Messages

[Idea]

The votes are in, but before I announce the winner I will break down the winners in each category...

Idea: Cat wins with 6 votes
Atmosphere: this was a close call but BoG wins with 3 votes
Design: Bog wins with 4
Composition: BoG wins with 4
Functionality: Ben wins with 4
Technique: Ben wins with 5

overall votes : Cat with 11, Ben with 16, Bog with 15.

This is a close call, I'm not entirely sure who is the winner, BoG wins with the most categories but Ben wins the overall votes. Therefore, Ben is the winner. Maybe you two should work on the next background blitz theme together?

Anyway, heres a summary of the entries.

Cat: the idea is quite ambitious, it is a little let down by perspective and technical aspects but otherwise a very nice background, I don't think it is an easy picture to visualise the details so its a good attempt.

Ben: Interesting entry, certainly workable in an adventure game, it could have perhaps a little bit more background detail but it definately is nice and crisp. good job!

BoG: I think this entry was pretty good, nice dott-like perspectives, there is a sense of exploration. Perhaps the colours need a little shaking up.

good luck guys!

please vote if you haven't, winner be declared in 2 days

let the votings begin

great entries so far!

Is there anymore coming? would anyone need an extension?

very interesting concept, the gun bikes!

Heres a short tutorial if anyone's stuck for doing gimmicky details

http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_steampunk/

Sounds like my kind of woman

Wait, we're talking backgrounds here?

careful, we don't get to pixellated do we?

Dont it have a colour limit? Frame size?

It can be lo-res or hi-res, no colour limit.

Sorry about the late start,

Theme: Sci-fi meets history!

the world of science has advanced so rapidly yet the world is still living in the past. Make of it what you will, neo-victorian, steampunk, or something else!


---------------------------------------------------------

Voting starts 24th Jan 2009, unless more time is requested.
The voting will be done in these categories:

Idea - The underlying idea to the background. Doesn't
necessarily have to coincide perfectly with the theme of the
week, just strike you as interesting/amusing/inspiring; a place
you'd really enjoy visiting within a game.

Atmosphere - How well the image manages to evoke a certain feeling or mood.

Design - How well the elements in the image are designed,
such as landscapes, buildings, decorations, clouds, doorknobs,
etc.

Composition - How well the elements in the image work
together/are positioned in relation to each other.

Functionality - How well it would work when adding sprites,
including appropriate walking distances, a good angle for
character sprites, clever walkway solutions, easily understood
exits, etc.

Technique - How well the ideas are executed in form of
rendering.


All the best!

I won, wooh  :
nevermind, it just means more pressure on me to find a good topic.
I will think what to choose over the next two days (I was caught by surprise!)

Just curious, what imaging program were these made with?

I'm guessing it looks like a finaltoon render (3D Studio Max)

you should be so lucky, it is much harder imho to draw outdoor backgrounds then indoors (organic perspective is much more complex when it comes to perspective).

The best advice is to use google sketch up, or just revise 1,2,3-dimensional perspective. I don't think there is much wrong with your indoor scene, apart from the metal pipe looking like it is going through the wall (furnace to close to the wall?)

I really would have liked to spend alot more time on this background but time isn't on my side. Anyway, this background is - a mix of organic (living) and inorganic (dead). Make of it what you will, I wanted to have a third room at the bottom of the background but I have to go to the airport now so I will leave this as a WIP .

I thought when you were saying 'pigeon' it came out of 'thin air', like something out of fantasia. I totally believe you can communicate, birds and other animals are exceptionally perceptive.

I didn't accuse your friend of being schizophrenic, I'm saying bad trips are going to be common if you are mentally unstable, accelerating the psychotic breakdown.

I will leave this thread, I am very ill right now with a fever and cold and wish to retire to bed.

Peace and good night.

I give up, why bother flying the government propaganda 'it rot holes in your brain'. It just goes to show our society is ignorant, I sympathise with you atheists because there is too much of a religious domination going on in America. About your friend and the pigeon? consider the possibility he is using hyperbole, exagerating or is just lying, many people bad mouthing LSD do so without ever trying it and because they hear old wives tales about how it 'messes you up' and while it could do, you would have to be already genetically predisposed to schizophrenia (in reality, alcohol and tobacco are miles more damaging). There is nothing 'mickey mouse' hallucinations with LSD and if you don't believe me then look on Erowid or any other websites. When the CIA realised it was an ineffective tool for brainwashing or a 'weapon' to disorientate the Vietnamese (google MKULTRA, they put LSD unwillingly to their own soldier's food and water supplies - hence people were having a bad trip). It sometimes had the opposite effect and that the people doing it were suddenly 'waking up' to the hypocrisy round them the government predictably wants to silence public opinion with fear.

