New Background

[PureGhostGR]

This is a background from my upcomming new game. I need help with the image.. specifically the sky..



When I look the image zoomed out, everything feels ok (and that was my mistake I think).. but when I get it in game size the overall mood changes.

I think that I might have used too many patterns.. I feel the image looks buzy and chaotic when it should be giving a calm relaxing feeling..

I need fresh opinions.

Please post your comments. Everything can help.

[TheYak]

It's excellent.  Quite professional in the retro-sense.  Since you want some c&c though:

It's difficult to tell what the central focus of the image is.  Is the action going to take place in the street?  Or is it going to take place on the rooftops?  The image is excellent but if it were redrawn, I would bring the "camera" focus in a couple meters to better bring the road into the center and displace the rooftops somewhat.  

The only thing that makes the image look busy is the massive diffusion.  There are a few options for limiting this.  1) go high-color but suffer the speed consequence and the old-schoolers' scorn 2) have no diffusion but instead have color-banding.  3) make the shades a bit more similar so it has the same "dots" but they blend into each other a little better.  

In my opinion, the rooftop to the left looks fine the way it is but the sky would look cleaner and less distracting if all the patterns were filled with solid colors (if you solid-colored your sky's "wisps" it would look friggin' awesome, IMO).

[Pet Terry]

It's really excellent. But the dithering in the sky looks a bit odd.

But I love that style, keep it up!

[MrColossal]

i agree on the sky, the dithering/pixels are just too big i think to give you proper depth

it scruntches everything up, i think flay colours might help

also the window in the upper left i feel is quite awkward, actually the entire building on the left looks awkward to me. i don't know if enough information is giving on how it's supposed to look so it just feels like a jumble of flat planes

the final thing that i definetly think you should change is right in the middle of the image there's the peak of a house in the background and right on top of it there's the peak of the foreground roof overhand, it looks cluttered and it merges the perspective at that point for me

i'd say shorten the foreground roof so that we can see more of the building in the background and the fore/middle/background planes will be restored a little.

but meanwhile awesome colours woop!

[PureGhostGR]

YakSpit: Yeap you are right about the sky.. I already tried a few things with flat colors but it would look even worse than this.. I have to figure out something..

About the perspective. The action takes place in both areas. That is what makes it a mess. The main character will be sitting at the edge of the rooftop overlooking a festival on the street. (what a mess).

Petteri: Thanks for the positive reply.

Mr.Colossal: Very well spotted! The building on the left is actually a later addition. I couldn't get things to look good enough on the perspective and still keep the roof surface seem walkable.. So I had to flatten everything.

I am still not sure how to go about changing the left building. The building does look "Static" and the front cut window makes matters only worse..

I will have to think this more..

Thanks everyone for their replies.

[Evil]

The first thing I have to say is...

HOLY SHITE THAT IS SOME GREAT DITHERING!

The only thing that I think I would change is the left buildings roof, like the others have said. But thats if I had to.

[oscar]

it looks f***** awesome the way it is...don't change it dude

[Rincewind]

Dude, I don't know if it's legal to make backgrounds that are as close to the MI-style as this one... It's just totally spot on...

Now since I'm not nearly as talented as the rest of you, I can only say that the roof in the foreground is the thing that bothers me - It just feels as if it takes up to much of the screen, imo.  But other than that I haven't got anything to complain about. Great stuff!

[PureGhostGR]

Evil & oscar: Thank you both

Rincewind: There is alot of credit in what you say. I admit that I am trying to learn ways to recreate the older styles.

However, that being said, I must also point out that "this" is the reason I took up AGS. I wanted to make games that reminded me of that "golden" era of adventure gaming.

The backgrounds are not ripped. They are not even remotely copied.

I am not making games to offend peoples intelligence. I just wanted to remake some of the magic I experienced when I was a child.

But... perhaps you are right.

[Kweepa]

Ghost, I'm sure Rincewind was joking when he said that. I doubt anyone would seriously criticize the style of this piece. Even if they do, please don't take it to heart - I want to see more!

I agree about the sky - the dithering looks good.
The only thing that bothered me about the pic was the coincidence of the corner of the near roof with the point of the roof behind it, like eric said.

Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!

[Rincewind]

Aye, Steve is right, I wasn't trying to accuse you of stealing backgrounds or ripping stuff - I can guarantee you that I am not!
I'm sorry if I offended you in some way, it was definitely not my meaning - All I wanted to say was that it kicked serious butt, and that it was really close to the orginal MI-style, which is great.

So, no worries, eh?  

[Ben]

Beautiful background. This is the kind of style I love, and have been trying to learn for about four years.. This background shows a lot of effort and attention to detail.

As for the dithering, I think all you need to do is change the pattern. I think it's that cross-hatching that makes it look busy. Maybe something like this would work better?:

Code: ags

00000000
00000000
0 0 0 0 
_0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 
_0 0 0 0
        
_0 0 0 0
        
_0 0 0 0

It doesn't quite look right.. Maybe I should post a picture instead