Adventure Game Studio

Creative Production => Critics' Lounge => Topic started by: Akumayo on Fri 03/02/2006 23:14:54

Title: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Fri 03/02/2006 23:14:54
Hello all, this is my first space background.Ã,  Due to my extreme lack of awesome skills, I went for a very basic palette, and a calm color mix, not a clashing array of anti-aliased blends of radience... So yeah, I went for a cleaner, but cheaper look...
Due to my lack of patience, I built an AGS program to make starfields for me, after that, the background is made through MS-Paint.Ã,  I need something to make:
a) The star look more like a star, and less like another moon.
b) Something more in the background, or a way to slightly bring out the noticability of the blue cosmic dust in the background without actually changing the color of the dust itself...
c) The ring around the primary planet to look more like a ring, and less like randomly scattered dust.

Now the image...

(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/mirksystem.PNG)

And an alternative:

1.  Added rings around central planet
2.  Changed pink moon to yellow
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/mirksystemringedyello.PNG)

Thank you for any critic or advise you can give.

-Regards, Glacies Akumayo
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: MarVelo on Fri 03/02/2006 23:28:26
The pink planet(yes?) looks like a testicle. I like how you did the stars. The big green planet seems a little to simple and I dont know if the shadow on half of it would project like that.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sat 04/02/2006 02:52:06
I know that the shadow looks awkward, I'm not going to worry with it until I have the star looking like a star. 

Now some information on the bodies pictured:
---
The central planet (green one) is supposed to be simple.  It's atmosphere is 90% chlorine gas, so the surface features and lower clouds are impossible to see through the haze.  The upper-right moon is rich in oxygen, ozone, and water, and is therefore more inhabitable.  The object behind the upper-right moon is supposed to be orbiting the upper-right moon directly, and the upper-right moon orbits the green planet.  The lower-left moon is supposed to have a deadly hot atmosphere similar to that of Venus's, the atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulferic gases (smelly no?).
---
The stars I made with a program in AGS, because I suck at transparency levels in MS-Paint.  Even with the updated picture (rings around main planet, yellow moon), the original three problems in the first post remain.

-Regards, Glacies Akumayo
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Neil Dnuma on Sat 04/02/2006 03:52:40
If you step back, it looks like a duck trying to squeeze an egg out.

The main problem is that there's no sense of distance between the planets/moons, they seem tacked onto each other. Try spreading things more out. Check out this image (http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/moon/PlanetXMoon-orbits-labels.jpg), for ideas on shading (or google some). Remember, The dark side of the moon (great album), is the nightside. And night is pretty much black.

In the end it's your choice wether it's supposed to look realistic or stylized/cartoonish, but realism is the best starting point. Oh, and Paint is not the way to go!
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Sean on Sat 04/02/2006 11:52:22
I don't see why this needs any improvement. If your going for a nice, clean cartoony feel then you've achieved your goal  ;D
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sat 04/02/2006 23:15:09
Hrm... I see the duck... not exactly what I'm going for.  I'll try to change the shading to something much darker... I hadn't really thought of how it would -really- look, just how I -wanted- it to look...

Quote from: Neil Dnuma on Sat 04/02/2006 03:52:40
Oh, and Paint is not the way to go!

I don't have any other option  :P
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: vict0r on Sat 04/02/2006 23:24:36
Why isnt paint the way to go? It's a matter of preference. I use paint for everything, and it works fine for me :)
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sat 04/02/2006 23:50:51
The only reason I really dislike using Paint is that you can't pick up a color from the canvas and edit it directly, you can't paste it into your palette, in other words, so you don't have access to darkening/lightening/tinting it anymore... which makes things very difficult.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Damien on Sat 04/02/2006 23:54:42
Well, it's too crowded for a space background. Try making one planet and a sun far back. then practice your pixelling skills by adding texture to the planet, glow and so on.

You could make some stars with 1px size and make some of them a bit darker. Then add 4 or 5  of them in 2x2 px and in the the end draw a couple of largest ones (like the ones you have now).

