Background Blitz - PYROTEK

Mandle · Mon 07/12/2015 23:16:12

Hahaha...I was originally just throwing together a rather simple background in a few hours to help the contest out as kind of a failsafe in case of no more entries. But now with the extension and all, I'm gonna give it a bit more of a decent try. I had actually planned on finishing it yesterday, but kinda had one of those "off days" Cassiebsg mentioned elsewhere and wasted the day on sleeping and youtube instead...

SilverSpook · Tue 08/12/2015 06:56:38

All right! I can feel things heating up in background city. I think we can blow the thermometer off of this competition. Let's get cooking, folks!

(I would make a really crappy gameshow host, I have just realized! Good thing I'm a game developer!)

Mandle · Tue 08/12/2015 12:02:26

Quote from: SilverSpook on Tue 08/12/2015 06:56:38
Good thing I'm a game developer!)

Naw...

You're more like a game-show host...

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 08/12/2015 22:52:15

STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS.

- I was extremely happy with the crisp contrast and color scheme of the foreground
- I was rather happy with the background as long as it was B&W (the contrast and pixel-art dithering were was really cool)
- Now I'm extremely dissatisfied with the result after adding some tinting to the background. The colors are shitty, the contrast is shitty, and it interferes with the foreground.

What's worse, I can't seem to fix it despite my efforts.
Not a happy Monsieur Ouxx right now.

And before you say "don't be sad, it's still pretty", just have a look at this and witness the huge quality gap.

Mandle · Wed 09/12/2015 14:29:08

My entry:

[imgzoom]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/Mandle/XmasReleaseCandidate05_zpsufxwsuqp.png[/imgzoom]

May you all have such an idyllic time this Christmas...

Monsieur OUXX · Wed 09/12/2015 14:44:36

Nice set up

Cassiebsg · Wed 09/12/2015 15:47:17

Monsieur OUXX is trying to drive me away from the competion....

(as if I was competition...

)

Well, it's still bundles better than mine, anyway.

Nice one Mandle.

EDIT: Still a WIP, but since deadline is tomorrow and am not sure I'll get to play it more... posting as is for now. Will change it if I get to do more on it.

Mandle · Sun 13/12/2015 05:45:07

Wow Cassie! Your Blender skills are increasing at a tremendous rate! Nice grass! I did a tutorial in Blender on making grass and I remember it being fun, powerful, and confusing...Also nice fire! Is that particle effects?

Cassiebsg · Sun 13/12/2015 08:52:13

Thanks Mandle.

The fire is Smoke (Quick smoke, then turned into fire) effect. There's particle effect for the ambers flying up though. It stills need some work, adding smoke to some of the burning logs (the end of the tutorial) but I was just too lazy at the time.

I guess the grass I was lucky, turned out okay at first try, so I didn't bothered too much with a bunch of settings. Guess the fact that it's a night scene made be lazy last night.
And I'm wondering it those ambers are living "too long". There's a lot of what looks like ambers around the door... shouldn't be any there.

Mandle · Sun 13/12/2015 13:40:59

Personally, I thought that I gained a lot of experience in how to develop a blank page into to what looks somewhat like a realistic lighted and shaded background using just Gimp and my mouse during this contest...

I thought I might write something about that experience for others, but also so that I might come back and read it myself again so that I can reproduce the steps in the correct order in the future...

GRAPHICS PROFESSIONALS NEED NOT READ FURTHER!!! (My methods are very sub-par...I don't even use layers...)

HIDDEN TO AVOID STRETCHING THE THREAD:

Spoiler

Step One: DRAW in the line work with pure black 1 pixel pencil, but only ever use the dot-to-dot method. NEVER freedraw... Oh...And this time I just eyeballed and guessed the perspective, but I think it worked out okay...

