here is what i have:
(http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/3952/innenhof4bf.jpg)
it's empty till now but before i go on i want to have some feedback. what do you think?
it depends. The outlines are ok, i.m.o. but I would get rid of textured fillings. You shouldn't use that. You should draw over the parts you want to colour, with a brush, of 10% opacity.
If you don't understand, I'll explain it in my pixelart tutorial here: http://minimi.spijbelaars.com/solidus/tutorials.html
It's a bad background, I'm afraid.
You used too many textures and the perspective is way off.
Sadly, the bright colours make it unatractive to watch it, too.
:'(
Don't take it too hard, though. You CAN draw better with PSP/PS/GIMP.
i don't take it too hard :)
if it's shi* than it's shi*. i have to do better. no problem.
Good to see you take it like a man.
This is the usual comment about perspective.
(http://www.twin-design.com/ags/help/paulyb_help01.png)
As for textures: select an area and use burn/dodge/sponge/darken/lighten/noise.
Since you did ask I have to say that it's a bad BG (sorry ;D)
As said before the perspective is way off, but on the contrary I like the tectures you use.
Sadly though, I cannot even begin to understand what's the thing on the right. Is it a path or something.
Ok. Just got it. It's a roof. Well it doesn't show like it...
I like the wall but the side of the fireplace should be rotated like 40 degress? Right now they're straight. I hope you don't take it too hard...
Also change the texture, either of the roof, or of the top on the fireplace. It's made exactly the same.
PS. I like the ball-clock, on the fireplace. I hope that this is what it is.
But I don't feel tired looking at it at all. I'm actually drawn to looking at it more... (The opposite of Jet). But then again, this is kind of personal, I think...
thx for your critics. i put this bg away and made a new one. i hope this looks a bit better then the old one. i didn't spent much time on it till now so don't expect to much:
(http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/6721/innenhof34bp.jpg)
(http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/3927/innenhof27dv.jpg)
i put it two times here because one is the "normal one" without anything and the otherone is my try to make it look better. probably someone can give me an example how to make it look better. thx
Ok, try to actually take time yourself drawing a background and then post here. The perspective is way off. Are those windows? they look rubbish, and I can see weird white lines.
Also, don't use stupid standers Photoshop filters, as you used in your second picture.
You seem to have it in you, as I can see that the architecture is well thought out, but you need to spend more time drawing, and don't hurry it! I spend 5 - 8 hours per background... as im sure you can do it quicker, but I want it to be good!
GL
Well I don't know, minimi, relax a little...
The perspective is again off, but not so much as before. It is better...
The wall on the left of the church (?) looks as if it's going to fall any time now.
About the textures you know what. I kinda like the second one better. It is tottally weird but I like it. It seems as if drawn with water colours...
And I don't like the white lines.
BTW that building in the middle, it is a church right? Before it looked like a fireplace. What is it?
I see big improvents in the second picture.
The white lines is obviously something you need to change, but I think you already knew that before you posted your picture here. So, keep up the good work and practice. ;)
--Erwin
Quote from: jet on Mon 03/10/2005 21:51:26
It's a bad background, I'm afraid.
You used too many textures and the perspective is way off.
Quote from: nikolasideris on Mon 03/10/2005 22:15:45
As said before the perspective is way off
Actually, there's (almost) nothing wrong with the perspective. All parallel lines in the scene are roughly parallel in the picture, and that's a completely acceptable and realistic type of projection. You see it in games all the time.
The textures, however, are hideous.
In your new drawing you use a much more complex type of perspective (looks like a triple point view), and get it so right that I wonder, did you draw it from a photo or a rendering? The general shapes look really, really good. There are two immediate improvements you can make:
1) Stay away from the Photoshop filters.
2) Turn off antialiasing on the line tool. This gets you rid of the white outlines around the straight lines.
Are you familiar with layers? If not, you should learn how to use them. They'll allow you to work on your textures without messing up the outlines of the drawing. After that, I would start thinking about how the scene is lit and how shadows fall. You also need to turn down the saturation of most of your colors. The green and the blue are currently far too bright and deep. Try using some photo reference to pick the real range of colors that you find in grass or the sky.