As for the blue lines in the background, I suggest making them more purple but also more visible and i suggest drawing them in a solid color instead of using the spraycan. In fact, don't ever use the spraycan tool.

Draw your palette by the side of the image that you won't use and try to limit the colorcount.


Oh, and BTW paint is almost a perfect tool for pixelart, I guess most of you didn't even know that it has a color replacer tool and 10x zoom. Also, using layers can be simulated too if you seperate your image into a few pieces and use selection tool properly.

Oh and Akumayo, you can do that. Just select a color you want to edit, and click colors>edit colors and then click on "Define custom colors"
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 00:01:57
Quote from: Damien on Sat 04/02/2006 23:54:42
Oh and Akumayo, you can do that. Just select a color you want to edit, and click colors>edit colors and then click on "Define custom colors"

WOW!!!  I love paint perfectly now!!!  That's excatly the feature I always wanted!
I'll try your suggestions, and post a revised image later...

(I did know about x10 zoom and color replacement tools)
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Haddas on Sun 05/02/2006 00:50:26
Ok..


So I  MAY have gotten a bit carried away here...



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Haddas/meeeh.jpg)
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: fred on Sun 05/02/2006 00:51:40
I also made a program that could draw stars in AGS a while back. Here's how far I got. I wanted the light from the different stars to overlap and enhance itself, which was a bit of a problem considering the amount of color values that would have to be stored and remembered.

(http://www.itu.dk/people/hermund/stars004.PNG)

MSPaint is very slow and unhandy for painting stars (although it can be done beautifully if you have the discipline/patience). If you can get your hand on 3d Studio Max somewhere, there's a great tutorial on making stars, nebulae and planets included (at least in version 6). This is the title-screen for the AGS-game I'm working on. It was made using that tutorial.

(http://www.itu.dk/people/hermund/01.jpg)

Also, to give AGS the final word, here's a shot from within the game. It has multiple "rooms" like this with huge scrollable backgrounds that are dynamically painted on entrance. Basically, AGS paints them by painting stars and nebula-sprites on top of each other on the whole area, each with a random transparency setting. The picture is a bit dark, I know, but it's no problemÃ,  in full-screen mode. If you wonder about the vertical green bars in the scene, they are animated during gameplay, as to scan space from the player spaceship's position. They scan the scene and trail the green radar "bleeps" that can also be seen.

(http://www.itu.dk/people/hermund/screenshot008.PNG)

Note: You just posted your last update while I was typing this - it's freaky, but you're getting there ;-)

Edit: Just noted that Haddas was behind the last update - should have guessed.  ;D
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 00:55:52
Haddas:  How the f*ck did you do that!?  Amazing!!!

fred:  My AGS program will hopefully eventually create nubulae, galaxies, and better stars, much like the one you describe.  I'm not too fond of using 3D programs though... I tried blender for a while, and quit... too much time for such poor results (mostly becuase of my poor ability)
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Haddas on Sun 05/02/2006 01:00:06
Photoshop. I got bored, so it gradually got worse. nebula first, stars later, then sun etc.... and finally the cheeseball. and then i couldn't be bothered to make the last planet.

Photoshop 7 + Google Image search for Nebula + Google search for Tutorials for nebulas and starfields. For the planets a laaaaaarge controlled comination of filters.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 01:03:17
I don't have photoshop... :'(
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: fred on Sun 05/02/2006 01:07:09
"The GIMP" ia a free Photshop-clone with many of the same features.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 01:13:57
Hrm... I've looked at GIMP several times, but always chose not to download becuase I can't find its licensing information.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: fred on Sun 05/02/2006 01:20:05
Ok, well. I don't think there are any constraints on how you can use it. You can even download the source and make your own build. I've had it for some time, and there haven't been any "Upgrade Now" or "Become a registered user" pop-ups so far, if that's what you worry about.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 01:23:18
I was more worried about it being free for commercial use, not that I'd use it commercially, I just feel more comfortable with free for commercial use programs.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: fred on Sun 05/02/2006 01:26:31
Guess it won some award for being 100% free and stable

http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/The-Gimp-Clean-5446.html

Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Sun 05/02/2006 01:30:29
Excellent!  I'll download it immediately!
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: seaduck on Mon 06/02/2006 15:19:05
Hey, interesting picture!

