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Hey guys n gals.

for a while now i've been determined to teach myself to paint digitally, and after lots of funny experiments i have finally produced something i feel happy enough with to post on teh interweb. Its pretty rough, but i want tips on how to improve

be brutal:



i was aiming for a kind of saturated mirrors edge look in the windows- blindingly bright - by contrast to the outside, in an attempt to make it look sort of sci-fi slum like

Its about two hours all told - I'd be interested to learn how that compares to the time you guys reckon it'd take you?  The actual shading and adjustment layers were about 20 mins, but doing the whole vanishing point lines for the buildings took most of the time.

how to improve? i'm still thinking its a bit to bland in its colouring (only one main colour, excluding the clothes of the guy) and i guess its not very visually interesting with all its desaturated noir glory, but... anyway.

much thankings in advance ,

aljo

Okay. I'm doing some graphic design as part of a coursework - and i have to create a fictional advert. Its only about an hours work, so i haven't worked on it that much - and i think I'm nearly done, but i realized its actually kind of cluttered. I think the individual elements are, if not brilliant, suitable, but its just too eye stealing and i find myself not knowing where to look first.

Anyway composition isn't my strong point, and i know there are loads of designers way more talented than me, so i seek advice. I want a way to keep all the info there, and keep the web 2.0 look i love so much (sarcasm but ah well) because i think it kind of suits the the idea. Oh yes and its A3 when printed, if that makes any difference. I had to scale it down to be able to upload it anywhere easily On that note i present to you:





My main problem is not knowing where to look i think. I think a viewer first reads it top down, seeing the 'coming soon to East Grinstead', but then i find myself looking at the blurb up top and not the Logo.

I don't really want to have to put all the text on the bottom. i tried that and it just looked empty. maybe i could change the colours of important text so it stands out more? i'm not sure. maybe its all my imagination and it looks fine.

even now it looks kind of empty... not really sure how to fill it up

bah, I've just looked at it too much, and keep noticing more flaws. I'll just shut up and leave it to you guys

I've been googling for ages and all I can find is suggestions of 'but an old watch on ebay and take it apart', which is crazy expensive because they appear to be so popular...

surely a 'fashion' that practically has a cult of artists and fans surrounding it would have at least some market providing craft tools - i mean just a search on deviant art provides pages and pages of results of people using cogs and other steampunk-centric items - surely they didnt all dismantle second hand victorian stopwatches bought from eBay .

I want to create some crafty things for a project, but dont much fancy scissors and cardboard...

an indie game forum may not be the most appropriate forum to ask this on, but i'll give it a shot anyway.

Anybody know some decent market - or an alternative - that i could try. Metal - wood - plastic - card: anything will do because I could easily paint them.

Thanks

-Aljo

Hey guys. Life threw a bunch of crap and exams etc at me and I haven't AGS'ed in ages, and i just dredged up my old game. I eventually gave up on it because i lacked the persistence and artistic talent to finish it.

anyway, i looked at a few of the backgrounds for the first time in about 6 months, and with new eyes they don't look so bad. There are still a lot of flaws and i thought i'd just put it up to the community before I decide, and begin working on my game again



The hair is just my character (its an in game screen shot so i capture all the objects)

This is obviously a run down apartment. my protagonist is probably around 20ish, and the room is covered in mould and horrible nasty things. I'm pretty sure the perspective is slightly off, although thats partially an addition to the quirky, rotten look.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

The spiderwebs are horrible, im aware that i need to do a fix on them,
The bed sheets are really distorted, any ideas how i can make them look better - wrinkles are bloody hard to do!
The tree just outside the window.
I havent yet coloured the window visible through the door
I'm aware also that its an unlikely poster for a 20 year old to have, it was just intended as a test and it will probably change, as will the box full of teddy bears. I was just experimenting.
The arrows on my UI, although again, these will change.

WHAT I DO LIKE:

For some reason i like the computer monitor.
I like the mould spots and the dank blobs on the wall
The background for my UI


Just out of interest can you recognize the black outline in the foreground left, because im not sure if its identifiable to anyone but me

Spoiler

Its just a random pile of crap. i realize its probably not recognizable as anything else, but i wonder if anyone can actually understand this just from looking at it. I think it is because it lacks depth, i need to add a few shades of grey behind it

[close]

This is the adjacent kitchen.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

The Floor texture - it doesn't go at all with the walls, or the run down look (its just a gimp texture)
The peeling wallpaper - something isn't right there
Calendar, phone - Phone is too small, looks cut in half. Calendar not parallel to the wall
Dishes look strange, everything else is almost spotless, except for the sink.
Just realized, by analysing it for this post, quite how horrific the perspective is on this one. I think it'll have to be a redo.
I just realized how functionality nightmarish these are - Both having really disgusting areas, and some spotless areas.

WHAT I DO LIKE:

The metal texture on the sink
The bin, and the leakage. it looks just gross enough


I've pretty much convinced myself, through writing this post, that its a redo job, but i'll post it up anyway for further ideas, ones i have undoubtedly missed, or disagreements on what i think.

Any thought would be great. Thanks for the help

is there any way i can have a character showing up several times in two different places at once or do i just have to create multiples of that character?

In my game there is a huge function under which turning off a light switch will trigger about 150 lines of code, changing objects and making them invisible etc, but ive just gotten to the point upon which the light switch has started to nothing when i click on it. Is this because of a limit in the amount of things one function can do or because something else i did? just thought id check before doing some drastic code cutting

   I've been trying for a while now to make a script to make the character face the mouse loacation, using an 8 way character. Ive done the incredibly easy part but of course this means that he will always face up and down, unless you are on the exact y location of the player, this is also useless for an 8 way character, how can i get it to work with relatively straight lines, or at least so that within certain blocks of say 50 by 50 the player can face so it is a square edged triangle for the mouse to go in, however little that makes sense :o
   So far this is just the simple bit I have:

    if (mouse.x > player.x) player.FaceLocation(cCharacter.x + 50,cCharacter.y);
    if (mouse.x < player.x) player.FaceLocation(cCharacter.x - 50,cCharacter.y);
    if (mouse.y > player.y) player.FaceLocation(cCharacter.x,cCharacter.y + 50);
    if (mouse.y < player.y) player.FaceLocation(cCharacter.x,cCharacter.y - 50);

   If anyone can understand my bad explanation help would be greatly appreciated

   Whenever i try run my game, i go to the light switch, which changes room, and this error message is displayed:
it comes up with the usual "an error has occured please note down the following" etc. The room load function doesnt exist and I know from the help section what this is, but its sloly grown so that once i ran it and it crashed, then i tried it again and another thing which worked perfectly before crashed, now my whole game is falling apart around my ears with that message being displayed when i change most rooms. All i did inbetween the two tries where it worked perfectly and when it stopped was import a walkable area mask.
   I've tried reinstalling AGS, and changed all sorts of functions i made but it still doesnt work

   Any help would be greatly appreciated.

   I want a point in my game where a character walks on a platform , then walks around it , down some stairs and under the same spot, just lower down. Its easy to turn on and off walkable areas of course but i can do the same for walk behinds as far as i know. i searched the knowledge base but no luck there.
   It would be brilliant if anyone could come up with a soloution, or perhaps something blindingly obvious that i've missed. Any help would be brilliant

   Im just making my first game and i have an annoying problem.

   Is there a way i can automatically set the display function to display my strings of text at a specific location, such as on my GUI without having to use at x at y for each one, altering the global script to incorporate this. i could do it the long way but im lazy and if anyone knows a simple way to do this it would be much appreciated