Messages

Hi,

Here's a slight rework of the inside view.  I just added some texture to the walls, and made the stars a little better with some shading - took away the black outline as much as I could.  Added a door & staircase on the left, and attempted to make some shadows for the pillars but it doesn't look very good!



Also, I thought about showing the roof (and the start of the inside of the dome) from the middle background... forgive the gradient, it's just for demonstration - I've really messed up the construction of it though!  I don't know how to make the roof LOOK like a roof, it's hard when you can't see the side walls.  Any help with this or the other ones I posted earlier, would be greatly appreciated!



Thanks!

Hi Anian,

Thanks for your comments.  In answer to your questions:

I'll have another go when time permits to try make the Mosque look bigger.  Ideally I wanted to keep the same sprite size throughout all the backgrounds, but I may have to make an exception.

I should have mentioned that I did intentionally draw the mosque with parallel lines (ie did not truly follow one-point perspective).  I'm not sure why - I think because initially I drew it front on, but when I realised I needed to show the sides & top of it to give depth, I didn't want it to fill the screen, so I made the perspective only slightly tilted.  I didn't think it was enough to warrant making those lines converge to a VP?  I'm not sure if it makes sense, I might need to demonstrate with an example.

Regarding the cell, I actually thought the perspective was spot on and that the sizes were in proportion?  The basin is around waist height - ok perhaps a bit low, but the size is correct?  Perhaps this scene is suffering from the fact that it is a long room, and ideally in this room the sprite would scale as he moves back & forth (which I don't want).

And yes, that was my (lame) attempt at barbed wire!

[Mosque - Outside View]

Hey

These are my first ever background attempts and I thought I'd post them to this forum for some criticism.  A few points I'd like to make first though before they get ripped apart

• This is NOT a King's Quest game!  I just used Graham to put the room to scale... that and I love KQ5.
  
  


• Ideally I did want my backgrounds to look the style of the Sierra VGA games though... obviously I have a long way to go, hehehe.  I am posting these for critique on style, scaling, size, perspective, colours, shading.  For the most part I think my perspective is OK, but the scale, particularly of the mosque, looks a bit wrong.  I am also well aware the backgrounds lack details, textures, etc - I welcome comments & suggestions.
  
  


• Most the mosque artwork is not entirely original in that I have found images/cartoons online and traced them somewhat, resized, and made a number of changes.
  
  


• The gradients were done in Photoshop and then indexed to reduce the number of colours.  I do realise that gradients are not ideal, though they provided me a quick & easy way to give the backgrounds at least a little bit of depth.
  
  


• I also realise the black outlines are a "no-no", and make them look very "MS Paint-ish", however I struggle to make it look right without them.  This is definitely one area that I need assistance with.
  
  

Mosque - Outside View - The mosque is meant to look large, but for some reason I really struggled to make it look massive, while still keeping the same sprite size, fitting the whole mosque in, and having enough walkable areas.




Mosque - Outside View (colours dimmed) - more emphasis on the drawing, less on the horrible colours I chose




Inside Mosque - actually three 320x200 backgrounds.  I realise 3 of the 4 stars are lacking writing inside.  Also probably needs shadows from the pillars, despite numerous attempts I failed dismally at this.




Prison Isolation Cell - supposed to be small and dimly lit.  On my screen now (work) I can barely see the roof or definition within the basin.  On the screen where I made it (home) I could... I think my laptop screen is brighter than it should be.  On the left is a squat toilet, overflowing with sewage.  On the right is a basin with a water droplet.




Many thanks in advance for your comments!

Quick question regarding perspective - should each ROOM have it's own vanishing point?  Or should the world as a whole have one vanishing point, or could it be anything inbetween.  Eg, if you had a 2 screen scrolling background, the 2 screen background would have 1 vanishing point.

How important is this to the overall feel of a game?