Windows windows windows.

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 14:28:12

It should perhaps be glass glass glass, but anyway:

I'm having trouble making the large windows in my backgrounds look like they have glass in them. I think I've cracked the 'background windows', but this one scene has glass in the foreground. What do you reckon?

Background glass:

Foreground glass:

They are both x2 resized. The second background is unfinished, in fact, the foreground for that one I'm having trouble with in general. It is supposed to be from outside the building, looking in. The building is VERY high up, and a bit shabby, so it's going to need more detail and some sort of fog layer.

Two questions in one thread, I know, but it's getting close to the end for backgrounds in TLG and these are my last few issues.

Thanks, everyone!

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 14/12/2010 15:05:17

Interesting challenge.
I must say I have no smart workaround to make the foreground window visible without having to mess with the character when he walks behind the reflections.

Calin Leafshade · Tue 14/12/2010 15:07:43

if its a 32-bit game just make some glass streaks and put them infront of the character at half opacity

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 15:38:56

Yes, sorry. I should clarify: I plan on using a semi-transparent layer. It's what to put on it that is troubling me.

How do the background windows look?

Jim Reed · Tue 14/12/2010 15:40:53

What Calin said.

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 14/12/2010 15:57:17

Quote from: Jim Reed on Tue 14/12/2010 15:40:53

+1. Exactly the same diagonal stripes as on your first picture.

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 16:05:17

?

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 14/12/2010 16:14:56

I#d recommend 2 things :
1/ Not to make all stripes the same width. usually, I draw a large one and a thinner one next to it.
2/ To use the same stripes to go accross all windows. This is not the way it is in real life, but it makes the drawing less messy and in the end you end up with something better.

In any case, draw all stripes perfectly parallel. Here again, it might not be like that in real life, but in your drawing it's necessary if you don't want it to make it look weird.

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 16:36:12

OK, I'll have a crack at that. They are all parallel, though and all the same stripes copied and pasted. I think it's just an optical illusion that make a couple of the them look 'off'.

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 14/12/2010 16:41:54

Have a look at the picture I posted in my previous post, to see how to apply the perspective to your stripes in your first background.

Khris · Tue 14/12/2010 16:59:29

The stripes need to continue across several windows; they are reflections after all, with the windows being the mirror. Since the windows are all on one plane, we should be looking at one big reflection interrupted by the columns.

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 17:28:51

All taken into account:

and

Ali · Tue 14/12/2010 17:53:55

I don't think the semi-transparent stripes should affected by the perspective in the same way as the sloping ceiling in the first image. The way they lean towards us looks wrong to me. If the stripe that's being reflected was coming from the floor, the bottom would be larger than the top.

My other observation would be that the stripes are much more effective on the exterior. Not because of your drawing, but because it is an exterior. Inside, reflections of the neon lights would be a pain to draw but would be more convincing.

Anian · Tue 14/12/2010 18:21:44

I'm sorry, a bit unrelated, but why the windows so high up (I'm talking about the second background)? The view is so strange, even the character on the right gets its head cut off, and more than 50% of the background is basically empty (I know you said it wasn't finished, but I'm talking about the top and bottom part) and couldn't be used to show any action, unless a spaceship blows through the wall or something...I am not complaining or anything, just wondering about design decision process, cause it seems so different from the first background.

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 18:38:46

@anain

I just wanted to break things up a bit. There is another corridor-type room on the other side of the map, and I drew that from the inside, looking outside. I didn't want to basically copy the background, that would be boring. I hoping, if there is enough detail on the outside of the building it won't look empty.

Also, there are only a couple of vital interactions in this room, so the utility isn't so much of a problem. Oh, and the people's heads are only cut off because that's looking through a door into the next room. There are a few characters and object in this room, I've just posted the raw imagine, rather than an in-game screenshot as with the first.

@Ali

So you reckon the stripes on the sloped windows should be like the others? - i.e. "parallel".

Yeah, I may up the opacity on the outside reflections, as these would be more pronounced, because the reflection is bouncing "back into the viewers eye", so to speak.

Ali · Tue 14/12/2010 20:21:01

It's a tricky one, but what Monsieur OUXX suggested doesn't seem quite right to me. If the ceiling is sloping at 45 degrees then the window should be reflecting the floor, and there are no light sources on the floor.

I see that the light coming into the room is casting shadows, if that's the case it's unlikely that we'd see any reflections. Inside, reflections tend only to be visible at night time.

This may be a fiddly point that's not worth you bothering about though!

markbilly · Tue 14/12/2010 20:37:53

There are only two sloping windows in the game - the rest are totally vertical. So it might be wise to keep the reflections there for consistency. I made turn them down a bit though, and try and add some reflections from inside, like of the neon lights.

Most importantly, though, is sorting out some detail on the other background.

Jim Reed · Wed 15/12/2010 00:07:45

If I can be a bit nitpicky, I'd say that the shadows on the back wall aren't consitent. It's hard to explain, and harder for me to draw it accurately.

markbilly · Wed 15/12/2010 01:21:49

Any ideas what's up with them? As far as I know they are technically correct.

Ryan Timothy B · Wed 15/12/2010 04:47:43

Well with what Jim mentioned about the light source (2nd background), the only reason I feel it looks odd is because the shadows follow perspective. For the shadows to follow perspective the sun would have to directly behind the camera. It makes things pretty boring and simple, not to mention the crazy odds considering it would have to be the perfect time of the day for the sun to cast shadows in that direction.

You also shouldn't be able to see the shadow from the center column. Nor should you see the left and right sides of it, unless those edges are on an angle.

The window itself would have to be at least 30 feet high. Also being about 3 or more feet off the ground. The background as a whole is a touch zoomed out and awkwardly shaped, to be blunt.

As for the window streaks on the last image you posted, perhaps using a gradient where you can see the streak at the bottom but not at the top. Unless you don't have gradients with any of your other backgrounds. I wouldn't want one background to have a different technique.