Pixelling & Texture

[Calin Leafshade]

So I pixelled this today but I'm having a problem with general texture.. its very difficult (especially with a monochrome palette) to convey texture on flat surfaces without it just looking like someone went crazy with the spray can on paint.

Any help?

[Damien]

Not pixel art, sorry about that:



Steps (Gimp):

-took an monochrome bump map I made some time ago
-it's tileable so it was placed easily in the place of the wall, used the perspective tool to make it appear correctly on the side walls (in additional layers)
-used the gimp's bump map feature to render the shadows for each wall (filters>map>bump map)
-set the bumpmap layers as "darken only"
-duplicated the layer with the wall in the middle, deleted the section outside the highlight from the window and set that layer to "lighten only" for additional contrast where the light hits the wall

[Alan v.Drake]

Quickly done but should give you the picture

- Make a couple of layer for vertical and horizontal lines of the tiles, lock their transparency so you can add shading as needed without losing them.
- Paint the basic shades on the background
- Add higlights and details always considering the source of light
- Keep doing it until it looks proper.



And I'm still waiting for those sounds.


- Alan

[Snarky]

Am I completely wrong here, or shouldn't the light from the window form vertical lines on the wall? (I mean, squares with vertical sides.)

[Pinback]

Quick paint-over concentrating around the right hand side of the BG.
I doubt this'll help, but this is how I would add more texture for what it's worth;

I changed the brick texture to a more erratic pattern- I think this is important, also added cracks in the remaining plaster, water damage stains trailing down from the ceiling, and a few gouges and general texture here and there. Made the floor resmble broken concrete to keep the detail consistent.



Second pic is when I set my brush to half or less opacity and filled in more detail, added some shadow and light, generally tidied the texture a bit.



I dunno, maybe you'll get some ideas from this.

[Khris]

Correct, the sides of the window are parallel to the back wall so their shadow always is, too.

Btw, this is really really dark on my CRT. Checking the histogram, 99,4% of the pixels have a lightness below 50 (of 255).

Also note that bricks not hit by light from the window are illuminated exclusively by ambient light and shouldn't have brighter edges or corners.

I think Alan v.Drake's version is the best so far.

[Pinback]

Correct, the sides of the window are parallel to the back wall so their shadow always is, too.

Btw, this is really really dark on my CRT. Checking the histogram, 99,4% of the pixels have a lightness below 50 (of 255).

Some like it dark:D

But yeah, fixing the light that falls on the wall would help, I would brighten that part up a bit I suppose too.

[Calin Leafshade]

Ha ha wow, I haz editz. Thanks guys these have helped alot.

Khris:

Yes it is dark but thats intended. Of course the image will need altering for different screens and there will be a gamma slider but I'm going for a classic horror look like:

[markbilly]

Is this the basement where McCarthy hangs?

I also think there is something wrong with the shafts of light on the wall.

[Calin Leafshade]

indeed it is.

Re:light on the walls

I kinda assumed that because the moon is higher than the window it would cast a downward light shaft but perhaps that is not the case.

[Khris]

A downward light shaft is what's going to be there, but the shape of the light spot suggests a light source very close.



Due to the moon's distance, its rays can be considered parallel (yellow lines).
The blue lines show the direction of the moon light projected onto the ground. They meet at a vanishing point on the horizon, far to the right. Directly but way beneath that is the vanishing point of the yellow lines.
The red shape is the light spot, the dashed lines showing its shape if there were no wall.

I drew this without paying attention to what the light spot would end up like.
If you lowered the moon, i.e. made the yellow lines less steep, the bottom line of the light shape would move along the blue line to the right, then up the green line, and you'd end up with pretty much a parallelogram.

[markbilly]

Spot on, Khris!

I like Pinback's detail, if you can work some of that it to make the place look more crumbling it will look fab.