Critical feedback wanted on some space backgrounds

[Goldfish]

Animation- I would have the planet rotate or slowly crawl across the background, to convey ship movement, as appropriate.

I would also have twinkly light thingies on the "dashboard" control.

To match whatever ambient sound you settle on, I personally would have a changes-with-the-storyline monitor display somewhere or something similar, to act as a "clock" for the story.

And I want to say, I admire your preparedness to call bullshit on the "critics" and their "criticism". They aren't critics, they're being snide. Stemming I guess from insecurities. Kudos to you for taking on the signal to noise ration issue in the AGS forums. It is a hard row to hoe.

[Snarky]

Goldfish, you clearly have some issues with this community that maybe this thread isn't the best place for.

The points about resolution is not some dogma of ideology, but actual helpful advice about technique. Take loominous, for example. He almost always works in high resolution, but he'd be the first to tell you that when you're laying out a background, you want to be working in a thumbnail format. That's how you nail the composition and the perspective and all that stuff that determines if the screen works overall.

There are some basic flaws common to a lot of newbies working in high-rez that you come to recognize. The first point of feedback then, naturally, is that they'd get better results in low-rez. Sythe doesn't want to do that. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean it isn't still easiest to solve the problems in low-rez before polishing the high-resolution version of the screens.

[Ryan Timothy B]

The separation might be completely unnecessary, but it seemed like an interesting experiment. I guess it also gives the impression that the ship is rather large, which is one I want to make.

Anyway, I had a feeling you were trying to go far that 'large' ship feeling.  The only spaceship adventure game I can think of that showed large areas of the ship (I haven't played all that many), making the ship look huge, was Space Quest 6.

Which they seem to go for the camera being low to the ground type perspective (low horizon / vanishing point) and show off the height of the walls, and lack of ceiling (since it's so damn high up ).

This one for instance:
http://www.spacequest.net/sq6/screenshots/20.html

Another good technique is to show depth, like this background:
http://www.spacequest.net/sq6/screenshots/07.html

There is always something overlapping something, which makes the composition so much more visually entertaining.  I tried to do this to the chairs in the edited image I drew earlier.  Pulling the one chair out, so it wasn't hiding from behind the other and blending in.  Also extending the center console to separate the two.

Also every empty area of wall has a decorative element to spruce things up, not just flat walls.  Separations in the wall, pipes, vents, lights, consoles, etc.  Not only is it interesting to look at but it also provokes that adventurish feeling of exploration in your mind.  "What's this button?"  "What's behind that?"  "What does that pipe do?"
Also gives the person playing something to interact with.

Actually one of the backgrounds that had my mouse moving over every single pixel was probably this one:
http://www.spacequest.net/sq6/screenshots/19.html

One thing I actually really liked were the foreground elements in that one.  Usually they are only silhouettes or out of focus items.  The cage on the right is the best.

I still remember entering that room and all I could picture were drawers and cupboards filled with high-tech medical equipment and such.  Alas, it actually happened to be very uninteractive room.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Sythe- no one here (with the exception of you and Goldfish) has shown any real attitude, and I make it a point to keep this forum
a civil one.  If you are going to continue posting your work here for feedback and assistance then be prepared to get replies that aren't just 'this is great'.  Several people in this forum (myself included) have been working on games and game art for years and some of us even have commercial experience so don't be so quick to judge and dismiss.

Goldfish:  Tone down your scathing attitude or post elsewhere.


The latest background is a definite improvement in readability but there are a few things that I'm curious about:

1.  How do people get to the bed with that tall shelf to get over?

2.  The way you've applied shading is a bit confusing to me.  For instance, the right side of the room is darker (which is fine for a light source on the left side) but there's no allowance for shape, ie, the bed is shaded with the same methods as the wall behind it and the shelf.  This works against your perspective, making these objects seem flat rather than giving them depth.  My advice is to look at how light streams through a window in your bedroom on things (or pictures in google) and approach the shading that way.

