Orbital Trees of England

[grumpyoldman]

Sample image of
Orbital Trees of England
I. Robin Hood of Locksley Tree

[imgzoom]http://i48.tinypic.com/aomeqw.jpg[/imgzoom]

[Bernie]

Hi there! Here's some general and maybe very direct feedback:

The textures are very repetitive and have a different level of blur and sharpness. The leaves in the background look randomly placed, more like they're floating. The bark texture feels flat and isn't giving volume to the branches. There are outlines around some objects, and others don't have them.

You could try relying less on textures and brushes first. Textures should complement the shape of objects. I'd recommend working with shapes and setups first, and textures later.

Here's a quick example of a different setup of this scene:

[grumpyoldman]

Perspective and depth has been my issue. How much depth can you create on the branches on a tree. Not much of a walkable area and it feels more like a platform game. Since my depth is limited, I made this image 2500 pixels wide scrollable (which is ridiculous) of which you are seeing only the right 800 pixels. It was an experiment.   

Since it is floating tree (a la Carl Sagan), the roots (base) will be relatively flat and have more depth to it. But the branches are another story.  Also, I'm not too worried about moving to the different branches, since there will be a mini map to move to the different tree houses.

I'm trying to work on extreme close view of the branch (you wouldn't see the bottom of the branch). But, the issue is the curvature.  A flat branch doesn't work. Loses the feeling of floating in the air.

I scratched and grunged the texture of the tree branch myself (6 layers, 8+ colors) and when I started it had a great random feel to it.  Don't ask me what happened, I think I was getting stoned on Gimp filters at about 6AM and I ended up with this antiseptic looking branch (I liked the lighting).  Well, no thanks to tutorials which teach you how to make an advertisement or landscapes.

I originally had painted the leaves, but it looked like a huge amoeba to me- I wanted more sky. So I used the leaf pipe brush for gimp - 2 layers: one sharp & 1 blurred and added small random branches behind it all.  The leaves are really supposed to be huge and filled with hydrogen, but I have yet to hit upon something I like.

I have been studying FZD School of Design on YouTube the last couple of days and I hope something will click.  I enjoy all the different styles of game art on AGS even the simple ones (I liked your idea), but my goal is to find the style that is right and build a toolbox where anyone could use the resources e.g. different branches, tree houses, inventory items to add to the world.  I have stopped writing the game's walk-thru until I get the art right, because to me the art is the implementation of an idea.

Thanx for taking time to critique,
Andreas

When I retire, I want to the grumpy old man that lives next door to you.