There are also some tutorials I think can really help you. This one (http://www.barnettcollege.com/tutorial1.htm) can be useful for the sky and the grass, perhaps. You might be able to use some of the techniques in this tutorial (http://amberfisharts.com/foa2/artwork/tutorials/basic) to make bricks on the walls. (I think there's a better one somewhere, but I can't be bothered to track it down.) And this one (http://herculeaneffort.adventuredevelopers.com/tutorials/ian/background.html) by Big Brother should be studied in school.
There are plenty of other good tutorials out there, but a lot of my links seem to be broken.Ã, :(
But you've made a good start, and I look forward to see you continue to improve.
The first one is SCARY I must say... it's somewhat off place, but so fascinating, that trying to understand it one can't take one's eyes off of it :)Ã, Hey, maybe you can do some psychedelic adventure and add that one to it, other than the comments earlier, I like it...
The second one... hmmm, ditch the white lines and I definately like the upper pic, but the second one looks as if there was a lot oil spilled on my screen... which I hope isn't the fact here [Tuomas wipes his screen]... no, nothing here :) And admit it, filters, tools such, they suck so deep. I dare you to take a good look out up in the sky and then think wherther it looks like that. It doesn't. so Don't use them as is said earlier...
Neither of the Bgs are bad. Though neither of them is ready... Your ideas are great and I'd like to see them well coloured...
Quote from: Minimi on Tue 04/10/2005 12:37:59
you need to spend more time drawing, and don't hurry it! I spend 5 - 8 hours per background... as I'm sure you can do it quicker, but I want it to be good!
You listen to him.. there's no easy way... hmmm, or you do like I do and spend a week on each one...Ã, ;D well, soon I'm changing to hand drawn too...
Aagghh, still can't stop looking at the first one... is there some spell in it... there's someone living in that picture!!! argh
first of all thx for your critics again.
@ nikolasideris
it's a church (or should be... ;))
@ Snarky
i took a scene from a game to improve the perspective. i am really bad in drawing backgrounds (as you all could seeÃ, ;)). i just remembered a scene in gothic with a church. so i took a screenshot of it and tried my best to copy it (as a beginning).
@ Tuomas
i like your idea of a "psychedelic adventure". probably we can collect such scary backgrounds and make a game out of it.Ã, :)
and yea...the white lines...MAN I WAS JUST TO LAZY TO GET RID OF THEM!Ã, :) but in the near future i get rid of them. thx again.
~}Shade{~
Actually, I quite like it.
The perspective looks allright to me. As someone pointed out, it's probably best to stay away from standard filters. I know it's tempting, but just stay away.
I think you got those white lines because the line tool didn't have the anti aliasing on. Therefore when you trace, you get lots of light grey pixels around your line that the paint bucket does not fill in. Checking the anti-aliasing box will probably save you a lot of pixel-by-pixel work.
You mean the other way around. The tool DID have antialiasing on, creating lots of grey and off-white pixels around the line. Antialiasing tries to reduce jagginess by smoothing black lines out with grey pixels.
Quote from: Snarky on Tue 04/10/2005 21:23:31
You mean the other way around. The tool DID have antialiasing on, creating lots of grey and off-white pixels around the line. Antialiasing tries to reduce jagginess by smoothing black lines out with grey pixels.
Yeah that.
I just got mixed up.
me again. this time i tried to use the forceÃ, ;) so how about that?
(http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/8607/innenhof42pe.jpg)
Bevare of the dark side :) I don't know what you did to it, I'm not familiar with the program you're using, but it looks better... however it doesn't look good. It seems as if there were some kind of smog all over the pic. I assume you ised sime kind of dark blur thingie? The windows of the church don't look like they were made of glass, of if they were, they were coloured oddly.
The yellow pilars were better coloured in the first try in this one all the colours look a bit candy-ish I you get me... I'm very distracted with the smog, there's some on the grass too I guess... the lawn loks liek a velvet mat, not like a grass...
