to do shadow the floorboards?  Just do it by hand?  Or maybe just make the lines darker?  Or maybe use a different color for the shadows?   

Ildu...you're right about the top of the doorframe.  The door looks smaller because it's pushed over to the left more than the other one is.  Maybe i'll move it over so there isn't any confusion.  No, it's isn't complete yet, and i was trying to think of more details to add...any suggestions would be helpful.  It's sort of an old farmhouse...supposed to be messy/dirty with lots of crap lying around.

Thanks for the help

[Kweepa]

Oops, I meant skirting boards.

[Anarcho]

good idea.

[Evil]

Yeah, floor trim would look nice. At the bottom of the right doorway there looks to be a few missing pixels. The doors don't seem to be the same size or at the same height. The windows are also different. I'm having problems determining where the light source is. Depending where it's at some of the highlights will be triangular. The wall gradients look fine though. Maybe increase all around noise to help them blend.

[Ninjas]

You need to boost the brightness/contrast. Other than that looks pretty good. I like how the shadows are.

[Anarcho]

Increase the noise?  How do I do that?  I did the wall shadows by hand, not using a gradient.

How do I increase the brightness/contrast?  Is there an easy way to do that too?

[Evil]

Depends on what program you are using. Personally, I always liked your coloring style. Very grey.

[esper]

I think Steve might be wrong about the light. It looks as though the sun is either coming up or going down at an angle which makes the light go toward the right of the room. If this were so, the light would stop right there. However, if it is full on daylight, you might expect the light to fan out like you have it on the right side.

Also, I think the reason you can't get the indentations on the door right are because the doors might be a little too wide. Every door I've seen like that is very thin, thinner than most. Here's the only one I could find on Google image search, which actually is about as wide as the ones you have.



Lastly, I don't know how you could go about it (I'm not very skilled with Photoshop, although if I were I'm sure I might be able to crank out some nice stuff), but I think for a dusty old farmhouse a good idea would be to show the beams of light shining through the dust as it breaks through the posts on the railing.

EDIT: Like this, only through railing instead of the window crossbars:

[ildu]

I don't see the need for a inside lightsource. The contrast and brightness levels suggest that this is an unlit room with a sunny day outside. Of course, the brightness should be a little lower for that. I agree that the light beams would be a nice addition and they aren't so hard to do in PS. A great addition in PS CS2 is a revolutionary vanishing point modifier, where you just set the vanishing point and you can transform your lightbeams to match the windows. Then you can have subtractive areas using the same vanishing point to get rid of the light that is limited by the bannisters.

As for details, you said it's kind of a run-down farmhouse. First of all, I would add floor linings. Second I would add transparent curtains for the windows. You also need stuff, such as paintings on the wall. And seeing as it's run-down, I would tear some of the wallpaper and add dirt to walls and the floor.

[Anarcho]

Here's the latest version.  I've redone the floor light a bit...extending the light and blending it a bit more.  The windows are the only light source...i think it's a little bright because it's snowy outside, which tends to create bright reflections.  I also added a crack in the wall, which i'm unsure about.  It looks a little staid.  Oh, and i added drapes. 

I would like to do that light shining thing mentioned by esper, but i have no idea how to do that.  I'm using trusty old paint shop pro 5.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Ninjas]

This is with adjusted brightness and contrast.

[Helm]

it's quite possible that's not the ambience the original artist was going for.

[ildu]

I think that's way too much contrast. The downplayed palette enforces the feeling of a rundown old place. And I think it contributes to the style immensely. One reason I liked Emily Enough so much were the low contrast greenish colors.

[scotch]

It does look rather too contrasty like that, true, although I think the original is also very foggy looking, which seems quite odd indoors, some more contrast is in order I think, but keeping a similar level of saturation to the original image

perhaps like that... I think it keeps the spirit of the original, mostly.Ã,  I must say, it is a very nice adventure game bg.

[stuh505]

Right on, Scotch

[Redwall]

foggy

I was trying to come up with a word earlier to describe my main problem with this background, and that's certainly it. Several times I actually lost the edges of the shapes in the original.

[Ninjas]

I just posted that up as an extreme example of what adjusting the contrast could do for the image.