My first *real* background

[Dan2552]

ok. this is my first from-nothing AGS background.

tell me what you think



it's the screen for the intro and theres gonna be writing explaining etc. (kinda like the intro for LBA1)

[Andail]

Is the ship gonna move? Will you animate the waves around it?
The ship looks a bit flat, don't you think? Since the horizon is positioned much higher up, we expect to see some of the ship from above. Right now, there's no perspective at all.

The sea needs plenty of work, as it lacks any sort of reflections, waves, shades etc at the moment.

Establish a lightsource and add shadows accordingly.

Some few things to get you going. Good luck.

[Dan2552]

Is the ship gonna move? Will you animate the waves around it?
The ship looks a bit flat, don't you think? Since the horizon is positioned much higher up, we expect to see some of the ship from above. Right now, there's no perspective at all.

The sea needs plenty of work, as it lacks any sort of reflections, waves, shades etc at the moment.

Establish a lightsource and add shadows accordingly.

Some few things to get you going. Good luck.

Is the ship gonna move? Will you animate the waves around it?
no

The ship looks a bit flat, don't you think?
yep 

Since the horizon is positioned much higher up, we expect to see some of the ship from above. Right now, there's no perspective at all.
a 3D-like look???


The sea needs plenty of work, as it lacks any sort of reflections, waves, shades etc at the moment.
If I did lots of that kind of stuff wouldn't others backgrounds need a lot of work like that too  i am a lazy person

Establish a lightsource and add shadows accordingly.
i'm crap at that, but i'll try

thanks for the suggestions

[Peter Thomas]

a 3D-like look???

I suppose that's a way of putting it, yes. Just simply put a ship has a deck (I could guess maybe 7 or 8 meters wide?) - and it's odd that we don't even see a fraction of it.

If I did lots of that kind of stuff wouldn't others backgrounds need a lot of work like that too  Tongue i am a lazy person

I understand completely - however, if you're going to post in the crit lounge, make a BIG announcement for each screenie that you DELIBERATELY are using this particular style (ie - no reflections etc). Otherwise you'll be inundated with requests for shadows and lens flares and whatnot.]

Also, you don't HAVE to work with a lightsource. It'd look great, for sure, but it's not the sort of thing you get right first shot. It takes a bit of practice - and if your intent is to release a game soon-ish, then you probably won't care to do lightsource work. Learn it in your spare time so you can use it with future projects

[Dan2552]

a 3D-like look???

I suppose that's a way of putting it, yes. Just simply put a ship has a deck (I could guess maybe 7 or 8 meters wide?) - and it's odd that we don't even see a fraction of it.

If I did lots of that kind of stuff wouldn't others backgrounds need a lot of work like that too  Tongue i am a lazy person

I understand completely - however, if you're going to post in the crit lounge, make a BIG announcement for each screenie that you DELIBERATELY are using this particular style (ie - no reflections etc). Otherwise you'll be inundated with requests for shadows and lens flares and whatnot.]

Also, you don't HAVE to work with a lightsource. It'd look great, for sure, but it's not the sort of thing you get right first shot. It takes a bit of practice - and if your intent is to release a game soon-ish, then you probably won't care to do lightsource work. Learn it in your spare time so you can use it with future projects

i'm not gonna try and rush this project like i did with LBApc - i think that's what made my bored of it
i'll try shadowing, but reflections 

[Dan2552]

that better with the horizon thing?

i'm not sure about the ship's deck-floor colour

[Reptile]

The only problem I see here is that you didn't sketch you're drawing. It is virtually impossible to make a GOOD background without sketching it first with detail. 

[Dan2552]

A sketch is a drawing or other composition that is not intended as a finished work. Sketches usually serve to store ideas for later use.

why sketch when i have the ideas in my head?  i'm no artist, i just want to make a game

EDIT--

what i really mean is, i cant draw with a pencil and only sometimes (like this time) i can draw with a mouse



i think i fixed quite a bit in this edit, i know i still need shading - any help with that?  just some outlines of where the shading would go?