I don't like the sun being cut in quarter by the corner of the image - that's not a good composition.

From a stellar-mechanics point of view:

1. Most planets AND their moons orbit roughly in the same plane - the ecliptical plane (or a few degrees +-). Your orbital planes are totally random.

2. The star/planet/moon sizes seem rather off (even when accointing for perspective)
- AFAIK complex moon systems could not survive too close to the sun (and your sun seems too close/big)
- Your system has a star, a planet, moons and a second-order moon. For such a complicated system not to fall apart it is vital that SUN SIZE >> PLANET SIZE >> MOON SIZE >> 2.ORDER MOON SIZE (>> .. much greater than) and also SUN-PLANET DISTANCE >> PLANET-MOON DISTANCE >> MOON-2.O.M DISTANCE

Haddas: Nice paintover, I'm not a fan of all those nebulae/gasses in the starfields because that's definitely NOT how space looks like. White stars on black background is what it looks like, it's portrayed IMO perfectly e.g in Star Trek and Star Wars and looks cool.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Haddas on Mon 06/02/2006 17:57:30
Quote from: seaduck on Mon 06/02/2006 15:19:05
Haddas: Nice paintover, I'm not a fan of all those nebulae/gasses in the starfields because that's definitely NOT how space looks like. White stars on black background is what it looks like, it's portrayed IMO perfectly e.g in Star Trek and Star Wars and looks cool.

Fair enough. I know what space looks like, however I wasn't reaching for realism, but prettiness. I'm still proud abut how the sun came out though...
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: fred on Mon 06/02/2006 21:05:07
Using space as a game background, is reason enough to make it visually interesting, so I think you made the right choice.

Space is infinite, right, so who knows what it looks like? I think that towards the center of a galaxy, dust and nebulae will actually be visible. Earth is on the outer rim of our galaxy, but the Milky Way can still be seen as a somewhat denser white belt across the sky.

Of course there was Douglas Adams, who was convinced that from some far away point in space, all the stars would line up on the sky to form a very rude word. I'd take his word, if anyone's, on the matter.
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Nikolas on Mon 06/02/2006 21:13:07
As it happen I was toying with photoshop and a tutorial given by Darth and ended up with this:
(http://www.nikolasideris.homecall.co.uk/star.jpg)

Just to make this thread a little slower... :D
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Sean on Mon 06/02/2006 21:21:48
Link me off to the tutorial?

Might come in handy for backgrounds and site template design.

:D
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Akumayo on Mon 06/02/2006 23:26:26
Hrm... Seaduck makes a few excellent points... I'll have to post an updated image soon.Ã,  Once I re-tackle this image...

EDIT:

In this I took darth's shading advice and did my best to follow seaduck's distance advise.Ã,  I'll say, it looks much much more realistic, but now it sort of looks like there's some kind of planetary alignment going on.Ã,  I tried moving the golden 2 moon between the main moon and the large planet, but it just looked strange then.Ã,  I'll keep trying.Ã,  (Added white orbital lines to show planet/moon intended movement)

(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/mirksystemwringedtypetwob.PNG)

Things to be done:
-Shade the golden moon properly (not yet becuase needs to moved around some)
-Figure out a way to make the sun not look stupid
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: on Tue 07/02/2006 00:01:46
Nikolas, you seem to have the artist's touch ... or it's just an excellent tutorial  ;D
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Haddas on Tue 07/02/2006 09:14:43
Nikolas, What tutorial are you using? LINK PLZ!!1

What I've done without the tutorials:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Haddas/starstars.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Haddas/deargodtoomany.jpg

and

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3894/fail0qx.jpg
Title: Re: My first space background...
Post by: Nikolas on Tue 07/02/2006 09:29:32
http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html

Buloght, Haddas, you have repsonded to the thread where I foudn this. You must've seen this.

There you go Sean! Enjoy guys!