Tell me honestly....

Snarky · Mon 16/07/2012 13:18:45

No.

selmiak · Mon 16/07/2012 14:29:53

true

the sofa on the upper left has a shadow in 2 directions and the shadow of the chair is way to huge. And give that rug a small fuzzy shadow too

Snarky · Mon 16/07/2012 15:58:23

Additionally, the shadow from the sofa by the coffee table seems to start about a foot away from it, by the corner of the rug, and goes parallel to the wall for no reason, until it reaches the side wall, where the light suddenly curves around the corner in order to spread out into the corridor. And when the far shadow from the chair reaches the wall, the light somehow doesn't manage to go up the wall at all, but just stays on the ground.

Basically, there's hardly a single shadow in the entire picture that looks right. (The shadow of the left sofa on the ground, and the right-hand shadow in the corridor aren't too bad.)

Shadows aren't really that difficult to do, even just eyeballing them to get something "close enough". You just have to think spatially, about where in the room you wouldn't have a clear line of sight to the light source. This picture makes it seem like you have no idea how to work that out, and are just kind of taking random guesses. So maybe you're better off doing them by construction. You can start by making sure all the shadow outlines on the ground (well, the ones cast by vertical edges) point towards the foot of the lamp.

Apart from the shadows, this looks very nice and clean. Or are you using templates/sprite sets for the rooms/furniture? (You said something about SWAT 2.)

FrankT · Mon 16/07/2012 22:43:53

Quote from: Snarky on Mon 16/07/2012 15:58:23Apart from the shadows, this looks very nice and clean. Or are you using templates/sprite sets for the rooms/furniture? (You said something about SWAT 2.)

Both, sort of! I made up some simplified walls and floor, and recycled the furniture. Most of it, anyway.

Er, yeah, I'm really not that good at light physics; that last round really was a few shots in the dark. If I can think with circles....

EchosofNezhyt · Tue 17/07/2012 07:12:17

I'm not the best but I drew up a quick thing with the mouse.(I think I'm a bit closer to the shading, that said I'm prolly still quite a bit wrong.)

The main problem with yours was a few wierd things and the lighting is such that the light bulb would have been on the floor.

Edit:
Well after looking at it, I still see problems with mine.

I might redo it tommorow.

Armageddon · Tue 17/07/2012 07:20:00

I really like that edit frito, very moody. Could you explain how it was done?

EchosofNezhyt · Tue 17/07/2012 07:24:26

Umm... I just made 2 layers over his and took a default pixel brush and clicked around where the light would shine and then the other layer where it would get darker and set them to overlay(Prolly not the best option if your shading like this for a real background.)

Edit: oh and I forgot I added some shadows on the sprites too.

FrankT · Tue 17/07/2012 10:33:31

Very nice! I should have you on the team as consultant. Would it be alright if I used that fix?

EchosofNezhyt · Tue 17/07/2012 12:54:21

You can if you want to... Though it has a really rough look you might want to use it as a reference and try doing the shadows again(Mine are exactly right either

)

FrankT · Tue 17/07/2012 14:21:32

Aw, but I'm no good at shadows; I think we've established that.

EchosofNezhyt · Tue 17/07/2012 15:01:54

Well practice a bit.
What you had wasn't bad.

FrankT · Tue 17/07/2012 23:23:47

Well... alright. One more go.

Not much better, isit?

EchosofNezhyt · Wed 18/07/2012 05:07:31

Well you use my shadows for reference.

Think of a sunset, When your standing there and your shadow is super long. Now think of noon when its not very long.

Your lamp is in the air, So the shadows it casts are not going to be super long.

Anian · Wed 18/07/2012 08:02:44

Quote from: Frito Master on Wed 18/07/2012 05:07:31
Think of a sunset, When your standing there and your shadow is super long. Now think of noon when its not very long.

Your lamp is in the air, So the shadows it casts are not going to be super long.

Exactly. If the light source is higher than the object, than the shadows will get shorter, not longer. You're taking into account horizontal relations between objects and the light source but not the vertical. The bulb in the lamp is higher than any furniture in the room, so the shadows can't possibly be that long.

I mean Frito did a nice job of showing you how short the shadow of the chairs and the couches and the table is and yet you drew it with long shadows again.

EchosofNezhyt · Wed 18/07/2012 09:23:59

Well he is still learning.

Shading isn't that bad when you get the hang of it.

What program are you using.

Snarky · Wed 18/07/2012 11:25:18

That's looking much better, FrankT!

The bits that are still noticeably off are the shadows into the corridor. Like I said before, the edge of the shadows should be a line pointing towards the light source (here the lamp; or more accurately the foot of the lamp - you have to project the light source down onto the plane along the normal of the plane). I don't know what the diagonal line from the top of the corner to the bottom of the doorway is even meant to be. You could certainly add light coming from the doorway as a secondary light source (if that's what you're trying to do), but I'd focus on getting the single-source shadows right first.

You could also tweak the shadow from the back of the left sofa a bit, and maybe the angle on the shadow from the front of the chair, but they're pretty good as they are.

I disagree with Frito Master and Anian about the length of the shadows. The lamp isn't that high, and given the distance to the various pieces of furniture, the light is going to come in at a pretty flat angle, so the shadows will be long. The chair, parts of the shadow of the sofa on the left, and the shadow of the coffee table are maybe a tad too long, but otherwise I think this is closer to how they'd actually fall than Frito's sketch. (Of course, Frito is also taking into account light dispersion and ambient reflected light for a much softer look. I think in this particular art style, it's just as well to discount all of that and just assuming all light is flat and even, and all the shadows crisp.)

(The way I would sanity-check stuff like this is to imagine that I'm lying on the floor and looking towards the lamp. Is anything blocking my view? In that case I'm in shadow. So behind the couch on the right, I think it's quite plausible that the shadow would go all the way to the wall.)

FrankT · Wed 18/07/2012 12:46:06

Quote from: Frito Master on Wed 18/07/2012 09:23:59
What program are you using.

GIMP. Why, is there a more suitable program?

Armageddon · Wed 18/07/2012 21:01:20

Just a little tip, I used to worry about what tool I was using for the longest time, always thought the best things like Photoshop would make my stuff pretty, or GraphicsGale would be better for pixel art. Just use a tool you're comfortable with, it's not the tool, it's the artist. I myself use Gimp even though I have Photoshop.

FrankT · Wed 18/07/2012 22:56:04

Ok. A little more tweaking. Is this any better, or...?

Snarky · Wed 18/07/2012 23:36:09

Sorry, it's not. I'm not sure what you're doing (what is going on with the shadow of the chair? not to mention in the corridor?), but unless this is just trying to show both the old and the new version together in one image, I would recommend scrapping it and going back to the previous version. Just keep it simple: one single light source, one single depth of shadow, none of this half-shadow stuff.