Adventure Game Studio

Hey, there, I'm attempting *sigh* to make an underwater background for my second game. I do. Not. Draw. Nor do I pretend to. I created this, uh, thing below using a photograph. I kind of like the brushed style, but I don't want any objects to stick out like a sore thumb. I would rather the style stay consistent -- one way or another -- than have some epic background at this point.  My last game was completely pixel art, and I want this one to have antialiasing and shtuff.

These aren't resized, but the game will be 320x200.

What's a good way to make it look like there is light coming through the water? Or bubbles/particles in the water? I'm a novice at photoshop, but learn quickly. Any constructive help is appreciated. Thanks for your time.


Here's the original photo:


And here's, uh, my thing:

Take a look at this one for reference. I usually find it easier to use other artwork as reference for these sort of things instead of a real photo, because if you have a little digital painting knowledge it makes it easier to figure out how to draw what you want.

(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs50/f/2009/263/3/1/312c4f69c568bc978cb14c312c7ab6f6.jpg) (http://rokoroko.deviantart.com/art/Underwater-life-137662155?q=favby%3Alargopredator%2F2972494&qo=42)

Copper is also great reference for light and color for nature scenes:

(http://www.boltcity.com/copper/copperstrips/copper_028_dive.gif) (http://www.boltcity.com/copper/copper_028_dive.htm)

And ofcourse there's always this (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=38592.0).

Some great advise there. Nice pic too!!

Edit by ProgZ:  Please don't quote posts directly above yours, especially the images.

There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling, to quote somebody I can't remember right now.
I reported your ass for being stupid.

It's like you're browsing the entire forum on the lookout for threads which have huge pictures in them and then quote the posts in their entirety and add a one-liner just to piss me off. Seriously. At least that would be something I could put in the trolling category or something.
If you're doing this unaware of how stupid it is though, wow. Just wow.

To be honest, pretty much no people will thank you for your friendly reply here. Just let the mods handle this. :P

...Uh...

Anyway, thanks for the advice. That module looks awesome. Here's my latest edit (it's still not GREAT).




I'll probably use that underwater module with this bg and see how it looks.

Quote from: Iceboty V7000a on Tue 28/06/2011 14:56:27
To be honest, pretty much no people will thank you for your friendly reply here. Just let the mods handle this. :P

Right, I'm only doing this to be praised by others ::)
It's way more insulting to insinuate that imo than my reply here.

And I did write him a friendly PM a few days ago and he ignored it, so that's why I posted here, alright?

Quote from: Khris on Tue 28/06/2011 14:26:53
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling, to quote somebody I can't remember right now.

Comicbook Guy from the Simpsons? But agreed that it's quite annoying if someone constantly quotes entire posts and even images.

lizzlebizzle, sorry for going offtopic  :-[

Back on topic, as much as I like photoshopped images myself, you can really make this look a bit better with a bit of a paint over and some more work.  Also unless those rays of light animate, I can't say I like them that much.

A few things I noticed:

1. The light rays dont really add to the picture. If you take a look at hedgefields (beautiful - who made this?) reference pictureyou will notice that the rays only have one direction (as they are produced by the suns parallel light). Yours go into every direction also the shoudnt be conic but straight. And to be more nitpicky the color you used is white. Light is rarely white. Try to use a very bright turquoise instead.

2.The colors are already quite nice but the photo artifacts are a bit anoying. Just sample the color take a brush and clean them up a little

3. The transisition from the turquoise foreground to the blue background is a bit aprubt. If you add a gradient there it will probably add more depth to the pictire.

4. The picture has this vector/flat colored  feel to it. But the bubbles in the bg dont really fit in there. I'd loose them.

I hope this helps

EDIT: Dualnames: Thanks for getting rid of the electric horse thingy - this was really driving me crazy

Quote from: mode7 on Tue 28/06/2011 20:52:44
EDIT: Dualnames: Thanks for getting rid of the electric horse thingy - this was really driving me crazy

Yeah, it was being a bit boring anyhow.  ;)

mode, you can click on the pictures and it will take you to the source :) And yeah I agree with your points.

Scenery in the distance usually has less contrast and less saturation + a subtle blue hue. Also, as you go deeper underwater, more colors from the spectrum fade away until only blue remains. Red is the first one to go. That's why everything close to the surface stays colorful and way down it is almost desaturated until it becomes too dark to see. But that generally makes things not very interesting to look at, so it's a trade-off ;)

If you put bubbles and stuff into the image, you should either make them animated or leave them out. I think it would break the illusion very quickly if they're just stuck in place.

This is all great advice. Thank you. I agree with what you all are saying. Now to get my hands to channel some actual ART....that'd be great. Maybe after some coffee in the morning. I'll fix up the light rays (darker, smaller, more of them), try to improve the foreground/background transition, and ditch the bubbles.

Okay. I like the light  rays in this version, but I don't like how the top of the water sort of looks like clouds. Or am I just staring at it too much?

I decided to animate the background with bubbles so it'll give an underwater feel, and then there's always the underwater module.

Just out of curiosity, how will the background appear to the player? Like, what's going on when the player sees that background? Just wondering because it's... obviously pretty tall, and would be scrolling, but yeah... not important. Anyway, I like what you're trying to do with that last background, but maybe try that with less intense colors, because that's the first thing that jumped out at me. I think the big thing is that the "waves/clouds" as you called them at the top contrast a little too much with the dark horizon at the bottom.