C&C Needed for Cafe

[The Ivy]

Hello everyone!

Here's a background I've been working on for a little while, lovingly rendered in 256-colour glory.Ã,  It's supposed to be a cafe on a street corner, with an art gallery in the background and some mountains on the horizon.Ã, 



Aaaaand a little bigger:



I can't seem to get the highlights on the glass right, so I'd appreciate any C&C on that.Ã,  The textures of the sidewalk, grass, etc. aren't really to my liking, but I'm not sure what to add to them.Ã,  I haven't had much luck with the shadows yet either.

I suppose I should make some comment about this being my first post, but instead I think I'll go celebrate with a bowl of ice cream.

By the way, I've been reading these forums for a while, and I know there are some amazing artists among you.Ã,  Thanks in advance for your help!

[stuh505]

looks great!

biggest areas of concern for me are the emptiness on the glass and the front side of the building

I'd like some detail added to the front, as well as some vague (washed out) details inside the cafe window.  Also, you cna increase the realism of the windows by adding some white highlights to the window glass

[RyRayer]

Heh. Good job. Looks nice. You should do something with those chairs. They look like wires or somethign .

[Scummbuddy]

yeah, you shouldnt have wires for seat cushions.. heh.  and also, if you can see through the windows, then you will need to show the counter and such.

are you sure you just wouldnt rather have shadows kinda showing through the window? it'd be much easier.   

for the grass, go ahead and make it like turf. a couple pixels high to start, and then make the extra mismatched blades.

and to have the mountains like that, is a bit odd... to have it like that, the area would have to be very curved, so much as to say that you could see the horizon like that. If you cover up the right side, and you can get a good feeling as to your point of view. You are looking pretty much downward, and then to add the horizon there, it just doesn't seem realistic... It is possible, but not normally.

The sidewalk may have too much "noise" going on, maybe tone it down to just 2-3 colors, and take out the blackish one.

the shading on the top is nice, but again, not correct, with the sun, and on that note, you can just remove the sun altogether.  you can keep the shading on the sides though, and for the top, i'd try the second from the right for the whole top.

Id probably thicken up the door frame, too.

I don't want you to think that with all this crits, that its a bad picture. On the contrary, its a great pic. I love all the details that you've already put in.
and I love the blue cup.

[aussie]

I agree with Scummbuddy on the mountain thingy. The bottom of the mountains should be much higher up than the floor of the art gallery building.

Other than that, I think it's a perfectly functional background for a game already. Well done

[East]

I had to look long and hard before I saw something that didn't make sense, aside from aforementioned things. It's overall a very good piece of work, and I especially like the pattern on the side of the building which is at an angle. I've tried similar things before, and always gave up, so that's very impressive to me.

The thing that I did find, though, was down at the edge of the sidewalk. I marked it out inside that big, scary red circle. It rounds a bit strangely, and I don't know if it's supposed to be that way..

[InCreator]

Oh my god.

This image cries for more palette. It's so detailed and nice, just this... color limit.
What a waste!

At least, try to add some extra (darker!) shades/colors to grass and pavement.

To lead you to an important point...
Though you say it's 256-color, it stills looks like 16-color one. Most likely because of super contrasty colors. I believe that a bit more careful palette handling should do it and add more mood to the scene.

[Bab@r]

I love the look of the sidewalk and grass. Sort of gives a "quaint town feel".
Advice for the grass? More of the same! Add more stalks, different heights, etc.
I'd also suggest making the rest of the background (like the roof) in the style of the sidewalk

[The Ivy]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions...I tried to implement as many as possible.Ã,  Here's version 2.0 of the cafe:





Here's what I did:

• Took out the lamp post (let's face it...it was none too pretty to begin with)
• Evened out the texture of the sidewalk
• Made the grass more grassy
• Added highlights to the windows
• Fixed the curb, seat cushions, and roof shading (somewhat)
• Added shadows to interior of cafe
• Got rid of the sun and clouds

Of all the suggestions, I'm having the most difficulty with InCreator's.Ã,  I'm not sure how to address the palette problem.Ã,  I like the high-contrasty look, although I noticed that the colours are a lot more subdued on my laptop, where I create my graphics, and a normal PC monitor.Ã,  I apologize for any resulting retinal damage.Ã,  Ã, 

I'm not too sure what I can do about the horizon, or if I even have it in the right place.Ã,  Any comments on that would be most welcome.Ã,  Also, ideas about how to make the roof more "realistic" would be awesome.

Thanks guys!

[nihilyst]

Good work! It's one of the few pics that I find have a real good "flair". I wish I could give my pictures a "soul" like this.

I miss the lamp post. It really didn't look that bad. And please, change the red color of the "f" and the "e" in "café olé". I couldn't see them in the beginning, when my monitor was set too dark.

But still: A "flairy" piece of art.

[Raider]

I miss the lamp post. It really didn't look that bad.

I disagree....
The post looked out of place. Maybe if you changed the style of it then put it in. But I like the pic. very nice. As Scummbuddy said the blue cup was a good feature! 

[Stefano]

Nice job! Made real improvements. Is it a latin Café (Olé!)? The collors contribute to the idea of a latin thing.

I would add some dirt to the street. It's looking oddly new (even the sewer grate is rusty and aged!). Those bright white stripes... city administration must be doing a really good job. 

Ah! The mighty blue cup. I would put it over one of the tables, in all its 3D glory. 

Just small suggestions. Your bg is already cool!

Cheers,
Stefano

[Snarky]

Looks good. A definite improvement.

The horizon is certainly too low. From this angle, it wouldn't be visible in the picture at all. Just continue the grass up to the top edge of the picture (or add another building).

[Darth Mandarb]

This is a pretty nice looking BG.  I've worked with this style before and the one thing that was hardest for me to get used to was you can't see the horizon with this perspective.  (as others have commented on)

The two things I noticed which bothered me most were:

1) There walls of the diner look paper thin.  There's no dimension to them at all.
2) You have some shading, but no shadows

Here's a fast paint-over to demonstrate what I mean:



Hope it's helpful.