Critic this room, please.

[Snarky]

And my point is that this is all because you're just drawing boxes, which are made out of parallel lines. If you were drawing irregular rocks, the vanishing points would help you not one bit.

[Ryan Timothy B]

And my point is that this is all because you're just drawing boxes, which are made out of parallel lines. If you were drawing irregular rocks, the vanishing points would help you not one bit.

Just about every man made object has a parallel line.
But you're right, if you're doing some crazy outdoor scene with irregular shaped objects, you're on your own--but isn't that obvious?

The only time you would really need vanishing points for irregularly shaped objects, is if you wanted to draw similar shaped objects of the same size at different depths (which you've already mentioned).

[Snarky]

Yup. 

Since we build a lot of boxy things with straight lines and flat sides, it's an important special case of perspective rules

[aventurero]

Could anyone help me to correct those wrong perspectives? I'll upload the file, with the 4 backgrounds I've made. It would really help me... 

[seeee]

-

[Ryan Timothy B]

I won't help you correct your backgrounds because you'll never learn for yourself on how to follow perspective (like I've mentioned before though, it doesn't have to be exact. As long as it's close enough without looking wonky no one will care)  You just need the basic understanding first before you can break the rules.

But I'll help you Google it.
Click here: http://tinyurl.com/yb95gyr
All the one point perspective tutorials you'll ever need to understand the principals of a vanishing point.

[aventurero]

You don't understand, Ryan. I don't care about drawing. I don't wanna understand. I don't have the time to draw, and I don't like it either. I just do it, because no one does it for me. I like scripting, and making the history. The drawings are just necessary, that's why I draw... otherwise I never would have drawn a room in my life.

Well, still... If anyone can help me... you're welcome.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

That may be true aventurero, but we are not here to do the work for you, just to be helpful and give you tips on how to improve .  Personally, I hate drawing backgrounds myself but I don't make excuses for doing it 'wrong'. 

Now, either you can take the advice given and apply it to your work or avoid asking for help you don't intend to make use of and continue drawing the backgrounds as you have.

[aventurero]

Oh, Prog... I did use all their help. And I found it useful. My words may "sound" bad, but that's because I speak spanish and everything I say in english sounds worse than its meant.
I know you're not here to make the work for me, I wasn't putting any excuses. And WTF... excuse? I don't have to explain anything to you nor anyone. It's just that Ryan didn't say "I won't help you because I don't have the time/I don't want to". He said he wanted me to learn, and I just told him I didn't wanna. Well, that's all. Thanks anyway guys.

[MrCheminee]

Khris allready did the biggest  Part of it.

Just stand in your room and look at what you see. You wont be able to look on the toP of your lamP for examPle...

[aventurero]

Yes, I appreciate what Khris draw. It really helped me. But I can't understand this:



It seems right, but it just doesn't work with lines like Khris' draw. 

[SpacePirateCaine]

Bigbrother's background there from Apprentice uses 2-point linear perspective, instead of 1. Generally, I encourage first-time background artists to stick to 1-point because it eliminates half of the work involved in perspective drawing - that, and if done incorrectly can have some very strange effects, and can be very difficult to use as a functional game background. If nobody beats me to it between the time I leave my office and get home, I'll show you how it follows the rules, and how it breaks them the right way.

BB has a very well-established background in both realistic and exaggerated images (like the one you cited).

To put it extremely simply, though, 2-point linear perspective, instead of assuming that facing walls are either directly facing the viewer, or directly perpendicular to their line of sight, that the viewer is looking at the room at an angle (as deep or shallow an angle as the artist wishes).

The main issue with 2-point is that in order to really achieve a realistic effect, the vanishing points on your horizon need to be far, far apart, which is exceedingly difficult to do by hand or on a computer. It doesn't have to be, but the closer the VPs are, the more of a 'fish-eye' effect the image is subject to.

[abstauber]

That's a two point perspective with the vanishing point being outside of the image. Like in Ryan's post, right green box:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=39837.msg524718#msg524718

edit: Sorry Mr. Space Pirate, haven't seen your post before

[SpacePirateCaine]

Alright, I'm home. Have been for a while, but didn't jump right on top of it. But I'm all about the learning.

So, as a picture is worth a thousand words, let me start by saying this:



You will note that there are two sets of red lines that converge at 2 points on a single, horizontal line. Not all of the lines are perfectly aligned, but by and large, you can see that the room very much still follows 'the rules'.

Now, even though each of the vanishing points is a good 2/3 of a whole screen off to either side of our actual game screen, you can see that it still looks a bit squished. Fortunately for this picture, it doesn't suffer for this - as a more 'cartoony' looking game, the brothers Schlaepfer can get away with a little creative license in the way that lines look. You can curve some lines slightly to fit your purposes, but all in all, if you don't at least try to follow the rules, things are going to start messing with your mind.

Now, I'd like to point out a few glaring issues and also offer hypotheses as to why they happened. First being the stairs. That area to the right of the cauldron with a very steep line that doesn't go anywhere near the left VP. Why? Well, I can think of two reasons: one is that because of the discrepancy, your eye actually is naturally attracted to it. Most people don't envision VPs, so it looks 'wrong', but you can't be sure why. That will certainly help when you're looking for the exit from the room and can't find it. The other being that if he followed the rules, the whole stair area would be very small and cramped, and encroach on the dolphin statue's space. Sometimes you need to make a concession in order to put emphasis on something.

The other, and less of a big issue, is the table on the bottom right, with the picture on it. In this case, the table firstly could theoretically be on an angle - since we don't have a point of reference, we can't be for sure - and secondly, the table, if following the rules completely, would take up too much foreground space and start detracting from playable space. It's foreground filler.

Anyway, the point I've been trying to make is that good backgrounds come from knowing how to make one.

Now, you are saying you don't really want to learn to make backgrounds, and if that's the case, no problem at all! But you did post the background in the Critic's Lounge and ask for critique - so that's what we're giving you. Ultimately, if you're happy with it, then that's all that really matters, right?

[aventurero]

Oh, great explanation, Pirate. I thought it was 2 points, and made the same thing with the lines that you did. But some lines (exactly the stairs and that table with the picture) didn't fit. So my head was about to explode. Maybe my problem is that I'm to square. Or I follow the rules completely, or I don't follow them at all. I guess you can skip some rules (I don't think any one is gonna start drawing red lines into each of your game's backgrounds ).

Well, I would like to learn to draw backgrounds, but you see... I'm alone in this, I do everything. Scripting, story, backgrounds, chars, objects, GUIs, etc, etc... So I would really use the help from someone who can at least take one burden off me. I remade one of my rooms, with the perspective-thing. I just have to redraw it with the details and stuff. I'll upload it for you to tell me if I did it right (or just OK, I can live with that ).



Btw: I have trouble to draw circular objects. Any tips?

[Grim]

Making games is not a burden!!! It's supposed to be fun!!!

Perspective aside, what I noticed in that background that I found strange is the bookshelf in front of two windows. Maybe I'm being picky now, but if it was my house I wouldn't have put it there so it could block the light...

[Ryan Timothy B]

Btw: I have trouble to draw circular objects. Any tips?

Here's a good visual demonstration:

(Another image found with Google)

Edit: If you don't make the X match up in the center like that, you'll have an Oval shape instead.