Compare two screens

[The Faction]

I have been working on the title screen for my game today and have come up with two variations that I can't decide between. Comments, criticism and paintovers welcome.





As you can see it is a night scene with a shoreline and dense jungle just past the beach. The thing on the left is a small stream.

Thanks
Nicholas

[Babar]

The first, obviously. Blurring detail never did anybody good. The stream should not be so visible through the forest, though.

[aussie]

I second Babar.

Also, the river delta seems slightly more realistic in the first one.

[InCreator]

I also prefer blurless version. Blur just plainly, simply... sucks.

But!

* Sea fade is way too extreme. From so light blue to complete black.. it's hard to believe.

* The noise on trees is made of 2x2 (or 4x4?) pixels - the noise where forest meets beach should be that bold aswell.

* There's some things that look better on blur version, such as sea fade and river, but neither looks too real. Try to improve them somehow.

[Darth Mandarb]

Eeek!  Blurriness = no no!!

I totally dig the unblurry version though.

I made some minor changes (really quickly in Photoshop) just to give you some ideas.

As was mentioned, there's too much of a color change from the waves, even big waves as night wouldn't (probably) show up that much AND for that long of a distance up and down the shore!

Here's my paintover:



- I achieved that water line with only 3 colors (don't know if you're opposed to dithering like that though).
- I altered the "wetness" marks on the beach.
- the shadows cast from the treeline were altered as well to give a sense of the folliage on the sand.
- covered a little of the river going through the trees (as InCreator mentioned)

If you want to simulate waves (which is tough!) you'll want to use angled lines approaching the shore.  But they shouldn't extend the length of the shore either!

Hope it helps!

[Candle]

I like your paint over Darth Mandarb. makes it much more real looking.