Adventure Game Studio

Hey all!

I'm glad to say I've been able to work on "Spooks" again, after a few setbacks and a particularly evil bout of exams.Ã,  This is part of the background for an underwater scene:

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

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

It's supposed to look like a cave, but I'm out of ideas for how to improve it.Ã,  I feel like I need to add a few more shades of blue or something to the back wall to add "depth," or maybe try a different shading technique.Ã,  Any thoughts?Ã,  This is the last background I need to finish for the game.Ã,  :)

Oh, and just in case you're confused, that red thing is a kind of portal.  Portals are very colourful, evidently.

It doesn't quite strike me as "underwater." There is no depth, the shadows are too "grey" and the overall structure of the scene isn't very defineable.

I DO like the colors.

This background will be tough to achieve, and it will definitely have to be animated to be believeable. Maybe you should take a look at King's Quest II VGA over at AGD Interactive. They have a whole underwater sequcence which may inspire you.

It looks very nice, but like LGM said, there's no depth. I suppose the character might help, but it's quite difficult to visualize where things are.

Great BG, just one thing, even though you have the color and the bubbles to demonstrate that the scene is taking place underwater, it still doesn't seem that much like if it underwater.Ã,  You'll have to add something that fills the entire screen. What to add? Maybe if you put a warmer blue?Ã,  a water current motion?Ã,  Ã, more bubbles?Ã,  I can't quite say.

You can try adding some blur here and there.

Is your game B&W or in color(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/smile3.png)

Last background? Woo!
I can see your dilemma - you can't blur it because it would clash with the rest of the backgrounds. Perhaps an overall cyan tint would help. And the black "doorway" shouldn't be black but a dark blue.
I think what will really sell it are the bubbles (over the vents and over the plants, and perhaps from the characters) and some fish swimming around.

I do see it is underwater, only like some people already said, I think you should make it animated, like bubbles appearing and vanishing sometimes, but if your game, for the rest, has absolutely no animated backgrounds, forget that..

I think adding some more recognisable water plants in it would make a big difference too, these three already give me a nice underwater feeling..

EDIT: btw.. did I told you its a very nice background  ;D

maybe this background blitz thread will help, its about underwater:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=22183.0

I think before you start pondering on how to achieve an underwater feeling, you need to work out the basic architecture. Right now, it's actually hard to understand what you're looking at. It seems as you haven't really figured out the structure yourself; rather just drawn some disconnected shapes and hoped for the best. No offense :) It's a promising piece, but there is much to do.

I think if you run it through a filter to deepen the dark blue a little, ya' know, to make the things in the water look more 'together'.  Right now the scene looks like it's in a dry (and rather well lit) cave.  Maybe, after adding the blue, you could even add a red light filter coming from the portal.  I think such filtering would result in a much more believable background.

I like the 'another world / out of this world' style. I can see that it's under water, but to make it even more obvious, you should try to animate it some how:

Animate the bubbles. (maybe you use some kind of 'reversed' version of the ags snow/rain application to simulate random bubbles)

Animate the underwater-plants so that they whigle in the underwater currents.

Add some kind of ripple in the water so the backgrouns slowly deforms a teeny teeny bit now and then, if you see what I mean.

And, since it's a cave it should be pitch black, but that's just details.. ;)

It goes without saying that the bubbles should be animated, doesn't it? I mean, you wouldn't have static bubbles on a background, right? . . . Right?

Anyway, I honestly think it's a gorgeous background. I didn't even KNOW about your game until now and it looks so fantastic! I'm really looking forward to this.

I think the best suggestions so far are to make that doorway dark blue instead of black, apply a -light- (as in, not heavy) blue filter to the whole picture, have some animated objects in there.

My suggestions for animated objects;

- Bubbles moving up and popping/leaving the screen slowly but repeatedly
- Those weeds should be slowly moving. Just slightly, but a very rhythmic motion.
- Have the occasional flash of 'shine' on the crystals. Don't listen to people tell you it won't make sense. I don't care - it's cool.

I would also add a couple of other crystals to the picture and, here's my big super amazing tip which I think will make all the different; because the picture DOES have a depth problem, add at least one walk behind like a crystal or some weeds in the foreground, large enough to make you believe they're much closer to the background.

I made a quick edit but I didn't really do much.  Basically I took your image and tinted everything dark blue and used the portal as the light source.  It may be dark but I would imagine an underwater cavern to be quite dark.  I also tried to add a bit more depth to it.  Still doesn't quite look like an underwater scene though, but I'm not that great with backgrounds.

(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/cc.gif)

Thanks for the great advice everyone.Ã,  I've been working on this edit for the last couple days and ended up a lot farther away from my original drawing than I expected.Ã,  I really like how it turned out though, especially the colours.Ã,  I also tried to tackle the big "lack of depth" problem (Andail was right...I needed some planning there).Ã,  I'm not too concerned with making it look dark enough, since it's kind of a fanciful place.Ã, 

Oh, and I am planning to animate little things like the plants and bubbles to make it look...uh, dynamic.  We'll have to see about the sparkling crystals.  ;)Ã,  Ã, 

This is really only half of the background...you'll have to play the game to figure out what's casting the light from the right like that.Ã,  Ooh, mystery!