Step Two: TEXTURE the white areas with graphics stolen from google. But the trick is to find those of a larger size and scale them down. NEVER scale up... Texturing the fireplace took me about an hour to get the perspective right on the interior walls...At this point the textures are going to look very 2D, washed out and ugly...But this is exactly what you want because:

Step Three: SHADE everything that needs to look rounded. I'm not talking about shadows or light sources here. I mean just make the edges of roundish objects fade from darker to lighter at their edges. I selected the areas I wanted with feathering turned on (spilling over the edges), and then deselected the areas outside the shapes with antialliasing and feathering off (FOR MY METHOD ANTIALIASING MUST BE OFF AT ALL TIMES)...Now you can just turn down the brightness of the selected areas by 30% or so or whatever looks nice...

Step Four: PERSPECTIVE SHADE the scene by selecting areas with the magic wand set at about 70% selectability. The 100% black lines you drew in originally should still be effective barriers to block bleeding into the next area. But if not then adjust manually...Now turn the brightness of everything slanted to the camera down by about 30%...In the case of my scene this meant the interior fireplace walls, the far left wall, and the floor...

Step Five: LIGHT the scene. This takes a bit of imagination. You must think of where the light source(s) are coming from and what mood you wish to create. In the case of my scene I wanted a warm glow from the fireplace so I used the Free-select tool with feathering at about 10 pixels to select the areas I wished to be darker. Through trial and error I adjusted the brightness until said areas looked dark enough in contrast to the rest of the scene.

Step Six: TWEAK. My picture for me was still much too bright to look like a cosy fireside Christmas scene. So I turned down the brightness on the entire scene until it looked like night time. Now the fireplace fire did not pop so I used the feathered selection tool again to select the interior of the fireplace and also the glow area that it would radiate over the hearth, the floor and the rug (for which I purposely chose an Islamic design as a statement of peace for all in what should be a peaceful time regardless of religion...erm...TMI?). Then I used the brightness levels again to up the brightness on my fireplace glow and also tweaked the hue levels more into the orange range to give a more fireplace kind of glow...

Step Seven: PLAY with the scene. I was satisfied with the look but still wanted something more so I went into Gimp filters and played around until I found the lighting filter that provided the shaft of light coming down through the star. I considered applying more shadows to properly obey the new light source but decided that enough was enough and not to overcomplicate things...Also it was late and I was sleepy...

[close]

So yeah...Mostly just a blog to myself to remember the steps in my correct order for my own future projects, but also maybe helpful for others...

And to all a goodnight...

SilverSpook · Mon 14/12/2015 00:39:52

Alright! This Pyrotek competition was decidedly less inflammatory than I expected! Damn you Christmas and your goddamn Hallmark marathon chestnut roasting heartwarmy bullshit!

Ok, here are the entries:

GROK

KUMPEL

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/dTL0WeI.png[/imgzoom]

MONSIEUR OUXX

MANDLE

[imgzoom]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/Mandle/XmasReleaseCandidate05_zpsufxwsuqp.png[/imgzoom]

CASSIEBSG

And a reminder of the categories:

Artistic execution
Playability
Most original/creative use of fire in a scene
Hottest - I leave this one as a wild card to be interpreted by each judge. Use it for that extra special work that set you on fire but with excitement but you couldn't quite fit into another category.

Voting ends December 18th!

An extra incendiary thank-you to all participants in this Pyrotek background competition, and may not your fireplace fire singe off all of your eyebrows and you spill your scalding hot cocoa all over your Jack Frost-nipped toes. BAH HUMBUG!!!

Kumpel · Tue 15/12/2015 00:31:45

Artistic execution: Mandle - looking amazingly cozy and welcoming. Awesome color choices. Only some slight roughness at the light and shadow front

Playability: Monsieur OUXX - I'd love to explorer that sweat impelling factory whatever room. Already Imagining opening that blazing hot oven doors with an unreasonabely complicated combination of stuff lying around to find a new clue.

Most original/creative use of fire in a scene: Grok - who needs burning wood and stuff if he can have a lava river with a stone bridge?

Hottest: Grok - I would hate to walk there myself but I sooo wanna see a whole volcano world in this painting style!

Kumpel · Tue 15/12/2015 16:44:57

Guys why aren't you voting? Is it that hard or just that much not interesting?

