Hey guys, today a strange thing happened to me:
I always thought I was pretty untalented when it came to painting. So I always made my BGs using some workaround tactics. Actually I hadn't tried for a long time. I'm currently doing some work on Dacey II while avoiding to work on my thesis. I was prepared to do the BGs in the same way as I did them for the first part. But lately I've read some tutorials and looked at some good background art, namely Ben's and especially Theo's (whose ressources taught me a lot). Then I just stood up this morning and did this BG - no sketches, no second tries - i just did it. I think for my own standards this looks pretty amazing. I've never painted much with my wacom before, but now that I was doing this, it felt like the most normal thing to do.
Well here's the background (Warning it's pretty big, like 2 mb):
Dacey II is gonna be a explorative open-world kind of game and it will be platform controlled just in case you wonder. Also ignore the background for now - as there are several parallax layers to be placed beneath it.
(http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/520/act21.th.png) (http://img715.imageshack.us/i/act21.png/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
Acutally I don't even know if this is going to be in the game - as I just started this as a test.
Anyway special thanks go to Theo and Ben for sharing their knowledge.
I know that there a some parts which still are sub-perfect so I'd also apprechiate some critics.
Now I have another problem!
Now that I now that the game could look like this I can NEVER go back to the old background style - because I couldn't live with it anymore - it was okay as long as it was the best I could do..
This on the other hand means that the game will take MUCH more time to make which, realistically speaking, will make its release more unlikely. But on the other hand I REALLY want to make this game as the concept is really cool I think.
This is really a dilemma!
This is really nice, even without parallax layers.
I suck at backgrounds, but I'm getting better at drawing chracters for some reason. But I know what you mean, there are awesome things when drawing (and other arts) where there's a prolific moment when a whole new world opens and once you get a handle on the technique, it's just a refreshed joy.
I think it looks great.
I don't know how long you spent on the BG, but in any case I guess you will learn to speed things up over the time. Especially if most of the BGs in the game will look similar, then practice will help to make them faster.
Anyway, I would love to see that game come to life and you should hang on to it, unless you really think that it will take too much time to ever finish it.
Oh, and I'd love to see this with parallax layers.
Thanks anian and matti, thats really encouraging. The whole thing took me 4h from scratch which is already pretty fast. It's also not that long, fbut the game is supposed to have a strong explorative aspect - kind of like a platformer version of Zelda with puzzles - which means the game will need alot of BGs.
Well, I had so much fun doing this - i still might give it a try.
I've been there. What you must do is practice the same background style. Chances are you won't get it on the second try. At least I didn't get it. But on the next tries you will. Mostly because on your second try, you will try to replicate and not draw.
Apart from the trees everything else is superb. I'd be stunned as well.
Thanks Jim, I'll see how this turns out.
Here's a screen with parallaxed layers
(http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/149/dacey2screen.png) (http://img38.imageshack.us/i/dacey2screen.png/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
A fascinating world you've created here!
The reflections of the flowers do a great ambiente, also do the „constructions“ of those boulders ... and ... I like the trees.
I wish I could do half as good and I'm sure, as soon as you found your favorite personal style it will flow. So you should go on with progressing and if this bg won't fit to your current projekt, save it for Dacy III.
This would be better, than getting stuck because mostly you'll find something for a makeover but with the risk of getting in a "never ending story" and motivation gets lost.
During Dacy's trip, the landscape can change and if you think, that your old and new styles don't fit together, maybe you can use both kind of arts, if you create something like a time-tunnel or let her fall somewhere in again to show up in this wonderful scene to explain the changing (she'll get used to it after the canyon behind the hedge ;D)?
Good luck -I hope you will find your way!
It's a gorgeous background. I would love to see this in one of your games if not this one. Keep at it=)
One option is to speed up the process by making modular background elements such as slopes, grass, cliffs, rocks, trees, etc. and pasting them into a image to create the outline of the level. Detailing further and fixing the seams as you go along.
@Tabata: Thats a cool idea. To be honest the engine, engine and graphics already quite far progressed but the story is more of a concept than a plot.
@Damien: I thought of this, but came to the conclusion, that it would take actually longer (at least perceived time) to separate,rearrange and blend them together - than just doing it. Im actually doing this kind of - i start of with the black silhouette style of Dacey I which I used to construct out of custom brushes (e.g. you can see it at the trees).
Lovely!
I also have this problem: I get better with every background I do, so I can't really create a consistent game :D. I always have to go back to the older bg's and overhaul them. And then, I got better again and must overhaul the newer ones, too. It's a never-ending circle of redoing, so the game never gets done. :D
Could you say what resources from Ben and Theo you're referring to?
Sure, Ben did a nice tutorial somewhere around here - he got me the idea to start with a plain dark shape and "carving out" the lightning. I also studied the BGs from Airwave, cause I thought they where lovely.
Theo did a quick tutorial of his workflow - sketching cleaning, volume shading (which was very helpful for me - doing the shading fist and thinking about color later). The HD screens gave me also a good insight into the way he was doing them
Quote from: mode7 on Mon 21/02/2011 10:40:10
Sure, Ben did a nice tutorial somewhere around here - he got me the idea to start with a plain dark shape and "carving out" the lightning. I also studied the BGs from Airwave, cause I thought they where lovely.
Theo did a quick tutorial of his workflow - sketching cleaning, volume shading (which was very helpful for me - doing the shading fist and thinking about color later). The HD screens gave me also a good insight into the way he was doing them
*Possibly* you're referring to these?
