Take a look at these backgrounds, please.

Erling E. · Thu 14/08/2003 02:25:37

Good day good folk,

I'm new to these forums, and I've just recently started looking at AGS. I also recently discovered AGAST, so I'm somewhat thorn between them. Not to worry though, as I won't start implementing anything into my game until I get some of the basic graphics done first. This includes a few areas, and of course the main character.

I'm working on a game titled "The Incredible Time Machine". It's a humerous adventure game along the lines of Day of the Tentacle. A kid stumbles upon a time machine and travels trough history, meeting all these fameous people. Now, the problem is that this kid is somewhat of a menace. Let's just say that history will never be the same again. I would say it's "Bill and Ted vs. Day of the Tentacle".

Now, here are two of my first backgrounds from the game. They are drawn in photoshop, and with a mouse, so I hope you'll excuse some of the crude lines and angles. I want to achieve the same kind of feel Day of the Tentacle did. A comic-looking atmosphere, with pretty colors and such. The first is just a room. It's not finished at all, and it will contain whatever it shall contain soon. The second room is very small, and I have illustrated this by having lots of "blackness" around it, and of course the bricks in the foreground.

I hope you like them, but I would also love any kind of feed back. I'm truly an amateur, and the only way for me to improve is to hear other peoples thoughts about it. Thanks, and hello to everyone by the way!

taryuu · Thu 14/08/2003 03:15:07

the light source looks pretty tacky, although it could just be part of your style. since it's obvious you're not going for "realism" i'm not quite sure what else to comment on. maybe a little shaind on the exposed brick in the second picture. looks pretty intense, rock on dude.

jason · Thu 14/08/2003 05:13:44

:o.. That second BG is awesome dude! The color selection is just right, the light source works really well, and the wallpaper rocks!

n3tgraph · Thu 14/08/2003 09:26:56

great work... really!

but I don't like the white outlines

fidodido · Thu 14/08/2003 09:34:46

Both BG's are great, pal.

But they will look even better if you change the off-white outlines to either black outlines or dark outlines.

I really like your style. Very cheerful and smooth.

BTW, you should add some stuff to those rooms (furniture etc.).

Erling E. · Thu 14/08/2003 11:36:20

Thank you for all your input! It makes a huge difference.

Ginny · Thu 14/08/2003 14:00:32

That's awesome!
Damn, how do you do that? That looks so great!

I especcially like the second room. How did you draw the wallpaper?

My only critic is the outlines, I think they should be black or a darker version of the color they're outlining. You could try having no outlines at all, but I dunno if it'll fit in the style. Hmm, what did DOTT use? It's been a while since I played it.

The idea sounds great too, I can't wait to play this game!

edit: Hmm, when I think about it the celing intn room 2 seems off perspective, even for the DOTT style, it seems like it's a straight continuation of the wall. Everything else is wonderful! I love the shading and the colors!

Erling E. · Thu 14/08/2003 15:16:29

Quote from: GinnyW on Thu 14/08/2003 14:00:32
That's awesome!
Damn, how do you do that? That looks so great!

I especcially like the second room. How did you draw the wallpaper?

My only critic is the outlines, I think they should be black or a darker version of the color they're outlining. You could try having no outlines at all, but I dunno if it'll fit in the style. Hmm, what did DOTT use? It's been a while since I played it.

The idea sounds great too, I can't wait to play this game!

edit: Hmm, when I think about it the celing intn room 2 seems off perspective, even for the DOTT style, it seems like it's a straight continuation of the wall. Everything else is wonderful! I love the shading and the colors!

Thank you very, very much! All I can say is that I use Photoshop to do it. I'm really an amateur, so I'm amazed by this positive feedback. I think the shading is what makes them looks so detailed. When you say the wallpaper, do you mean the green one? The spirals are just some brushes I got somewhere on the Internet. Other than that, it's all normal Photoshop brushes.

I agree about the outlines. If I ever redo these images, I will use a darker outline, or no outline at all. I don't know if no outlines would work, but it's worth a try.

And thanks for the hint on the perspective!

12431 · Thu 14/08/2003 17:29:44

looks nice! you've got the hang of it.

are you by any chance a norwegian?

Erling E. · Thu 14/08/2003 23:30:13

Quote from: 12431 on Thu 14/08/2003 17:29:44
looks nice! you've got the hang of it.

are you by any chance a norwegian?

Indeed I am. Why? And how did you notice?

rodekill · Thu 14/08/2003 23:44:22

I think they're really great, but personally I'm getting a little sick of the twisted DOTT style doors everyone loves doing.
Other than that though I love them. The strange textures on the walls and floors are awsome.

agsking · Thu 14/08/2003 23:51:56

Welcome. I hope you use AGS- its really flexable and has a lot of neat features. It would also make another great AGS game

Anyway, about the backgrounds I like them a lot! Very cool- I like the cartoonish perspective but I can only see one problem: Those white lines. I recommend simply going over them with black lines. But, if you wanted them to look a lot more DOTTish you could do a darker orange on the orange parts and dark blue lines by the blue floor ext.
Other then that, great work!

ratracer · Thu 14/08/2003 23:58:13

I really dig the colouring of the second BG! The blue on the first one hurts my eyes a little, but overall they're great

Erling E. · Fri 15/08/2003 00:58:05

Thanks everyone for the kind words, and the constructive criticism. It's really a lot of help!

