Subway critizism UPDATED

[AndersM]

This is my subway station. My intensions was to give it
a cold, spooky and eerie feeling, and i think I've accomplished that.
I will add details like benches, a trashbin or two, and maybe a billboard

But I have trouble with drawing the tracs. When i do it, it looks like shit.
And since subway-trains are powered by a third 'eletric rail', I need three lines,
then it looks even worse.

[Ozwalled]

I'm not getting a very spooky vibe from what I'm seeing here. It  has potential to be, but it doesn't SCREAM spooky or anything, IMO.

What I'd do is use those lights to their full potential, making sure they actually ACT as light sources in an otherwise dimly lit subway. One or more could even flicker (though I'm not sure how to do that myself, in terms of adjusting the lighting in regards to a character in-game... still, if you COULD do it, it'd be some sweet).

Not so sure I can help with the rails, though (sorry).

[InCreator]

Wheee!

This is REALLY weird style. It's so detailed and clear, and I like it.
But it's also soo-o unrealistic while being not cartoony at all.

I won't buy this "can't do tracks" thing. You're a good artist.

What you should do, is add more colors. Right now I only see black, purple and green in 99% of the pic.

Also, if it isn't a subway in some distant future where dirty people  are replaced with superclean robots, you should add some dirt, trash, broken wall panels, scratches, graffiti and other stuff like that.  I don't believe that so clean and new subway even exists in our world.

[dasjoe]

spooky?
add blood. loads of it.

joke aside, i'd do something about the panels, they're too clean
maybe some old newspaper on the floor, broken panels, as inc stated above.

tear the plan apart.
too many lights - remove at least half of them. and then break some of the remaining.

that's about what comes in my mind.

[Helm]

This is influenced by out of this world, and flashback, right? In that case, right on and an extra awesome for you. I do not think there's any problem with the ambience of the room, although as you said, it could be thoroughly propped. Add a few cracks on the walls, some misplaced tiling on the floor, a little less clean and a little more broken will do a lot to make this look somewhat more scary. Also, have one of the neon lights flicker. It's a cliche, but it will help a lot too, me thinks.

I can't see what your problem with the rails could be. Would you mind drawing some, so I could critique something that, even if you're not completely happy with it?

[Evil]

The escalators (sp?) bother me some. Your prespective usually isn't correct but it works well for you because it's not really noticable. However in this picture the escalators look to skinny and make the prespective wanky. Over all it looks great.

[Babar]

If you are going for the sterile, horror look, I would suggest brightening it a bit. Make the tiles lighter. And rhythmic flashing lights (if you could incorporate it into the animation of the background) would do much to make it scarier.
Other than that, I agree with Evil. The stairs look too narrow. By comparing it to the other wall, you can see that they only take up the space of 3 tiles, which is a bit small IMO to fit both an up AND down escalator

[Helm]

the escalators are perfectly in perspective.

[Andail]

As far as I can see, nothing is really in perspective in that image, let alone the escalators (at least not in relation to the rest of the scene) but as someone said, it's not that noticable.
Good work anyhow, you're developing nicely

[Pod]

The perspective is reeeeally odd. The 'thin' walls make it stand out for me, personally.



Infact, the walls are too short. I wouldn't like to be on that subway, I'd fear falling into the railway lines as soon as I stepped of the escalator.

[Helm]

the point of the perspective of these shots moves with the character, so to speak. It's about at the level of his eyes. It's pretty difficult to explain, but in the out of this world context, this is completely correct. As long as the character doesn't hit a wall, the background should seem tiled and sort of head on, noperspective. When the character reaches a wall or blocking object, at that point his head in his relative position serves as the point of the perspective. In this way, you can make long ass scrolling rooms, without having to use actual perspective, as it it warp around itself at most extreme left and right positions.

[AndersM]

Thanx a million for all your comments. I'm currently working on an uppdate.

* Correcting perspective (at least the most obvoius mistakes)
* Added tracks.
* Removed half of the lights.
* Made escalators whider.
* Added benches but they looked like shit so I removed them again.
* Added fence so Pod wouldn't fall down on the tracks, but that made the platform
Ã,  Ã, look too short for the trains, so I remeoved the fence again. (Watch your steps Pod).

The scene is intended to be a scrolling room, and then correct perspective will look even more of then an incoret does, therefore i use the 'another world/ out of this world / flashback / future wars -style (thanx Helm for noticing)

And now some info for all the 'club for useless knowledge' -members here: Kymlinge is the 'ghost station' in Stockholms* subway-system. (each subway system have / should have one) It's never used since the suburb that was intended to be situated above it never was built. Nowdays the trains only stops to let dead people off and on at Kymlinge station...

* Capital of Sweden.

[DanClarke]

i like this scene!

I would perhaps add a few bits for some detail:

-vending machine
-hang down clock
-bin
-Movie/advertising poster
-graffiti

As for the tracks, i wouldnt worry about the detail too much, remember that the focal point is the platform itself, so make sure that they dont draw eyes away too much.

[sedriss]

I recognize that subway-map.. is it from Stockholm?

[Redwall]

Kymlinge is the 'ghost station' in Stockholms* subway-system.

Probably.

[Pod]

the point of the perspective of these shots moves with the character, so to speak. It's about at the level of his eyes. It's pretty difficult to explain, but in the out of this world context, this is completely correct. As long as the character doesn't hit a wall, the background should seem tiled and sort of head on, noperspective. When the character reaches a wall or blocking object, at that point his head in his relative position serves as the point of the perspective. In this way, you can make long ass scrolling rooms, without having to use actual perspective, as it it warp around itself at most extreme left and right positions.

Did Flashback/OOTW do the perspective in a special way? Do you know of any sites that explain it?

Also, I'd like to say I rather like this background, the only 'problem' is that the effects of the light don't seem to have been drawn. I can definatley see Conner jogging along.

[Helm]

OotW kinda. Nothing actually is aligned perfectly, but it looks fine. Flashback definately not, it had a constant fake perspective, which presented some minor problems but otherwise made the game look very pretty. Just download and play.

[Kweepa]

Pretty nice - those tiles on the sides must have taken you ages!
I think the map doesn't fit in very well. At least it should have some kind of frame.
The walls around the tracks should probably be more bricky too.

Sneaky use of a bmp renamed as png - the 1Mb gives it away though! A real png-8 of this image is only 9k...

[AndersM]

Did Flashback /OOTW do the perspective in a special way? Do you know of any sites that explain it?

Flashback was more of a platform arcade-game whitout perspective, using dimmed colours to make objects look more distant. It was diferent with Another world / out of this world (they are the same game) Here Erich Chahi used some kind of 'what you look at is in perspective' wiev, just like the perspective changes when you look at diferent tings around you. Hard to explain, but get the game in some kind of legal way and see for yourselfe. A funny thing about another world is that in the first 25% of the game he uses lots and lots of cutscenes and small animations, but i the remaining 75% he uses two, and both of them  in the end...

And yes, i will update the subway-picture soon...

[Pod]

OotW kinda. Nothing actually is aligned perfectly, but it looks fine. Flashback definately not, it had a constant fake perspective, which presented some minor problems but otherwise made the game look very pretty. Just download and play.

I have! I never completed Flashback, the squidgy aliens pissed me off :/
At the time, I don't remember noting the perspective...

Hard to explain, but get the game in some kind of legal way and see for yourselfe.

I'll reinstall it

A funny thing about another world is that in the first 25% of the game he uses lots and lots of cutscenes and small animations, but i the remaining 75% he uses two, and both of them in the end...

I remember reading that the PC version had two extra levels created for it to increase it's length. I would assume that's why the animation levels drop