Village background

[Andail]

Got some creativity flowing and tossed up a few backgrounds for a possible new game.



It's a little dark perhaps, since my monitor always shows stuff too brightly. It's drawn in 320x200, so it appears a bit smeared now.
Opinions?

[Saberteeth]

Wow Andail  :o! Great bg.

I'd add some stars and a moon, maybe? In which program are you drawing this, I must know! 

[nihilyst]

Wow, that's great! Great contrasts, good atmosphere. I like it as it is!
cheers
nihilyst

[lo_res_man]

Jumping JELLYBEANS! :o
THat is ONE neato backround. Its keen, its rad, it uber coolies! GREAT work.

[Seleceus]

Very nice BG indeed, Andail!

Only a few minor points though:
- Your footpaths, behind the central building, are outlined a bit much and don't match the forground path.
- The paths would level-off some as they entered the doorways, or gates, just from foot traffic.
- The well could use just a little more contrast, to seperate it from the shadow.

[DanClarke]

As mentioned nice bg and a very nice layout.

My main gripe is with the colour and contrast of the grass, darkness usually saps the colour out of most things, so id go for a more browny/grey colour for the grass.

[homeworld]

i tried a little paintover, to get more mood out of your pic. Played with the values a bit, threw in some colours. Sorry for the messy colour job, had to use a different technique than the one i usually use. Hope this helps a little bit :o

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/homeworld4/village.jpg

[switcharoo]

Crackin' backgound! As well as the suggestions Seleceus and DanClarke made there are a couple of minor details that I noticed.

1. I think at least one of the windows above 1 should be lit. Surely at lease the left most would be part of the same room as the lit window of the same building - I know this is very minor but I thought I'd mention it.

2. The door next to 2 has no path up to it, again very minor but meh.

[biothlebop]

The paintover does give it some mood, but mainly changes the kind of mood. Andail's version is creepy in the way that we are floating on a rock in space, while that other one is creepy in a Transsylvanian/fantasy way.
Love the sky transition in the paintover, but the subtle colors in the downleft corner make it look somewhat empty, which Andail's does better.

[Steel Drummer]

WOW  :o this is one of the best bgs I've ever seen. Looks like something straight out of Lord of The Rings.

[Nacho]

We are talking about a very good background! So any crit would seem exagerated, but as we are looking for PERFECTION, here it goes mine... the only one I can see.

My crit goes for the lighting of the trees. I guess that the light source is the moon, so, I think that the lighting is too evident... IMO even an artificial and more powerful light source shouldn't make the tree so bright. We are talking of vegetal material, and, whereas humid leafs can be very blight and reflect the light very well, I don't think this is the case... The scene makes me think in an autumm/winter period where everything is cold and dry.

Hope ot helps.

[Privateer Puddin']

Eh. Not very good, a bit sharper, and generally more purple.

[Obi]

Just a few of my thoughts, quite frankly.

[MrColossal]

Heyndail,

Nice painting!

I think the things that I'd change is the sky background. There is a lot of big texture in there that it makes it seem like it's really close to the scene. Like it's a blue painted wall that a light is hitting.

Also there aren't that many details to suggest scale. This and the blue background make me think that I'm looking at a miniature city sitting on a table top.

Grass poking up from around buildings, texture in the dirt, wood planks leaning on buildings, a wagon wheel. Something for me to look at and judge the size of these buildings better. I know what a building is and how big one is and I can judge it next to the well but people need to live in this area and it looks like there are quite a few people that would be here [especially if the well is there] show me the daily wear and tear and junk that accumulates.

It doesn't really have to be much, just here and there.

Also, use atmosphere colour to create depth in the trees. Again, everything seems so close together and that there is nothing beyond those trees. Mountains are the quick easy fix for creating depth in a scene like this but if you just let the trees in the distance lose some detail and fade out into the background it would help.

This is all my opinion and I probably wrote too much because I'm bored at work but oh well!

[Andail]

Thanks for your response!

Saberteeth: It's drawn in photoshop with pen tablet.

Selecus: You're right, the paths are sloppily drawn and have way too thick outlines. Also the well does come out a bit vague, true enough.

DanClarke: I experimented with lower saturation and more homogenous colours, but I wanted to maintain some sort of fairytale style, with a fair amount of lively colours.

Homeworld: That's an interesting paintover! I'd say it's better as a painting than a background, though. But I might still consider adding some distant, desaturated trees just to establish some depth. Also the foreground leaves is a nice touch.

Farl: Yeah, I'm gonna work on a more natural and soft light setting.

Custard: An interesting touch, and yeah the background needs to be sharper, I agree. It has to be done manually, though, and not by some ps effect.

Eric: I agree that there is a serious lack of details, which I intend to correct one day. Also you're right that both the forest and the sky bear no signs of being distant, which makes the whole scene a bit flat and a bit model-like.
I'll certainly work on these issues.

Ah well, back to the drawing board

[Snarky]

It's an excellent background, Andail.

The one element I find discordant is that some of the outlines are very crisp, while the surfaces and textures are a bit smudged. For instance, if you look in the lower left corner, the grass and the path are painted in soft brushes, but the fence is made up of extremely sharp lines, which makes it seem less integrated.

When you look at it a certain way, it's almost as if the background is made up of cut-outs collaged together. I wonder if this contributes to the miniature feeling Eric comments on. The edits by Privateer Puddin' and Obi each go some way towards fixing the issue, one by sharpening the textures and details and the other by softening the outlines.

[Helm]

to give you the impression, the image was loading and I was waiting for it to do every other pass until it was done. And waiting. And then I realized it had finished, and it was drawn as blurry as it is.

This is not a good effect in my opinion. Not only would I sharpen it by hand, I WOULD run a smart sharpen filter custom on it to punch it up even more. 320x240 games should have a minimal of antialias and since we can't expect people to do it by hand, cleaning up the sharpening via computer is a good idea. Don't knock it. You're better off sharpening automatically and then manually tweaking the oversharpened bits than the other way around on this one.

[Oz]

Yeah. I agree with Helm. Try blowing that image up to fullscreen and it gets really messy. Nice composition though!

[Andail]

Worry not:


* More homogenous colours
* Reduced blurriness
* Added distant forest to create depth, as well as foreground leaves
* Changed a few outline issues
* Changed design on house

There are still some effect artifacts here and there, and some stray pixels that need to be overlooked. And plenty of details to be added. But Im on my way

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I like what you've done here, but I still think the sky looks flat, which gives me the impression I'm looking into a snowglobe.  I think adding some clouds and making the sky less purple might help.  The other thing I think that would take this from the look of a painting into an actual background would be textures to the grass and dirt.  Right now they look painted in and flat compared to the detail you've shown with the houses.  Very solid work overall, especially with the sharpness added.