Adventure Game Studio

Creative Production => Critics' Lounge => Topic started by: twin-moon on Wed 31/01/2007 23:23:43

Title: hotel corridor background
Post by: twin-moon on Wed 31/01/2007 23:23:43
hi!

here's a background, I'm going for an early SCI style (LSL2 / PQ2). It's supposed to be a corridor on the second floor of a not too classy hotel.

(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u63/ChristiaanTimmer/Hotelcorridorold.png)

I'm posting this mainly for two three reasons:
1. I'm having a little trouble with the stairs going down. do they look right?
2. It looks a little flat. Anyone else think so?
3. are the four doors on the south wall recognisable as doors? a.k.a is this a good way to show six doors?

and other criticism will also be appreciated!

- thanks in advance, Christiaan
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: thewalrus on Wed 31/01/2007 23:51:42
     I don't see any image......
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: Chicky on Thu 01/02/2007 00:39:49
http://twinmoon.freehostia.com/Hotelcorridor.png
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: Khris on Thu 01/02/2007 01:02:28
The host doesn't allow hotlinking, but c&p works.

(http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/2604/hotelcorridorzb7.png)

Please use imageshack.us or something similar.
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: TheJBurger on Thu 01/02/2007 01:14:59
I think it looks pretty good.Ã,  :)

I don't know about the down staircase, but the up staircase bothers me a little. Right now it seems kind of flat and out of perspective with the walls. Perhaps you could try to align it, using the walls a reference point?

The foreground doors look good to me.

One minor nitpick: the bush seems to be tilting to the right just a tad, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not.
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: esper on Thu 01/02/2007 01:50:36
Most games I've seen that require doors in the foreground just show indentations in the floor leading to them, which seems much less intrusive then drawing a dithered semitransparency in the middle of the screen. It might not be too bad for one door, but four... It's taking up the whole screen, really detracting, IMHO...
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: Babar on Thu 01/02/2007 13:36:08
Personally I like the idea of semi-transparent doors, and would be curious to see it working in a game. Very nice background, one suggestion (even though it's ok without it) would be to darken the stairs entrance like you did with the open elevator(?) on the left - darker purple and pink. Maybe you can fix the shading to cover the whole stair-door entrance, I'm having trouble seeing how it shades only half the door.

EDIT:
This is probably not necessary, and I feel dirty editting something that's already so great  :P, but my head was aching from reading my explaination. So here:

(http://babar.squarespace.com/storage/pictures/hotel-edit.gif)
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: thewalrus on Thu 01/02/2007 15:42:10
     I really like the BG, excellent work. What program did you use to create it???
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: nulluser on Thu 01/02/2007 16:34:40
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Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: raddicks on Thu 01/02/2007 17:34:15
Quote from: TheVintageDemon on Thu 01/02/2007 16:34:40
Well, it's great and all, but the scene looks waaay too much like Trilby's Notes. Maybe some way to distinguish it from the rest?

I think thats a bit unfair, thats like saying trilby's notes looks way too much like Maniac Mansion. You can't possibly claim owner ship to a certain style.
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: Khris on Thu 01/02/2007 17:39:30
Quote from: thewalrus on Thu 01/02/2007 15:42:10What program did you use to create it???
Oh how I love that question. It doesn't matter which program one uses as long as it supports pixelling & layers; creating good backgrounds is a question of talent, not the right paint prog.

Some small nitpicks:
The perspective seems to a parallel one, as in the doors in the foreground have the same distance from each other as the doors on the back wall, plus the former are all down and a bit to the left in relation to latter.
While this double-dragon-perspective is fine, the right wall should use it, too.

I'm not a big fan of the dithered shading, and it's not very realistically shaped, too.

The shadow on the left elevator door should be on the right side of the right one.

The shading on the staircase's wall should be a diagonal line starting from the top left corner.
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: raddicks on Thu 01/02/2007 17:42:32
I personally would of chose low opacity noise to dithering
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: R4L on Thu 01/02/2007 20:28:28
Quote from: TheVintageDemon on Thu 01/02/2007 16:34:40
Well, it's great and all, but the scene looks waaay too much like Trilby's Notes. Maybe some way to distinguish it from the rest?

....Yahtzee?

Anyway nice BG. I like the colors alot, and it's very simple (i like simple :)) but I think it needs some more details. Maybe a rug to go along with the floor?
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: nulluser on Thu 01/02/2007 20:44:17
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Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: twin-moon on Fri 02/02/2007 01:42:40
Wow! That's a lot of replies. Thanks!

My server doesn't allow hotlinking? I knew no ads&banners was too good to be true... :(
Hm, never knew there were image hosting sites. Live and learn.

TheJBurger: Hm, I like the stairs the way they are. Sorry, no changing there.

Babar: The extra shading looks better. I'll do that, thanks.

KhrisMUC: OF COURSE! I never thought about the perspective, that's excactly why I didn't like it. Changing the doors on the lower side solves my issues with this bg.
About the shading on the elevator door, even though it's wrong, it looks good.

raddicks: can't use opacity, mimicing early sierra style...

R4L: a rug might improve it, i'll keep that in the back of my head. I'll add it later.

vintageDemon: I don't think it looks like trilby's notes. there's no corpses lying around anywhere ;)
anyway, i'm not gonna change it because it looks like something else.

Here my slight altered version:
(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u63/ChristiaanTimmer/Hotelcorridor.png)

I decided to keep the semi-transparent doors, mainly because I like the crowded feel they give this pic. Removing them makes it look all empty.
And I did this using Paint Shop Pro 8. But any Paint program which supports layers would have done.

anybody still reading all this? thanks for the mostly positive reactions. i believe i'm on the right track with my style.
Title: Re: hotel corridor background
Post by: DutchMarco on Fri 02/02/2007 20:23:43
Quote from: Twin Moon on Wed 31/01/2007 23:23:43
hi!

here's a background, I'm going for an early SCI style (LSL2 / PQ2). It's supposed to be a corridor on the second floor of a not too classy hotel.

(http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u63/ChristiaanTimmer/Hotelcorridorold.png)

I'm posting this mainly for two three reasons:
1. I'm having a little trouble with the stairs going down. do they look right?
* they do to me
2. It looks a little flat. Anyone else think so?
*a bit but I've no idea how to change that without making the BG too cluttered. cracks in the walls? (blood-)stains on them.
3. are the four doors on the south wall recognisable as doors? a.k.a is this a good way to show six doors?
*I think it's fairly original, and works quite OK so long as they don't get in the way of anything the player is supposed to interact with.

and other criticism will also be appreciated!

* You need more faith in your own capabilities :D

- thanks in advance, Christiaan

A fine BG to my standards!
Cheers, Marco