Color/Background Help

[Armageddon]

Any thoughts on this?



I can't seem to find the right colors. I'll probably add a desk or something later. Vault is noisy too.

[selmiak]

with 2 lamps and shadows in the corners already I'd go for shadows like this, maybe even with one more brighter shading level (between shadows and normal color):

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/spLhxZ2.png[/imgzoom]

Dunno about the colors, I like it. maybe add some texture/pattern to the carpet and some metal bars inside the door already.

[jwalt]

I thought it looked pretty good as it stands, other than the vault door being "noisy" with the light streaks. For the heck of it, I threw together a quick model in sPatch.



One observation from my model. I had to kill the cast shadow property of the lights to keep the metal around the globes from throwing shadows all over the room. I'm not convinced Bryce always calculates shadows correctly, but you might think about going with just white globes. It is animated, fwiw.

[Armageddon]

You need to change your render lens length, that's like Vertigo FOV. Thanks for the reference though. Messed with the colors.



I'm trying to leave it as clean as possible so it's easy to keep the "style" consistent.

[waheela]

Armageddon, your pixel work is so clean and gorgeous!

I actually really like the colors. The only thing that looks really off to me is the lighting, especially on the ceiling. I'm not sure the lamps would actually project that much light onto the ceiling, and I think the ceiling's color would be a little more darker than the walls because of this. I know you want to keep it as clean and simple as possible, but I think you may have to add more gradients. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



Hope this is helpful.

[Armageddon]

Not big on the carpet pattern.

[Anian]

If you take Waheela's advice about the lights, which I think look better now, I'd get rid of the shadows in the corners of the ceiling and the walls that meet the ceiling. Thing is, when a light has a strong spot it lights, the rest (unless you're going for dramatic lighting) is going to be diffused and equally lit, thus no strong shadows. You can see that in the photo Waheela put as well, there's a slight gradient towards the corners, but nothing you can really simulate accurately (or to look nice) by pixels, and still keep the style you've decided on.
So I'd get rid of those corner shadows, they just kind of draw off focus from the center of the background to themselves.

I have a few questions:
- is that an open vault door, then another door behind it? does that exist? I think there's usually metal bars (like a prison door) behind the big round vault door.
- is this a house or a bank type of institution? Maybe a bank would put a red carpet that leads to the door, but the actual floor might be b&w or regular tiles
- not too happy about the doorway being right next to a wall, seems unusual enough to be thought of as a mistake in design
- is there some reason the door is not completely round? I'm not talking about the part that meets the floor but the upper parts

[Andail]

Looking good! I think you generally have a good style going here.
Made a paint-over with some subtle changes.
* Removed some of the small patches of dark in the ceiling - they were too small, looking more like dirt than anything else. Also increased the corner shadowing to make it more distinct.
* Brighter lamps. The light source(s) in a room must be much brighter than anything else. Since your background was pretty bright, the lamps have to go white, basically.
* Highlights in ceiling must follow the perspective, so instead of circular I made them more elliptic.
* Added some very crude highlights in the floor, just to demonstrate.
* Added blue panels - I understand you have a stylistic reason for going sepia with your graphics, but a minor complimentary colour here and there can do wonders to liven up the scene.
* Darkened the scene somewhat and increased contrasts, to make it less washed out
* Removed most of the generic reflections on the vault door, and made a more focused reflection of the lamp. Not sure if this is the way to go, but I felt your rendering was far too generic, and a bit distracting. This is more relaxing to the eye, at least.

[dactylopus]

Overall, it's a good looking room.

I think the lines on the floor would become further apart as they approach the viewer.

Andail's paintover covers the rest of the major issues.

Good work!

[selmiak]

just out of interest, will we meet al pacino and robert deniro in your heat mags game?

[Armageddon]

@selmiak, I can't promise anything. 

@Andail, Thanks for the paint over, it's been very helpful. Here is the newest version, I think I'll just use this as final for now and focus on the next room and the rest of the art.



I didn't change it to your colors though, I don't care for the darkness. I kind of like the washed out look now. I maybe have gone overboard with the highlights though?

[waheela]

Wow, it looks tons better!
I know you mentioned you were moving on to another room, but I'll post anyway. Feel free to disregard...
The only things I'd change are the light highlights on the floor (maybe diffuse the light a little to give the carpet texture) and the dark shadows on the floor in the foreground (or at least make them a much lighter shade). Maybe also lighten up those dark spots on the ceiling? Here's a quick, messy paint-over with the marquee tool, you'd probably want to make it prettier...