Any society that wants power must remain by fear, it is extremely likely the government, actually there is evidence that the government had a hand in 9/11 and the people bought it hook line and sinker.

I don't know about you, hallucinogens shouldn't fall under the same umbrella as cocaine, heroin, crack etc.

Anyway, to my argument

its not fair to take concepts such as 'telepathy' and use it empirically. Like I said, its impossible to convey the language used. The telepathic thought, I would describe it as tapping into a 'logos' or great conciousness. Whether or not you agree that is what happens or I am deluding myself isn't important. I didn't need drugs to think like this, it only affirmed my preexisting inner-voice that something wasn't right about atheism (I shouldn't have to spend 6 months on a holy trip in Tibet to work that out, thats what philosophy and using your brain is). God is ALL and ALL is God. And I don't see why you think I am not using my skepticism, I am not blind to the obvious deterministic ego-driven patriarchal-dominator culture selfish existing in this planet today.

Must you be so holier-than-thou just because you DONT?

It is unnecessarily demonised, and no you don't need it to have spiritual experiences, however it puts the experiences into a larger context. Need I remind you, I choose not to drink alcohol (only occasionally) and don't take cocaine or ecstasy or any other 'fools gold' substance.

It shouldn't be illegal anyway, what did all the kids in the 60's do? Oh yeah, quit the military, protest against Vietnam, defend womens and civil rights, encourage the message of peace and love, does that sound like a bad thing?. The government got scared, made it illegal and spread disinformation such as it destroying chromosomes or making you go blind in later life...

with the right intention, hallucinogens can be insightful, with the wrong intention, you would lack a real mystical experience. It's good you appreciate nature, but if you look around there is a serious vaccuum in todays worlds, a real disillusionment. There isn't room for spiritual freedom amongst intolerance and people are confined to the streets and homes, of course they're going to do drugs, if not mostly out of boredom. All I'm saying is that LSD really does 'open your mind' if I dare use such a cliche, and for me to describe how it does that is pointless. It's like trying to explain what zero gravity is like, you can talk about the actions of zero gravity but you can never know the experience. And there is more then one path to spirituality, Shamans love their drugs, buddhists love their ascetism, but they all lead to similar conclusion no?

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

Why do you assume that an atheist can't appreciate reality? I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I don't value nature. Quite the opposite. I worship reality as it were. I don't think you value existence anymore than I do(and vice versa). The only significant difference between our views seems to be that you just decided to call everything "god". If that's your view, fine. I could easily do just the same, I would have a god which would be testable and all. But I don't think tacking the word "god" on everything around solves the question of whether a god exists. Reality is reality. Based on laws that let us predict and control it in some degree. When I think "god" I think of all the deities humanity has ever created. I think all of them were sentient, unpredictable and uncontrolable by humans. That's my image of a god.

An atheist can appreciate reality, but not in the same conviction. Call it like you will, if you wittle everything down to the firing of neurons and into material realms and lie your thoughts of rationality I'm afraid your algebra will be caused to fail. None the less, I think an atheist is much more meaningful then those who blindly submit to a human-God (the guy in the sky with a stick).

In Quantum mechanics there really isn't so much of a law, research in the psychical has demonstrated there is phenomena which we can influence. And anyway, if you say everything is predictable and can be verified, I disagree. Just because there is material explainations for lets say falling in love does not deny the reality on another level, or if there is a material process of death does not deny that the spiritual interacts with the mental.

I had a remarkable experience whilst under acid once... While many people are confused about LSD (and largely ignorant) its not a case of seeing the world in a hallucinatory delusion, but rather, you see the world for what it REALLY is. The brain has a funny way of filtering information, and when a few key molecules fit into a few neurotransmittors (hallucinogens are in the same family of conciousness, very similar and sometimes identical to seretonin etc) you see the world as it REALLY IS in holographic splendor.

