Alien Game- Bg for crit

[Indie Boy]

Started up my 1st project again, Well this is the 1st room (the cloning room) just wanted some critz paint overs are welcome

any ideas on how to fill up the rest of the space welcome

[ManicMatt]

You could just lower the image down and draw more stuff at the top, so you don't have loads of floor space. How about that?

EDIT: I'll do a mock up if you don't follow me.

[Ishmael]

Yeah, that much floor space would require the character sprites to be from a quite high angle to look good, and that might pose problems in other rooms. I'd say lower the camera in the room to make the actual floor area cover like 40 or 45 percent of the screen.

[RocketGirl]

Adding some contour to the floor--as if it were made up of panels instead of a solid piece--would go a long way, I think.

And that green diagonal, um...thing...in the lower left corner either needs more detail to show what it is, or it need to go away. Is that part of the floor, a girder or pipe, what?

[The Ivy]

Hey, I saw some room for improvement and put together this paintover:





Here's what I did:

• Stretched out the top console
• Got rid of a lot of the dark outlines
• Added the dark foreground objects
• Changed the perspective to be lower to the ground
• Cut the saturation on some of the instruments
• Added panels (maybe?Ã,  I don't know what they are but they turned out neater than I expected) to the floor.Ã, 
• Got rid of the beige pipe on the left wall because I didn't feel like fixing its perspective

This is a very good background and I like the level of detail you put into it.Ã,  However, I think it's best to start with a sketch of what would be practical in a game and use it as a guide.Ã,  It seems like you've got a pretty good grasp of perspective, but like a few others said, it's too high in the original background.

Also, is that supposed to be a pool of water in the middle, or a clone machine or what?  It's very hard to tell.  Add some detail and you'll be cruising.

Good luck with this, I look forward to seeing improvements.Ã, 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Ivy's paintover is a great step in the right direction here, but it doesn't help with the dark outlines.  While making the image look clean, they also make objects appear to be floating rather than attached- the cloning pod and the transporter thing stand out.  Use of shadows may help here, or perhaps moving up the bottom of the pods and adding a base and some machinery in a darker shade.  If you want to simulate buttons that are inset (like the ones on the left/right of the console) you should decide on a light source location and highlight one side and darken the other.  Right now they also seem floating.  The green pipes are not all the same width and they don't seem spherical (again due to highlight/shading).  In fact, I think your work would greatly benefit from more use of highlights in your shading, because you've got a very nice image here to work with.  I like  futuristic backgrounds with alot of technology, so if I seem to be tough in analysis of your work then just chalk it up to me liking it and wanting to see it look even better.

[n3tgraph]

Hey I like this, reminds me of Rob Blanc I for some reason (the one with the 'saturday night' tune by wigfield)

Anyhoo, The only crit I could add is to add some gradient colours to the pinkish/blueish/purpleish pad in the middle, it looks kinda flat now imo

But keep going!
Really nice

[Indie Boy]

ok thank all for your crit so far and that very nice paint over Ivy
Iv taken in everything you have said and heres the update

took away all the black lines,
lowered backwall
put in highlights and some shading

anyways keep the crit coming

[DonB]

I really think the panels The Ivy made should be used.. altho you didn't made it up yourself.. just use it.. that's why Ivy made it..

Without the panels the ground looks way too plain..

[RocketGirl]

Oh, I d'know...I agree with ProgZmax that the panels aren't quite right. They should be more like tiles than the sort of layered-looking platforms that The Ivy made. The floor should still look like a flat plane, but with seams, like a tiled floor.

Otherwise, yes, I agree that the floor needs to be busied up a bit.

[Indie Boy]

this any better?

[LilBlueSmurf]

The newest version does look better.Ã,  It does still seem to be from a rather steep angle however.Ã,  Some possible ideas:
-Change the perspective on the floor only, having the outside lines at closer to a 25 or 30 degree angle from the console instead of closer to 50-60 degrees.
-Or, If you don't change the floor, you may need to adjust the pad if you are wanting it to appear round.Ã,  right now the perspective make it looks oval, and maybe even a a bit 'bubble' like.
-And a purely cosmetic, but not quick change, you might consider making the image less symetrical.Ã,  If your going for that, cool, but images are often more interesting with less symetry.Ã,  It may help even, to do something like just removing one of the green tubes on a side and shifting the pad to one side. Or just bringing back the foreground tube and side elements you took from the original as it didn't have as much of the 'first glance mirror' effect.
Also, it seems you want to have a rectangular wall panel, but the vanishing point for the top edge is wrong, it's way below the floors suggested vp.Ã,  Which really makes me think again that it is the floor that needs changed. Unless your going for an odd shaped wall panel, in which case I would say bad idea here, because it is very hard to show without it just looking wrong.

I went ahead and just did a quick edit, it's not clean, I just distorted it.

[InCreator]

I picked the last edit for my edit. This is a 4-minute edit, but makes alot of change...

IMO, you have alot of lights there. But they are so dull.



What I did: Selected everything but lights and created a new, semi-transclusent dark blue layer onto it (which gives dark blue tone to eveything), and lightened/brightened it a bit around the lights.

This isn't probably what you're going for, but what I meant was - bring more player's attention to these little gadgets and lights, so your background gives much more detailed impression. I especially like how rightmost lights look.
But big empty areas > no-no. Avoid em', or fill em' with stuff.

[RocketGirl]

this any better?

Absolutely, though the perspective seems a trifle off.

I really like what InCreator did with it. LilBlueSmurf's isn't bad either, if you want to keep your original lighting scheme.

[Indie Boy]

Personaly I dont like lights, I mean the main light source so I avoid them where possible. Thats why it seems the only light source is the lights on the control panels e.t.c. so i dont want the background to be very dull and dark like InCreator's paint over. InCreator I do like it but its made the lights look more as disco lights than anything. Anyways heres an update

Changes
lowered the vanishing point [again]
added more dials, buttons e.t.c
added fan/vent
made the tubes more as test tubes(I really wanted them to look like they are going into the wall(the wall you are facing) but that didnt work out)
fixed floor more (aka restarted it)
added an alien sign on the wall saying cloning room in an alien writing
also added a star trekkie food maker thingwy

keep the critz coming and paint overs

[LilBlueSmurf]

Nice, much better now   

[Akumayo]

I'd still lower the vanishing point 5-10 pixels, but that's just me...

[Pet Terry]

Actually, I find the overall grayness in your background dull, while InCreator's lighting and colouring makes it seem very atmospheric and exciting. The first thing to come in to my mind when looking at InC's paintover is "Woah, nice futuristic room in a space ship or something!". The amount of detail is very nice, but I don't quite understand why the second cyan panel has dithered shading while rest of the background doesn't have any dithering.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I made an edit (on the left side of the image mostly) to show you what some basic light and shadows can do for it.