Again, I think composition wise it's much improved, just some focus on shading and perhaps some details here and there will make the room even better.

[Matti]

ProgZ made some good points. The lighting indeed makes the furniture look flat.

And yes, that high shelf doesn't make sense. I tried to show how the room would look like with people in it (taking the size of the bed as a starting point)... it looks weird.

I know you said that you don't want to discuss the resolution thing any further, but I totally second that you should use a lower res, like in my example (640x480). It just looks so much nicer.

[Khris]

And incidentally, scaling down images like yours using a standard bilinear filter creates pretty nice anti-aliasing automatically, as nicely shown by Mr. Matti's edit.

[Sythe]

1.  How do people get to the bed with that tall shelf to get over?

The height of a character at the nearest point in the room is about 3/5th the height of the screen. The image is actually derrived from a photo of an actual bedroom, so the proportions should be more or less correct.

Although this is still an interesting point. Do you think it would look better with the whole sleeping arrangement lowered several inches?

2.  The way you've applied shading is a bit confusing to me.  For instance, the right side of the room is darker (which is fine for a light source on the left side) but there's no allowance for shape, ie, the bed is shaded with the same methods as the wall behind it and the shelf.  This works against your perspective, making these objects seem flat rather than giving them depth.  My advice is to look at how light streams through a window in your bedroom on things (or pictures in google) and approach the shading that way.

This is good advice, and something I was trying to work out myself.

I've recoloured the room, although sadly the palettes still don't line up between room 1 and room 2, and I've taken your advice about re-shading it.



Tell me what you think.

Cheers,
Sythe

[LRH]

Lighting is better for sure. But yes, I think something should be done about the bed height, etc.

For example, look at this:


I drew a red line from floor to top, then copied it onto the bed in comparison. (I know the bed is further back and therefore bigger than it appears, but the distance is trivial.)

This would make for quite a hop to get up into the bed area. Either that, or it implies that the bed is quite small.

[Sythe]

Lighting is better for sure. But yes, I think something should be done about the bed height, etc.

For example, look at this:


I drew a red line from floor to top, then copied it onto the bed in comparison. (I know the bed is further back and therefore bigger than it appears, but the distance is trivial.)

This would make for quite a hop to get up into the bed area. Either that, or it implies that the bed is quite small.

I think that's a fair point.



But I like the previous iteration better.

[Jakerpot]

Compare the table with the bed...

This bed is far from being a real bed, unless it is for a gnome.

[Jim Reed]

To fix the bed, you could lenghten it, along with the room, to the right.

[Calin Leafshade]

If i may offer my thoughts on low-res vs hi-res,

The fact of the matter is that adventure games are played on a 3 dimensional plane but the sprites are obviously 2 dimensional.

This causes all kinds of perspective issues which are glaringly obvious in high resolution games since there are way more markers for the eye to pick up on.

Also hi res 2d animations tend not to work as well on a 3d plane. The whole diagonal sliding effect is much more pronounced and obvious. I would offer the recent Monkey Island 1 remake as an example of this. It simply looks awful, it is painful to look at the second anyone moves. Like a bad flash game.

And dont get me wrong, I have no particular preference for high res or low res. I was not really into old 90's adventure games all that much so this is not nostalgia, merely observation.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Sythe:  Have you considered cutting away part of the side of that shelf and adding a few stairs leading up to it?  That might give it a somewhat MC Escher-ish look with him using the shelf to sit at the table, though ;\. 

Perhaps making a slight ramp up to the shelf from the bottom side of it would work?


It still might make the area with the table a bit strange but maybe you can cut away sections of shelf around the table to make benches to sit in?

The lighting is much more convincing now, good work!

[Dualnames]

I think this is a great step. It does look weird, yes, but it's really nice as it is. I think you've got yourself a nice style, and if you can try and improve its for your gain!