And there is no way I will convince you on this point, but on that day I was telepathic, and talking to plants, I had picked up a stone (everything had a living consciousness I could witness) and asked it 'So if you are God? show me a vision I won't attribute to hallucination'. At that very moment, I had a vision of a very old friend who I hadn't seen in 6 years knock on my door, and I then immediately write it down in my trip journal what I had seen in the future... The very next 2 days, the same old friend knocked round offering a business card as a landscape gardener. Needless to say, I was completely gobsmacked. I don't care if such an anecdote doesn't bode well with scientists, who will dismiss the journal page and will come up with explainations like I am self deceiving myself or wrote it after the event in question, or that it was a 'coincedence'... It's not their validity I seek because 'reality' made itself known that day, and this is partly why I lost my faith in science, I still love science, but the paradigm needs a serious change. Just like laws and politics are ruled by the ignorant, so are some of the academic foundations in the world... Especially Psychology that seeks to impose order where there should be none.

And I've experienced Ego-death whilst on the throws of a very powerful Ayahuasca experience, yes its a 'trip' its a 'hallucinogen' surely I am just setting myself up to believe in a delusion? I don't know? It was the most REAL experience, I felt psychological dead and then reborn, pain and then unimaginable bliss (afterwards... it wasn't an MDMA bliss but spiritually loving bliss),strong ayahuasca has been compared to a pseudo-near death experience.

And read the evidence for the near death experience, there is no material explainations for why the completely blind (destroyed ocular vision due to womb conditions) are able to see colour, shapes and movement in amazingly clear detail (often describing objects they shouldn't see unconciously in hospital). My dwelling into science now confirms my suspicions.

Of course, I still hold my skepticism, but ego-death is such a powerful, powerful experience. To feel as if you died you experience unimaginable love of the infinite, ever since those few experiences I have made it a priority to volunteer in my community every week and I would never have considered it if I was an atheist. The sad thing is my experiences are only subjective, but then Its ok for it to be so because 'being in the dark' really makes you appreciate every moment of the human condition.

And oh yeah, to you people debating about Jesus... havent you seen Zeitgeist yet? The bible is based on astrological myths, and so is most abrahamic religions (which were just a bastardisation of Egyptology). Early religion was sun and nature worship.

I used to be a diehard Nietzsche/Dawkins fanatic, and vehemently praised rationalism and loathed the idea of God...

Now, I found God, God isn't a book, its every walk I make, every flower I ponder, every cloud I look at under LSD  :o hehe...

I guess I'm a pantheist now, and after looking back at Nietzsche I realised Nietzsche was himself a pantheist too (the clue is 'we have killed him' - which meant that society and religion had murdered the basic spirituality with dogma and ignorance).

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

I would say the background looks a bit too 2D and flat. The solid colours make the horizon just appear as a 'rectangle box' and the background trees look too saturated.


It's not much of an edit, just did a couple of dodging/burning and some different colours overlayered (multiple colours looks more naturalistic). I don't know what paint programmes you have, but its worthwhile to snoop for a good one (I think theres some free ones which are good... Ever heard of Oakaki stuff?)

I don't expect you to have dodge/burn in any case, but you see the depth created? areas closest to the Horizon Line (in this case the grass and the background trees) generally must be lighter and the stuff furthest away can be darker if needed. I will be honest, the whole background needs a real workover, I suggest don't worry about defining outlines, get the shapes and blobs down first. Also a tree is going to be very difficult, so It might be worthwhile to use a picture as a reference or concentrate on the shapes rather then the outlines.

You guys set the bar so high I must admit I felt intimidated, but good competition only makes you try harder!

I am aware of some 'weird' lighting situations (ie: green saturated light against dusty path) this was a late change because I realised walking paths would be worn out and not green (I intended originally for the place to be somewhat viny and amazonian but it was waaaaaay to difficult getting the tree and everything else down!). It's not cleaned up, might make minor edits tomorrow. Need some shut eye -_-

EDIT: fixed it up, added vines... added a bike (Quantum Physics anyone ) will leave it as it is

Just a glimpse, it might not seem like a puzzle, but the shed is locked, you can probably interactive with the environment, probably go back inside the house and look for some shears, uncover some plants to expose a pipe, maybe cut it to drain the fountain to reveal a key.

Textures courtesy of 3D Total Textures, and plants are various models I collected because its a bit tricky being organic (need more revision)