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 15/12/2015 17:15:53

I never managed to finish it in time. Too bad you didn't see that palette cycling animation! I'll be sure to post it when it's finished (and as always I can't vote because my stupid network blocks half the images).

Monsieur OUXX · Tue 15/12/2015 17:23:17

Artistic execution Grok
Playability Kumpel
Most original/creative use of fire in a scene If I could vote for myself, I would (the fire is around the scene). Otherwise I don't find the other uses very original. I'll say Mandle, not for the fire, but because of the several original light sources.
Hottest - Grok.

Cassiebsg · Tue 15/12/2015 17:34:16

Artistic execution: Kumpel
Playability : Monsieur OUXX
Most original/creative use of fire in a scene: Monsieur OUXX
Hottest: Grok

selmiak · Tue 15/12/2015 17:48:20

Artistic execution Monsieur OUXX
Playability Monsieur OUXX. A lot to click on and explore and burn your fingers.
Most original/creative use of fire in a scene Kumpel. All these hot jokes in one image are... hot!
Hottest Kumpel. These forms are even hotter when you nibble on them

Mandle · Tue 15/12/2015 22:46:08

Quote from: Kumpel on Tue 15/12/2015 16:44:57
Guys why aren't you voting? Is it that hard or just that much not interesting?

I'll be voting later today...Just been hella busy doing many Christmas parties for students, and today is the last one. YAY!

Mandle · Fri 18/12/2015 15:35:01

Artistic execution: Monsieur OUXX: Brilliant pixel art and cannot wait to see the full effect with the cycling colours..But it was good enough even without...
Playability: Cassiebsg: I love the lonely feeling of the scene. It makes me want to get the character up and around and opening doors and looking in windows.
Most original/creative use of fire in a scene: Monsieur OUXX: You are actually IN the fire...
Hottest: Grok: The scene just leaps off the screen with how frickin' HOT the enviroment is!!!

SilverSpook · Mon 21/12/2015 21:03:57

Alright, time to burn this pile of fags to the ground.

(There's our sensorily, historically, and politically inflammatory phrase for the competition. Goddamnit, if you want something burnt right you've got to burn it yourself.)

Ok, so I've pulled tallied the votes from the goblet of fire and here are the results:

3rd place goes to Kumpel. If I had to vote you would've received most of mine -- as you got into the overly punny, flamey, spicy, sexy vibe with your hot camping chile vixen, which is what I was going for. Also, most entertaining picture, certainly! Congrats!

Here is your trophy -- the bronze, immolated guy on fire.

(it's orange I know but we're on a shoestring budget so we pulled out the orange Photofilter, so bah humbug)

2nd place goes to Grok. Grok was blazing quick on the turnover, and if I needed to hire an artist for Neofeud who knows how to turn out assets ON TIME, he would surely get the job on the spot. Also, beautiful watercolors and hell is the perfect setting for pyrotekniks.

I present to you, Grok, the silverized immolated guy as your trophy. o/`Silver hells, silver hells, it's scorching time in AGS town... o/`

1st place, with a super-hot 7 votes goes to Monsieur OUXX. We all felt Monsieur's technology-burnt pain as he scoured his soul and the AGS boards trying to get his background's palette cycling thingy to work. The artists torch-ered soul is felt in the artwork itself, as he screams till his charred throat is hoarse from the fireplace, flames flailing his body, gazing woefully at the frying pan of simple art from which he has lept, into the fire of game development bugs and holdups. Monsieur has achieved the embodiment of "Pyrotek" itself, a masterful painting and tour-de-force. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Art ~~immolates~~ imitates life".

A well-deserved 1st place trophy, the golden burnt motherf***er to Monsieur OUXX. May he rest in peace (knowing the competition is over!)

Congratulations and thanks to all of the entrants, I was worried for a bit there we'd be stuck with only two or three, but everyone came out in full force at the end! Another congratulations on Monsieur OUXX's fantastic background and clear win, and see you next time on the Background Blitz!