[Peter Thomas]

This is literally a 30 second gig, so don't you even THINK about using this as a template (not that you would, I know), but it's just to give you something to think about. The shading is pretty wrong, but you can see how much it alters the atmosphere. I put smoke in because I could.

Oh, and the green thing isn't actually part of my edit. It's just to point out something that may be the result of a bmp-jpeg conversion? You've got these little light blue lines forming boxes here and there. That's what I tried to circle

[Dan2552]

This is literally a 30 second gig, so don't you even THINK about using this as a template (not that you would, I know), but it's just to give you something to think about. The shading is pretty wrong, but you can see how much it alters the atmosphere. I put smoke in because I could.

Oh, and the green thing isn't actually part of my edit. It's just to point out something that may be the result of a bmp-jpeg conversion? You've got these little light blue lines forming boxes here and there. That's what I tried to circle

[img]http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/ship_image.jpg[/img01.213.1]

yeah - wow the shading does work well.

you put smoke in because you could!?!?!?  that's cruel just because i can't

yeah, those blocks in the sky were buggered up by jpg - took me ages to fix the ship, totally forgot about the sky

[Dan2552]

i dunno what you meant by not using as a template, but it did give me an idea of moving the light source 



i hope that looks right. took me quite a lot of time

[Sam.]

wheeee!

[Dan2552]

wheeee!
[img]http://www.twin-design.com/fafmb/photos/boatanim.gif[/img ]

lol. a bit fast and i think the clouds would need to move too, especually at that speed

[BlackMan890]

He was just showing you what you could do

i will do an update as soon as i can

[Nightfable]

Lol, Zooty! Look at that boat go!! Booya!!

Your background, Dan, is pretty good (especially since you drew it completely with your mouse) although I would change the clouds a little bit-- think puffy round marshmallows stuck together in different sizes -- because right now it looks like the top of incomplete icy mountains.

"Practice makes perfect." -- the more you create backgrounds and add details to improve them, the better you will be at it. Also be prepared to put a great amount of time in your game visuals, most people work by first impression -- you have your own style, even if you find that you're not great with drawings, people will still see the effort you put into them and will be that much more impressed.

Keep it up!!Ã,  ;)Ã, 

[Dan2552]

thanks coffee

:o just noticed something else wrong with my pic, the white foam trail thing is only on the side closest to *you*, when i made it 3d-like i didnt think of the foam stuff

[Dan2552]

i showed 3 of my friends and they all said wow, especiually ones that have seen my artwork before

i got rid of the clouds, not only because i couldn't do them - but because it sets the atmosphere a bit better, it being a clear sky and all (especially for what happens next)

[Disco]

why sketch when i have the ideas in my head?

Well, I can thing of a couple reasons. For starters, I also have the ideas in my head, but without sketching first they will not look much like what I wanted. Take my company screen for instance:


This looks almost exactly like the image I saw in my head. How did I get it so close you ask?


Another reason to sketch first is

Sketches usually serve to store ideas for later use.

Yep, you pretty much nailed it. How many times during  development do you come up with the greatest ideas ever, only to forget what it was days later? You are not always by a computer (well, hopefully). Sketching, though an extra step in creating screens, saves time in most cases

what i really mean is, i cant draw with a pencil and only sometimes (like this time) i can draw with a mouse

Unless you could mouse before you could write, I believe the opposite is true. You may not be happy with your drawing skill, but that's not so important. Look at my sketch for example. It's not DaVinci, but it got me a lot closer to my vision.

[milkanannan]

I don't know much about artwork or backgrounds, but personally, I thought your clouds were pretty good.  I would keep them

[Haddas]

I don't know much about artwork or backgrounds, but personally, I thought your clouds were pretty good.  I would keep them

Yeah. I think the clouds were strangely good compared to the ship in the beginning. :/