(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/uwater2.PNG)

(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/uwater2.PNG)

I'm still having problems with making the walls look cave-like.Ã,  Also, any suggestions on how to make the opening on the left look more like a tunnel?

Edit: ProgZ, that edit is really cool!  I don't know why you say you aren't good at backgrounds, that red lighting is top notch.  I'm going to have a closer look at that portal right now to see if I can make this one look better.

Looks very nice, but I don't think it's ment to be the same idea as the first one? did it.. it looks very good but I have an even lesser idea of underwater then at the first pic.. make some bubbles!!

And don't throw away the first one :D I think ninjaboy ProZMax did a very good job editting it (especially the light source is mucho better now..!!

i did a quick paintover. i dont have any exp with painting caves, nor underwater, so dont know how correct it is.

changes:
1. i redid the tunnel.
2. made the wall look more cave-like (hopefully)
3. made it bluer to make it look more underwater.
4. the background: from what i can tell, when in water, the further you go the lighter it gets. ures is the otherway round. also, blur is a nice way to show depth of field. but, since ure pic use clean pixels, i tried making it pixelated. not sure if i was successful. i dont think this will fit in with ure style. so, maybe keep it the way you had, but make it go from dark (close) to light, not like you have it, the other way round.
5. added cracks.
(http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/4633/underwater0td.png) (http://imageshack.us)

edit: oh, btw, i really like ure style, and cant wait for ure game!  ;)

Mordalles, that's awesome!!!

Now THAT looks perfect!

Mordalles, it's awesome but I don't think it'll fit Ivy's style of drawing.

Ivy: It's good to see you're back in the forums. I was worried for a time that you wouldn't finish this project and am happy to see it's still in production. I like this new background tough you should do some recoloring and go with the color style of Mordalles. That would make it look more underwater.

Good luck with Spooks, I'm waiting for it. :)

Mordalles' edit is quite nice!  However, I get an impression that there's a glass wall there ... or a force field ... something which is holding the water back.  It makes the foreground area look dry.

I find that most underwater images/films I've seen you have no long range detail ... everything fades away.

Something like this:

(http://www.twin-design.com/ags/help/theivy_help02.gif)
- added some foreground elements
- altered the cave ceiling just a bit
- faded the background out a tad
- added some 'sandy' texture to the ground, and a water texture to the top

I have included The PSD file (http://www.twin-design.com/ags/help/theivy_help02.psd) (~500k) if you use Photoshop and would be interested in how I did it.

I was thinking this image could benefit from that oscilating light effect you see on the ocean bottoms ... but in order to be effective, it'd have to be animated and I can't even begin to imagine the head-ache that would be to animate!

Hope this helps!

~ darth

Thanks so much for your input, guys...after a few days of pixel pushing I'm finally happy with what I've got.

Here we go:

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

Mordalles: that edit totally floored me...it's gorgeous!Ã,  Although it doesn't really fit the style of my game, I used it as a reference for the colours and the cave walls.Ã,  Do you use a pixellated style for any of your graphics, or is this just a one-time try?Ã,  Either way, I'm very impressed.Ã, 

Pablo: hey, thanks for the vote of confidence, man!Ã,  I might have abandoned the game after my hard drive crashed, but I really didn't want to disappoint anyone on the forums.Ã,  I've gotten a lot of PMs recently asking about progress, too, so that was a real incentive to get going on this.Ã,  Now, hopefully, we're only a few weeks away from completion.Ã,  8)

Darth: I tried using foreground elements, but I couldn't really get them to work to my liking.Ã,  I like what you did with the gradients and the sand, but I think I'll save the more advanced techniques for another project.Ã,  I got a Wacom tablet and Photoshop for Christmas, so hopefully it'll open up entirely new artistic possibilities.Ã,  (No more MS Paint-induced carpal tunnel for me :)).Ã,  As for the oscillating effects, Vince XII tells me that he can use some scripting magic to help with the underwater illusion, so I guess that part will be a surprise for all of us.

;) Good job on the background.

Ivy that looks beautiful  :o

I would just remove those cracks on the floor, and make the back part (the "mountains") look more "unclear", I think you could add an effect like the one in Mordalles paintover, but not so complicated so it fits your style..

I can't wait to play your game!!!!

glad i could help ivy. i love ure new one. yeah, im completely new in pixellated backgrounds, but ive started planning a game with a pixellated style like this.  ;D

The foreground looks so awesome now that I think the background should be prettier.

I would make the darker foreground shades more purple. You should make the colors you use in the background less saturated and adjust their values closer together.