Space station - Hydroponics (Plants are HARD!)

[WHAM]

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest04.png

Here's the latest edit. Added thickness to the glass, added the tank in the background and added some detail to the floor. Also touched up the two rearmost rows of tubes.

[Babar]

I'm not sure what's going on with the black fade above the tubes, but it might make more sense to have the fade follow the perspective of the room (i.e. it gets lower for the tubes further back).

[Matti]

This looks quite nice already. Babar is right, but personally I don't have a problem with the fading..

[WHAM]

Thanks Matti!

I have no idea how to actually fix the  fade to black at the top, and I don't think that's the topmost issue at the moment. As long as the plants look OK and the room works overall, I'm glad!

Here's another edit:

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest04_with_corn.png

[Darth Mandarb]

I'm lovin' this man ... good stuff.  I like seeing it evolve (CL is good for that!)

I had another idea;



I felt like the green light-bands around the perimeter would be, at least a little bit, illuminating the glass tubes.  I'm not sure about them (how they work in your game's world) so maybe they don't give off ambient light (which I'm guessing they don't 'cause the wall doesn't show it!) but I just felt like glass/reflective tubes would show it in some way!  I had the thought that only the tubes on the outer edges would catch the refraction but I did add a very subtle hint of it to the first tube in as well.

Just a thought! 

[WHAM]

Hehe! I'm actually avoiding extra light sources, to keep shadows etc simpler. The "light band" is actually just a colour-coded band of color on the wall to help crewmen identify the area they are in (for example: white = medical, red = security and so on).

[Monsieur OUXX]

It's getting better and better.
I saw you applied some of the suggestions, and that you overlooked some others.
Here is a summary of some tips :

(for example I advised you to draw the inner line for the glass thickness, but after seeing the result I realized it lacked finish. Instead of drawing 2 lines, just draw a darker, half transparent rectangle. On the example below the rectangle is too opaque but you'll do better than me)

[WHAM]

Yeah, the two lines look a bit crude at the moment, though I'm not sure what exactly you mean by your new fix. I'll have to look into it, though.

I will add a slight shadow to the base of the tubes, though not quite as wide as in your example. Again, keeping it simple is the only reason. I was thinking of animating some of the floor panels so they could be raised, but I think I'll leave it out as it would have no gameplay purpose and it could mess up the shadows.

The darkness that is used to vanish the top parts of the tubes: I don't quite agree with your vision there. If you look at the vanishing points (from the sides of the picture) you'll notice that the vanishing point is at the same height as the top of the door on the left. In that case, t he tubes in the back should disappear LOWER than the ones in front, if I wanted to follow the perspective aspect of the matter. As it is, I only use the darkness to vanish the tubes so that they wont extend to the top of the screen and because I want to avoid drawing ceilings, so I think I wont be changing them. Besides, I use a simple room-wide object which has an alpha channel to simulate the darkening in the final game, and I dont want to bother making three of 'em just for that little detail.

[Monsieur OUXX]

If you look at the vanishing points (from the sides of the picture) you'll notice that the vanishing point is at the same height as the top of the door on the left.

You're right, but then it means the tubes in the background should have their dark part coming down lower (instead of starting higher like I did in my drawing). In any case, it shouldn't stop at the same height as the one in the foreground.

[WHAM]

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/hydroponicstest05.png

Another edit. In my opinion, this is pretty darn close to being finished at last!

[Matti]

It looks quite nice by now, but I would get rid of the back wall gradient, it looks.. bad. I don't know, if you want a transition then you should probably do it like you did with the top of the plant tanks.

[WHAM]

It looks quite nice by now, but I would get rid of the back wall gradient, it looks.. bad. I don't know, if you want a transition then you should probably do it like you did with the top of the plant tanks.

Yeah, I'll still have to look at that part again. I tried a smoother gradient earlier but it looked perhaps a bit too sleek compared to the quite flat colourd of the rest of the game.

[Darth Mandarb]

I know you're probably sick of hearing about the "fade out" at the top but it's really the only thing left that jumps out at me...

How about something like this?



It's very rough as I just copied, pasted, flipped and manipulated a bit (so you can see the 'wall' extending above the actual line of the wall) but you get the idea!

[Monsieur OUXX]

I'm still saying that the black fadeout wouldn't look so bad if it was respecting the overall perspective of the scene. :-)

[WHAM]

Ok, I tried to lower the fader for the rear rows now (sorry Darth, but the idea is that the tubes continue high up before making a turn and merging elsewhere, so I can't give them a visible "end" in this room.)

Here's what I call "the final version". That means that I'm going to take a break from developing it and might look at it again some time later, maybe. Or then I might just stick it in the game as is. Who knows?

http://www.whamgames.com/images/Forumsht/finalhydroponics.png

[Darth Mandarb]

Not a problem!  It's your world to create

[Anian]

A bit of off topic, but you inspired me to try a bit of experimenting with lighting. Not really finished or anything.
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4012/tankpic1.png

[Monsieur OUXX]

Ok, I tried to lower the fader for the rear rows now

Hurray!
You did it slightly too much (it doesn't respect the perspective as the "escape point" for the black shadows is located much lower than the "escape point" of the room itself. Now you have an issue opposite to your initial issue   But it doesn't matter that much. Even if it's not accurate, at least it doesn't look faked.



But apart from that I like your console on the left and the patterns on the floor. The room looks much less dull than at the beginning.
WHAM FTW.

[cianty]

I don't have anything to add really but I'd like to express my liking of the backgrounds nevertheless. They look really promising and I remember enjoying the demo, so yay! Keep it up!