C&C my new background!

[InCreator]

I decided to take up pixel making after a long 3D pause (I'm sooo rusty!), and ended up with this bus station...
It's almost complete, but lacks... something. Aside from buses, of course, which will be separate.

Can you help? Right side of image is where improvement is needed most - I have to compensate for this insane amount of gaussian noise somehow



2x, just for show, do not edit

[zabnat]

Just couple of ideas.
You mentioned buses, so is this a bus terminal? How about a timetable next to the bench?
Are you going to antialias this? Could help especially on the dark window borders.
The shape around the doorway looks very weird. It is very hard to make out the real 3D shape of it, actually the shape seems to be impossible.
The water puddles (?) look a bit like holes. Maybe some more transparency on then and softening on the edges?

[InCreator]

Timetable - check
Antialias - check (I'm not really a fan of manual antialiasing, but it didn't take as long as I feared - and looks much better!)
Doorway - check (somewhat better )
Puddles transparency - check. Softening edges - not check - water on asphalt doesn't work that way

Also, I hated the asphalt so I gave it a makeover with cracks



also added one with bus (lacks some text, mirror and windshield wipers yet)


thankksss...

[abstauber]

some more ideas:

- To loosen up the asphalt, you could add tramway tracks
- framing: e.g. some darker elements in the forground - like a phone booth or a streetlamp (or both combined)
- graffiti
- an advertising  column
- McDonalds bags and cups on the pavement
- antennas on the roof

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Why is the sidewalk the same color as the street?  Unless all the roads are made of cement, you probably want to make the asphalt black to distinguish it from the sidewalk.  Also, those puddles still look like holes, probably because they're too reflective.  You could add some dividers to the road that cut through some of the puddles as well.  Aside from that and cleaning up the sky a bit, I think it looks very good!

[Khris]

Minor quirks:
-The bus' vanishing point is below the horizon.
-The support beams are in the wrong position, e.g. the one farther away should end 2d-below the bottom corner of the main building.

[Badger]

khris is right about the support beam, but i like the slightly skew of perspective, makes it more interesting.
(though to fix it, the bus needs to be more 'side on' and the left side of the building is the wrong angle-just after the door)

Love the trees and the sharp background distance.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I'll show the before and after because a picture is worth a thousand words (not that I'm guaranteeing it to be better than the original, but I just couldn't stop).

Previous version


Edited version



My biggest issue was that the pavement was the same color as the sidewalk.  So I darkened that and removed that strong shadow the overhang was creating.  Felt that the shadow was distracting and much too strong for that distance.  Also things get darker when wet.

I darkened the distance of the pavement.  I believe it helps add depth instead of the distant and foreground pavement being the same colour and noise.  I did forget to darken the distance of the sidewalk though.

I felt the bus was a little too bright and dreamy considering it's hiding from the sun behind that building.  Also the building and bus matched in color too well that it was a little distracting.

Tried to make the puddles smoother around the edges so they look softer since puddles in asphalt don't have hard edges.  Which I may have made them a little too soft around the edges and possibly too bright.  Also tried to make them look like the sky is reflecting mostly off them.  It's a little cartoony I know, but puddles aren't all that visible on asphalt.

I may have made things a little too dark, but considering the partly cloudy sky and low sun, I figured it was more realistic than the bright sunny ground yours has.

Khris is correct about the bus' vanishing point being lower than the horizon.  It's not horribly off, but definitely worthwhile pointing it out for future backgrounds.


Anyway, I can't think of anything else.
One thing I love about your backgrounds is that you've always got that hard pixel look combined with soft brushes for shading.  Sometimes it can stand out (like the clouds--which I agree with Progz that they should be touched up), but most of the time you keep it simple and neat looking.  Keep drawing, I always enjoy seeing them.  

Edit: Forgot one thing.  I really don't like how the bus is parked on an angle away from the curb.  What I would do is probably hockey stick the curb behind the bus to make it look like it runs in a different direction towards the bus.  And one question, is the bus there for the entire scene?  Or does it drive away or something?  Because the door is now hidden which can make navigating the background harder.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Ryan's correction to the road and puddles is perfect.  Now when I look at them I know what they are.

[InCreator]

I agree!