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=40058.msg527913#msg527913
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41677.msg551572#msg551572
I agree, they are both awesome=)
@straydog: right these are the ones
I did another one and now I ran into a problem: You see the house? everything elseis fine but the house is awkwardly shaded - i just didnt know how to approach the shading - suggestions or even an overpaint are highly apprechiated.
(http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9015/act2painting2.th.png) (http://img210.imageshack.us/i/act2painting2.png/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
The only thing I see wrong is the tree next to the house. The house lacks light, but it's awesome. Now if you want to light it, you need a light source, obviously.
The rocks are basically darker in the middle, the house is equally textured and coloured, so I'd suggest just hinting on the look on the edges (and stuff like windows) and make the inner sides black.
The parallax background would look so much better if you had aliased edging on the sprite layers.
anian - well that could work and it would make my life easier - now that I looked at it again I also realized that the colors are somehow odd.
ryan - I had this before and it does look better - Unfortunately AGS can't handle it even at D3D. As this is a platformer game even slight slowodowns get anoying, especially when jumping because itr has to load the jumping frames.
Are you creating that entire world as one sprite? That can definitely slow things down. I'd probably crop them into small chunks (probably the size of the screen resolution) and only load the visible chunks from each layer into 4 objects.
No guarantees that it wouldn't have slow downs, but it should definitely be much faster. Plus the background could stay at the game resolution with a blank color instead of it having to load a gigantic background each load. You'd have to use a grid system for where the ground is instead of using regions or whatever.
I know all that techno gabble doesn't belong in the CL, but I strongly insist that you have AA edging. That's the reason why I posted it all. It would improve the visuals of the game greatly.
Also, there's kind of a blurry wax crayon look to it. Anyway it can be sharpened up a bit?
Wellthe BGs as you see them represent one sprite.
I know what you are suggesting, it just seems very complicated to pull off.
How would I setup my walkable areas and hotspots? Also constantly loading 640 sprites into an object might cause the game to lag.
I wonder if using AGSBlend would be quicker than using AGS own blending routines - any ideas?
Yeah they can be sharpened and they already are - it has probably to do with the brush I'm using - but I'm not ready for the had edged 18 round brush just yet
Basically I meant that the room stays at the same size as the game resolution. Then the objects move around instead of the viewport moving around. Once the chunks move off the side of the screen, they'd have to swap their coordinates to the other side of the objects.
[a][b]
[c][d]
If you're moving to the right, the objects would be moving to the left. A and C would soon slide off the left side and they would need to be changed onto the right side of B and D. Or vise verse if you're traveling in the other direction or up or down.
It requires a lot more programming knowledge, and if you're uncertain how to do it, I guess you're probably better off going with the room approach with hotspots and such. I was only suggesting you did it that way so I could enjoy it with beautiful AA layers.
I'm not sure if it's the brush you're using, it almost seems like it was up-scaled slightly. So it has a blurriness in the strokes where it should almost look smoother and darker shades.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Tue 22/02/2011 02:10:08
I'm not sure if it's the brush you're using, it almost seems like it was up-scaled slightly. So it has a blurriness in the strokes where it should almost look smoother and darker shades.
+1. Maybe you should use a sharper brush. Those graphics look AMAZING from the distance, but a bit blurry when seen closely.
You might be right - I give the sharper brush a try.
@Ryan - I get the concept but I don't think it will work in my framework - as I'm using walkable areas for collision detection and it would therefore mean recoding the whole engine.
About the idea using AGS blend - Any experience if this is actually faster then AGS' own alpha blending?
Quote from: mode7 on Tue 22/02/2011 11:46:54
About the idea using AGS blend - Any experience if this is actually faster then AGS' own alpha blending?
I asked the exact same quesiton to Calin Leafshade in AGSBlend's thread. He said that it's faster only if your game uses 32-bits graphics. Otherwise you're just having it perform a bunch of ncessary calculations to convert color depths.
EDIT: About tutorials on colors choice and shading design, here is a small one I wrote and went quite unnoticed. I'm posting it because I find similarities with Theo's one: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=42783.0
Quote from: mode7 on Mon 21/02/2011 19:20:58
I did another one and now I ran into a problem: You see the house? everything elseis fine but the house is awkwardly shaded - i just didnt know how to approach the shading - suggestions or even an overpaint are highly apprechiated.
It may sound too simple (and maybe it is stupid/impossible), but can't you switch on the light's in some or most of the rooms in the house (or put a little lamp outside at the frontdoor) ???
Quote from: mode7 on Mon 21/02/2011 19:20:58
I did another one and now I ran into a problem: You see the house? everything elseis fine but the house is awkwardly shaded - i just didnt know how to approach the shading - suggestions or even an overpaint are highly appreciated.
I'll chip in my humble opinion, though goodness knows I lack any sensible art skills to speak of..
I think the problem you're having with the house is the (lack of a) light source. The rest of the level seems to be lit by those alien looking plants (um, unless it's underwater which, you know, would also be awesome..). It looks
FANTASTIC but there's no equivalent light source near the house.
I think artificial lighting from inside the house would help, yes, but what about the background? Is there going to be a natural light source like the sun or the moon back there? What time of day is it? Looking at the top of the landscape, particularly around the well and on the right hand side, would suggest there's a light source up above. Yet the top of the house remains in shadow.
Probably not very helpful at all though. I'll just slink off back to my scribbles now.
Quote from: straydogstrut on Tue 22/02/2011 20:01:08
Probably not very helpful at all though. I'll just slink off back to my scribbles now.
Quite helpful indeed. You're right above the roof.
Also nice idea Tabata, I'll have to try this.
I also think the problem of the house is due to my inabiliy to shade big plain areas.