And uh, I just noticed, the brown line in fornt of the house. Looking at the corner on our left it loks as if the wall would push in when going up, but the at the left corne the opposite, as in if the walls were in different depths, on the right upper deep and on the left lower deep. This wouldn't make any sense, and I don't know if it does right now :) Then the yellow pillar that seems to be mising from the right side, I don't know if it's meant to be symmetrical or not...
QuoteIt seems as if there were some kind of smog all over the pic.
it was a little bit foggy when i drew the backgroundÃ, ;)
but okay i will try it in another way. but one thing i don't know is: how to make my "velvet mat" look like grass?
QuoteBevare of the dark side
I AM THE DARK SIDE!Ã, ;D
Ehm........ BEHOLD!!!
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8217/grass8ju.png)
Damn I'm good
...
...
Well of course it's grass... anyway, this is how they usually do it, a bit better perhaps
The key to grass patterns is... a grass pattern! Really... not that hard.
(http://www.louislbooth.com/grass.JPG)
Here's a crappy grass pattern example I made a while back. Pattern made with "Animated Confetti" in The Gimp.
You don't always have to draw textures per see, you can draw small variations in light and shadow, or just a few "hints" as to what texture it is, like only some lines to represent an entire brick wall.
If you can make nice clean outlines which don't stand out too strongly, I definitely think you should add them, as your style is rather cartoonistic, and the colours aren't good enough to support the whole structure.
The scene is obviously based on (maybe even traced from) a photo or some other reference, which is why it has this rather "artificial" perspective. It's not wrong, but it doesn't really look like we would comprehend such a scene with only our eyes.
So for now:
1. Add some sort of soft outlining.
2. Clean up lines and areas. Right now there are so many skewed angels and stray pixels.
3. Work with shadows, try to add cast shadows, to create some sort of depth.
4. Get rid of those last filter effects - the gradients or whatever, and continue with brushes.
Good luck.
PS: If you find this hard, start by adding a nice outlining and do some cleaning up, and I can help you with the textures and details.
all right another try.
(http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/9263/innenhof72jr.png)
i hope it is getting closer to what it should look like.
Quotebut okay i will try it in another way. but one thing i don't know is: how to make my "velvet mat" look like grass?
Holy cow! This is - like - third or fourth topic past last 3 days where someone asks how to do grass! Looks like there's new trend in Critics Lounge, asking/teaching how to make a grass!
Anyways, millennia ago, some people (myself, for example) made tutorials for easy and nice grass. Check it out: (xVid codec needed)
http://www.increator.pri.ee/kino/grass.avi
As you see, I used ArtGem to make grass. But I'm sure any over-the-MSpaint program has similar possibilities.
Enjoy! :D
One word: Antialiasing.
Don't use it.
i didn't use antialiasing. i think i just uploaded the wrong image. i edited my post.
I don't think you really did anything that I (or anybody else) suggested, so I went ahead to show what I meant:
(http://www.nolore.com/picmisc/andyedit.png)
NOTE: This is not a finished background. There is still more to do with it. Only use this as some sort of pointer as to how you could edit it. After you have reached this stage, we can move on to realistic textures and more details.
Edit:
1. Added some sort of hasty outlining. You need to carry this out more carefully by yourself. I'm not saying that out-lining is always right, but in this particular case I think it helps lifting the structure of the image.
2. Did some cleaning. It's still full of stray pixels and sloppy lines.
3. Got rid of gradients and other effects/filters.
4. Added shadows and highlights to give it a realistic outdoor feeling, plus to create a depth.
5. Lowered saturation, changed the colour-scheme slightly.
and some other stuff.
andail you never ceise to amaze me with your brush work ;D :o
Am I the only one who finds Shade's BG very much workable? I think they are very nice. Even the one you posted before could have been used. If you could make all the backgrounds in this style, it would be a very picturesque game. Who needs outlines, anyway ;D?
There are just one or two things that (I find,) disturb the image:
*The patchiness between the grass and the left building. It is strange, because you seem to carry out the "grassing" reasonably well on the right, without any patchiness.
*The trees and hills(?) in the background don't seem to have any depth. You could follow the shading that Andail used (in your own style ;) ), to give them more depth.