Will adapt. Shaded bus really changes things. I'm not quite sure how to make puddles look like on edit, though.
I don't think the trick's in the amount of blur or reflection in the puddles but the inverted look - on ryan's edit, puddles are lighter than asphalt, and vice versa on mine. It feels differently. Though, on most photos google finds, puddles are darker... I still like ryan's version better.

road vs. sidewalk -- on my reference - and in Estonia overall, both are same color/substance usually. But edit does look better and I'll try to find middle way between original and Ryan's edit. Because setting new laws for our street decorations also defines other backgrounds I draw... Maybe draw some parking/etc lines also, to spice area up, since bus isn't long-term part of the background, but appears only after load of puzzles are solved.

bus: Bus is already leaving, and protagonist rushes to make it to the door. Hence the angle and door. I'm not sure if I really animate it driving away, but it'll be last-minute bus catch, I didn't worry about angle/etc. Of course I notice such things myself

perspective & vanishing points - I use combination of eye, quick 3D and photo reference usually, and rarely trace, simply draw what I see. The building main shape is somewhat loosely traced, while everything else is purely hand-drawn. That makes perspective a bit different on various parts.

Look at reference to see what I based my calculations/logic on (especially concerning asphalt and puddles):
http://y.delfi.ee/norm/23985/4523190_OGdFmt.jpeg

But since I failed to capture whole mid-day feeling (I tried - too contrasty and not-nice-to-look-at), and ended up with pre/after light rain weather I can change alot.

I never fill my scenes with vanishing point aid, because it makes everything too uniform & boring and to be honest, I can't be arsed to Spending half hour on drawing or deleting line aid pumps my creativity dry.
But I think I'll land on believable grounds with my perspective view most of the time though.

I'll post pre-final version tonight.

[InCreator]

Okay, I think it's almost complete:

2x


* Changed asphalt and puddles   they never feel completely right
* Shaded bus
* Remade clouds
* Abused everything with soft brush to get dirtier look, overdid on bus
* Added payphone, darkened wall under it
* Fixed windshield wipers and mirror
* Fixed pillars (somewhat)
* Fixed bench shadows (not visible on bus image)

I think I ruined it   Original looks much shinier and happier  
Made more changes to balance

Thanks to everyone who chipped in!

[Ryan Timothy B]

Much improved curb and puddles.
One thing that bothered me on your first bus version was the lack of reflection under the bus (which I had in my edit), but since you say the bus will be driving away, I wouldn't expect you to animate a moving reflection.

The McDonalds sign could probably use some AA since the M and lettering pixels seem a little too hard.  It's one of the things that stand out most when I look at the left side of the image.
Anyway, good stuff.

[Snake]

One thing that needs to be worked out in shape a bit is the McDonald's Arch.

The biggest thing that I notice that should be colored different is the reflections in the building's windows. It doesn't seem to match the color of the sky. In the reflections it looks as if there is a thunder storm on the horizon, but in reality, it's a nice day.

EDIT
Other than those two things, it's looking awesome!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Looks good!  Obviously you could stay and work on details for this but eventually you'll just be grinding your wheels over semantic 'fixes'.  I think the major issues have been resolved so nice work!

[InCreator]

I agree. I will move some pixels on Macdonald's "M", but as for everything else, I think I'm done.
After all, this bg looks considerably better than first one I posted here - so thanks AGSers - and also I'm not getting paid to work on one background for days and days. There's a game to make!

I won't probably do anything about reflections: I never aimed for full realism and balance/usage of all kinds of different colors is what makes my backgrounds appealing. Or so I think. While many people go "safe way" of low saturation and neutral colors or realistic way of high contrast and lack of color, I never liked this, so I'm trying to have everything 24-bit palette offers.


Also, noticed that "Auto color" in Photoshop does something barely noticeable but oh-so-right thing with this background.

[abstauber]

What's the deal with the monster behind the busdriver?

I quickly traced it in case some of you don't see it:

[InCreator]

It was actually portion of city of Tartu but meh  

[abstauber]

Haha, okay I see it now.

I guess that panorama isn't what I've expected on a windshield. At least not in a scene dominated by concrete


(and one day I need to visit Estonia)

[Haddas]

It's the best place for cheap alcohol. Well closest atleast.

[abstauber]

Alcohol is cheap in germany too

But on the other hand I've never seen a Vodka Sixpack before (0,7l per bottle!) That was at the tallink terminal in helsinki