Quote from: agsking on Thu 14/08/2003 23:51:56
Welcome. I hope you use AGS- its really flexable and has a lot of neat features. It would also make another great AGS game

Anyway, about the backgrounds I like them a lot! Very cool- I like the cartoonish perspective but I can only see one problem: Those white lines. I recommend simply going over them with black lines. But, if you wanted them to look a lot more DOTTish you could do a darker orange on the orange parts and dark blue lines by the blue floor ext.
Other then that, great work!

Thanks! And yes, I completely agree with you. It's kind of hard doing these rooms over again with darker lines. It won't look good if I just draw over them. But in future rooms I make, I am definetly going with you way. Dark blue on blue squares etc. I think that's going to work very well.

Again - thank you!

Ginny · Fri 15/08/2003 01:04:02

For these images, you could also select the areas of color (or the layers in the Photoshop file) and just remove the outlines layer or hide it, and make a black background, or change the saturation/lightness for the outlines layer to be completely black.
That's for black outlines of course.

If you're gonna use these in a game, it's best all backgrounds stay consistent, so maybe you should try to alter these bgs so that they have darker colored outlines too. If these were just a test though (and a great test if so) then there's no need to bother changing it I guess.

It's just important that the background style is consistent

Erling E. · Fri 15/08/2003 01:21:12

Quote from: GinnyW on Fri 15/08/2003 01:04:02
For these images, you could also select the areas of color (or the layers in the Photoshop file) and just remove the outlines layer or hide it, and make a black background, or change the saturation/lightness for the outlines layer to be completely black.
That's for black outlines of course.

If you're gonna use these in a game, it's best all backgrounds stay consistent, so maybe you should try to alter these bgs so that they have darker colored outlines too. If these were just a test though (and a great test if so) then there's no need to bother changing it I guess.

It's just important that the background style is consistent

Absolutely, sir. I fully agree. Now, if you don't mind me asking, how do I make Photoshop swap one color in the image with another? It's a flat image you see, I havn't got the layers anymore. Is it possible to catch the outlines color, and instantly turning them into another color trough some kind of tool? Excuse me, but I'm hardly any experienced enough in Photoshop.

Erling E. · Fri 15/08/2003 01:32:53

Ok, I don't know why I did this, but I just picked up the mouse and doodled around in Photoshop. This is a very undetailed character I've drawn with a mouse only. So, excuse the roughness. It's my first character I've ever drawn solely on a computer, so I'd like some pointers if anyone has the urge to dispense them

Ginny · Fri 15/08/2003 01:49:19

Well, if you don't have the layered version anymore, selecting the outline will be a bit tough, but here's a little attemp I made in manually selecting the colored parts and copy-pasting to another layer, then creating balck behind it:
This could be done the same way only make the outlines colored, or you could select the outlines(which doesn't seem to work very well for me but you could try) and then copy paste them to a new layer (just Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V, it creates a new layer automatically. You could then go to image>adjust>hue/saturation and adjust saturation and lightness to 0, to make it black.
It's practically impossible to select only the oulines of one wall for example, so I always reccomend keeping the Photoshop versions with layers, and seperating outlines for every element of the picture.

edit: here's the edited image, it's pretty rough on the edges so it's not fir for using in a game, there are some small areas that didn't get selected:

the same can be done with the second image I suppose. But I think there could be a better way. Someone more skilled in Photoshop than I am might know

.

P.s. it's "Yes, Miss". Say it with me..

j/k

edit: Wow, great stuff! This is splendid for a first character, it's very unique and cartoony!
Now, for crits: his pose is a bit odd, though it does make it more cartoony.
His legs are just, he looks very uncomfortable

.
Love the shading. His chest looks jagged or something like that

.
Great 'one-eye' idea! It's all about the originality and making things look interesting.

This probably doesn't apply for a cartoony style, but it may look better with colored outlines, though I think it works fine like this

Erling E. · Fri 15/08/2003 02:13:10

Thank you very much, miss! This was very helpful to me. And yes, I will make sure to use different layers on all elements next time. I'll consider this a test for now

I think I'm just playing aroung with these backgrounds now, just to learn a tricks on the future backgrounds. Below you see the same room as above, but I've added a few items. The bushes looks horrid, I think. Well, I like the green areas, but the pots are disgusting. And again, I've used white outlines, and it clearly shows it dosn't work that well. But the room looks better now with some furniture.

I've also added the back of the same room, same white outlines and all. Thought I keep the style for this room only.

agsking · Fri 15/08/2003 02:16:07

If thats the your first computer try at a character, you've got talent. Imagine what you can do after a little more practice! :o

As for swaping colors, I found this:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12869.html

Go down to Replacing color and try that.

That may seem complicated so you might be able to use the Magic Wand tool.

1. Select the magic want tool. Its near the top and it looks like a stick with a star on top.

2. Set the tolerance to a high level because it looks like you lines are anit-aliased (fuzzy) and photoshop needs to know that because there are extra little fuzzy pixils that need to be selected also.

3. Click on the a white line. (you may have to zoom in- shortcut Ctrl +, zoom out is Ctrl - but you could just click on the zoom buttons )

4. Keep setting the tolerance level to low and high levels then clicking the white lines and see which selects all the white the best.

5. After you get a good selection then has all of the white selected, color into the slelection whatever you want. You can use the fill, brush, pencil tool whatever.
I hope this makes sense

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EDIT: Ginnyw and you posted as as I was writing this

Good work ginnyw! I hope my post will help him even more.
I don't think the DOTT style uses black outlines though, I think it uses a darker shade of the object its oulining (as I said before)
example:
The door in the 2nd picture would have a brown outline.

let me check DOTT to see if thats the case and I'll get back to you on that, but I think black outlines would be just fine.

Great new pictures! I like the desk and the notes on the wall.
Huge improvements, Erling E.