Yoke's "art" thread

[Yoke 2.0]

[imgzoom]http://i1078.photobucket.com/albums/w499/thetankengine/artnoveau_1s-1.jpg[/imgzoom]
Larger version

I've expanded a bit on my entry from the Background Blitz and I'm looking for some feedback.

And on a side note: I actually intended to use 3D as a way to improve my pixel backgrounds with more realistic lighting. Does anybody have any experience with this or links to tutorials?

[Grim]

There's some nice detail and textures here, but the whole scene seriously needs better lighting and camera angle. At the moment, I am not quite sure what I'm exactly looking at, because it's so dark!... I noticed your Blitz entry was slightly lighter- did you change it just before posting here? Anyway, my advice to you would to be to first of all experiment with different sources of light. You could add blue light coming from outside the window/balcony in the middle of the image, casting a blue-y glow on some furniture nearest to it... And how about a lamp in the corner, with a red tinted bulb or shade? You need more contrast and- just thought about it- maybe something in the foreground? Some tables/chairs... This place looks like some kind of lounge, right? Grim Fandango-style restaurant tables wouldn't be such a bad idea, imo.

One more tip- render it bigger! You can always scale it back down in your paintshop/photoshop/whatever else you're using, but pixel-art made with rendering just isn't that attractive.

[Kweepa]

The window is especially confusing.
I think it's 5 vertical panes of glass with wooden separators, but the separators are basically black and it seems like the view out of each pane is different. Also, the brightness and saturation of the buildings outside is the same as the walls of the room, so they don't appear far away.

As a game background it's not very practical either. There's a big chunk of empty floor, no obvious exits, and most of the interactions would be with things almost at floor height.

I do like how it looks though!

[Yoke 2.0]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of 3D myself, really, this experiment just kind of got out of hand...
I find it's hard to make sprites look good on a 3D background. They're best suited for first person games, in my opinion.

At the moment I'm working on better/more interesting lighting and better glass in the windows. I'll look into a brighter color for the posts between the windows as well.

@Grim: Actually my plan was to render a grayscale scene, roughly drafted interior and lights, then draw over it. Just use it as a guide for selecting the camera angle and placing the lights.

I'll update with a new version as soon as it's done rendering. (I've put way too much detail into small objects, so rendering is SLOOOOWWW...)



Taken some of the advice onboard and tried another one. Photobucket keeps downscaling my images, so I'm afraid this is as big as it gets. Anybody got a tip for a better host?
Added some Lovecraftian props as well. 


Edit by ProgZ:  Please don't double post.  Just update your previous post with new information unless it's been more than a few days between replies.

[Armageddon]

Much better lighting. I'd suggest turning off or lowering the reflections in the window, players would probably expect your player character to reflect as well and it would break immersion. It also looks weird. Also maybe having some lights on in the building across the street would be better. Over all I think some detail material could be used on the wood and concrete objects. I think the smoothing is too hard in some areas and there is really no radiosity. Right now you have the left side of this image with smooth shadows. The rug is very low-res and it doesn't match the drapes.

Also try using Dropbox.

[Yoke 2.0]

Yeah, I've been struggling with the materials a bit. I've overloaded the scene with needless detail in modelling so it renders slow as hell on decent settings. On the low settings it's hard to see the problems with the material since everything looks shitty and it just drowns in the ocean... Also the mirror on the right looks absolutely weird and the glasses are way too transparent. I have no plans of making 3D background full time as I only think they work in first person adventures, but if I did I would need a faster rendering engine. Oh well... I'll try to try some more.

[Monsieur OUXX]

On a postivie note: Tamara de Lempicka ♥, Art Deco ♥