Background c&c - Landscape

[Nhazgul]

Hey folks! This is my first creative post here but feel free to come with your very best creative criticism. I can take it. I made it with a pen tablet in photoshop. Im not so sure about the colours. Also the sky, water, mountains and the ground looks strange. Any suggestions?

[Johnny Odd]

It's pretty blury!! Perhaps that's just the file type you saved it as?
I like the layout - it seems a nicely framed scene. I don't like the way the tree stump goes on to the path -That's all I can think of for now!
P.S. Love the trees!

[..]

It does look very nice.

I suppose you could say the sky looks weird.. I can't see it! Where is it? I agree with Johnny about the stump. If you were driving or walking down that path those roots would cover the whole road almost.

[Gurok]

The cottage in the foreground is AFAIK, out of perspective.
Unless, maybe you're maybe going for a fishbowl lense look? The house seems to grow bigger as it gets further into the background. Here's a quick illustration of what I mean:


The wall and roof on the far side of the building protrude where they shouldn't, and it makes the chimney look a bit weird.

Other than that, I love your sea and sky blending. An overcast sort of gloomy day, to me, they perfectly sum up. And I like the tree stump house that steps out onto the path!

[Nhazgul]

Thanks for the advices! I worked a bit more on the perspective, the mountains and the sky. As for the stump I want the feeling of a rarely used countryroad so I think it should be like it is.
Now it's only the bridge left to be detailed, and maybe the house...

[Andail]

The colour scheme creates a very mystic atmosphere, with an excellent light play...the stump sticks out a bit with its rather sharp brown hue, but it's not a big problem.

I don't think the sky/sea is a big problem; they sort of fade away in the distance, which on one hand can be a bit confusing, but on the other hand just adds to the mystique

[InCreator]

It's very beautiful, I like it.
But as a piece of nice computer art. I really doubt that it may serve any purpose in a game, because it has absolutely no depth!
Like, it even isn't like any other 2D bg is. These pine trees on the left, while looking really pretty - blend onto ground as much that It's too hard to believe they're really not lying on the ground.
What I would do - is remove this heavy blending around things, maybe give serious contrast to different things or add shadows and outlines of some sort. To give more 3D look to everything.

[MrColossal]

so i tinkered in photoshop and i think what i might have done is genericised it



I didn't realize there was a sky there [and i'm still not sure there is] but when I realized it I didn't spend much time throwing one in, anyways:

the reason I changed the colours is because in my opinion it's muddy. The landscape is a brownish greenÃ,  monotone and the house and stump are much more colourful and vibrant that it looks funny to me.

It looks like an overcast, dreary, foggy day, which is fine but the houses don't look like they're reacting to the same light.

I don't think the trees should be so ground coloured, they blend a touch too much in my opinion. Also I took the second to last tree and stretched it up and over the ground into the water. Nothing was really overlapping to create depth.

The mountains look like little hills in the distance and the distance doesn't look all that far off and I think is all do to the "camera" view

here are some images i found, don't know if they'll help

http://www.dislocationphoto.com/foggy.jpg

this one is foggy but there are still greens and colours to be seen

http://www.leishman.org/angechris/images/spiterstulen/grass_roofs.jpg

same with this one.

Now if your intention is not to have a scene with lots of light and colour that's fine but there still has to be variation among the darker colours i feel. Other wise it's just a monotone background.

i also made this:

http://sylpher.com/kafka/junk/edits/landscapeedit2.jpg

again if your intention is a dreary day then my sky doesn't show that, but i think changing the "camera" angle would help. Now the trees on the left overlap objects in the background more pushing them back and bringing the trees forward. The house slightly overlaps the stump pushing it back. We can see small mountains in the back but they appear [at least to me] to be large just far away.

oh and for the old country road look might I suggest growth... overgrowth of the path, maybe vines on the house, break the path up, add stones and such

http://www.nctc.net/~hazard/photo/horseback/mary_evita.JPG

[stuh505]

1 - the mountains look like large anthills.  a real mountain would have a diameter larger than all of those mountains combined at that distance.

2 - i dont get why ther is a large redwood there.  wouldnt it have friends?

3 - it looks like they mowed the grass with a lawnmower, yet, the architectural style of the house suggests an earlier time period

4 - colossol is right, needs lots more undergrowth and interesting plantlife.  i think it should be all forest.  if you're going to make it grass, make it wild grass.

[Darth Mandarb]

The problem I had with it was the line of site ... it seemed like the mountains were too close to the building/tree area.Ã,  I got an idea, and went with it:


Please understand that this kind of art isn't my strong point.Ã,  But I just wanted to visually show what I meant rather than trying to explain it.

Does that make sense?

[Hollister Man]

Back when people were talking about the stump, perhaps the grass opposite it should be trampled a bit, considering the size of those roots, anyone riding a horse or a wagon would have to make a wide turn around the roots.  Especially if the road is seldom used, it appears far too well manicured at the moment.

[Nhazgul]

Oh I didn't imagine I would get so much response
Thanks alot for the help. I really like the sketch by MrColossal. Maybe I'll remake everything to it. Then it'll probably fit for an adventure game too.

I wonder if there could be such a thing as a background library, where gamebuilders can find what they like. Im not a programmer myself, but I'd like to make some backgrounds, though Im too lazy to make hundreds of them. If it's a good idea there should be some predefined styles that the background-makers should copy. Just a though..

[Haddas]

The closest thing to that right now is instagame. though I don't reall know much about that. I hope someone affiliated with that shall respond after me writing this.

[Andail]

I'm not a hundred percent sure I agree with Eric on this one; I think one of this picture's strength was the gloomy colours (except for the stump, which came out pretty awkward imo). But hey, it's not my pic,

Regarding background library; InstaGame is the closest thing we can come, I believe, although the backgrounds within are of the same style, and intended to be some sort of starting kit for experimenting newbies rather than an extensive library.

I also think some homepages have small collections of backgrounds (of different quality) available for everybody.
RON also springs to mind.

Maybe having a sticky-thread for various, unused background that everybody can borrow sounds like a plan?

[MrColossal]

andail: I don't really agree with myself either, which was the comment on how I kinda made it all generic.

but I do think that there needs to be more colours in the original image. not really the colours i chose but at least more colours

and instagame is available here:

http://sylpher.com/ig

[Relight]

Actually you have crazy perspective because at the "bottom" of the picture you are quite overhead, but towards the "top" of the picture with the hills and bridge, the perspective is almost straight-on from a side view. So that's where most of the awkwardness is coming from. I like Eric's sketch as how this screen would work "better" in a "typical" adventure game.