Need a little critiscism on my art

[walty]

Now, I've always wanted to make an adventure game. I've been playing them since I was about six (although I made more use of walkthroughs back thenÃ,  ). I was overjoyed when I found AGS a few days ago and decided to try and make an adventure game. I learned most of the basics by playing around with different GUIs and creating functional maps with Simon the Sorcerer rips and sprites. That was just to practice making a game with resources I already had instead of making a bunch of graphics and discovering afterwards I couldn't use the program or something of that sort. I do _not_ intend to release a game with ripped graphics.

Due to my unfortunately nonexistant graphical talents, I am unable to create the rich, detailed, shaded, hand painted adventure game world I envision in my mind (Think Simon the sorceror, Monkey Island etc.). I have attempted to draw a scene, it's not complete but it's got the basics of the style that seems to be the only way I can draw backgrounds and not have them come out as COMPLETE crap.

As I have said, nothing in that image is finalized. Definately not the sprite. I just want a general idea of if this background and style in general looks decent enough that you might not mind looking at it while you play a game, and if so give constructive critiscism on what can be improved in terms of..everything. (But not in terms of, say; add more tables or anything because I'll get to that)

Anyway, that was probably a lot of text just to ask for C&C on a backgroundÃ,  so I'll get right to posting the image:



~walty

[R4L]

Not too bad, but i would suggest some tutorials around the forums, and using the line tool. Try to avoid double pixels, and give objects correct shapes (your machine looks like some one beat the hell out of it). Cheers!

[walty]

What I really need help with is shading, bad shapes and double pixels I can fix easily, but when it comes to shading an entire room based on light sources and stuff I'm completely lost. Does anybody know any good tutorials on shading?

[Haddas]

Try the Tutorials thread in this forum.

[lo_res_man]

And practise practise, practise! for a first timer, that’s not half bad. its fairly usable. As well, a nice balance of walkable,  and  un-walkable areas. The lower right is rather empty, but the rest has fairly good visual interest. I am also pleased with your efforts to use home made graphics, rather then ripping. Keep up the hard work, and who knows? you might someday turn out to be a new DanClarke.   

[pslim]

I think it's a very respectable first go at making a background and if you made the whole game using exactly that style, if the puzzles and plot and characters were good I think for all but the most graphically-fixated your art would work just fine.

I'm only just learning to shade things so that they look anything other than awful, but one tip I can give you is that when you construct things geometrically the way you've done, to achieve a simple shaded effect all you have to do is vary the darkness/lightness of each face of the object according to its relationship with your lightsource. For example if you want the room to appear to be lit from above, make the top of your desk the lightest, the edges a little darker than that, and the sides of the desk a little bit darker still. Also, if the light source is evenly distributed over the ceiling (as opposed to, say, a lonely lamp in the center) your walls are all going to be lighter than your floor instead of vice versa.


Edit: Did a quick paint over to play with darkening and lightening some colors. Hope it gives you some ideas.




I'm by no means a master of shading but I think people who are better at it might be farther removed from their learning process and have the urge to just say, "Keep practicing and you'll get it," which is good advice but doesn't give you much to sink your teeth into. Hopefully the benefit of my meager experience will be in some way helpful to you.Ã, 

[Ghost]

walty, have you been a member of the DIV community? I think I recognise that style of yours, but I may be mistaken.

Anyway, it is a good first background. perspective is a bit wobbly; the bar doesn't relate to the wall at all.
And, is the arcade game supposed to have no control? That was actually the first thing I noticed.

[walty]

Thanks for all the helpful advice and comments everybody!

Pslim, that was a HUGE help to me. I'll be able to shade backgrounds a lot better with your advice and hopefully soon I might even be able to texture them too. I'm going to light all my rooms in that way from now on.

Ghost: Heh, maybe it's a HOLOcron because you control it mentally. Or maybe I just forgot about controls >_>

I read a few shading tutorials in terms of spriting and shading based on a lightsource and came up with this adventure game sprite:



I'm also working on another background, this one an exterior. I think I'll restart the one I posted with the new stuff I know and taking more care to avoid double pixels, bad perspectives, and lack of arcade game controlsÃ, 

~Walty

EDIT: No, I've never been a member of the DIV community so you must be thinking of someone else. 

[TheCheese33]

Why is the menu in Alien and everything else in English? Probably be good to stay consistant with one language in one location.