Messages

The backgrounds and integration are the best I've ever seen in an AGS game. Haven't played past the second puzzle yet, but much respect.


Bug report:
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Adventure Game Studio
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An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.12.1074)

in "room4.asc", line 265

Error: MoveCharacter: character not in current room

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OK  
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Happened when I was fooling with the rat.

Bug report:

I was only a little way into the game. I had looked at the drain cover then selected my inventory, but decided I didn't want anything from it. I clicked the basket ball to make it go away, and the game crashed.

I'll post some aesthetic feedback when I play more of the game.

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
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An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.20.1110)

in "GlobalScript.asc", line 157
from "GlobalScript.asc", line 747

Error: Error running function 'on_mouse_click':
Error: Null pointer referenced


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OK   
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Imagine all those Disney movies having their colours desaturated, they just wouldn't be the same.

Right, because Disney is quite garish, and thats very much part of the animation style / genre.  (No disrespect to Disney of course.)

But by equal merit, can you imagine a gritty cult-classic like Blade Runner with garish pure colours? I think that it would be almost rudely inappropriate to marry any sort of serious crime fiction with saturated colours and brightly lit scenes.

I think it must be a mix-up with definitions! To my mind, flat ambient lighting and weak shadows is precisely what has produced a low contrast image.

High or low contrast in an image doesn't necessarily have anything to do with colour. Film noirs often use high contrast images black and white images. American soap operas often use low contrast images with high saturation. Journey to the Center of the Earth is aesthetically the soap opera of the adventure game world!

Yeah I think we are in agreement. The definition problem comes down to what type of contrast one is talking about. When I say high-contrast I mean that there is a great difference between hues used in the image, and a significant difference between highlights and shadows also. I would put Full Throttle in the "washed-out" genre because it uses a rather limited set of colours for any given scene, which don't produce a great deal of contrast on their own. But as you also point out, hard lighting (mostly in the form of shadows with few highlights) is also added which produces the sense of depth you were talking about earlier.

I need to study colour theory more, then possibly the definitions will be more clear to me.

Full Throttle is a bit less saturated than the other backdrop (is that the Dig by the way?), but not much. I'd call it high contrast because it creates depth through areas of light and dark colours.

Yeah that is The Dig.

Here's an image that uses low contrast in all of the important areas, from the dreadful Journey to the Center of the Earth:
It looks distinctly flat in comparison with both of the images you posted.

I can certainly see your point. But, I actually don't think the problem with the image you posted is a lack of contrast. (And this may just be a mix-up of definitions.) The problem is that you have a lot of ambient lighting, which results in weak shadows and lit back-faces.

The human eye takes a lot of information from shadows and highlights about the depth and physical orientation of a scene. If you remove this information I think you tend to get that flat effect.

[Sythe:]

Sythe: I'm not sure what you mean by 'washed out'. I would describe the full throttle screenshots as high contrast and highly saturated (i.e. with strong colours).

Against what standard?

However there are plenty of beautiful games that don't use strong colours, like Machinarium and Siberia. Low contrast is something that is probably better to avoid, because it can lead to flat, undynamic images (see Nelly Cootalot!).

I think the washed-out gritty sort of feel has a certain appeal to it. I don't think it's valid to argue that adventure games should have bright colours and sharp contrasts just because 'that's how adventure games are'.

Here's my humble opinion as I am also going for a similar style on my current project:

Although you've said the background is not finished, I think you could pick stronger colours on both character and BG.
Successful adventure games rely on strong colours and it does look a bit washed away...

Do you mean strong contrasts when you say 'strong colours'?

Because I don't believe this is correct.

Full throttle had a lot of washed out backgrounds (even in the day scenes), and it was pretty successful.

O.K. I hope I got it this time but here she is.

Just a bit of physics; Your legs represent about 40% of the mass of your body. So if you thrust one outward you need to establish a counterweight to keep your center of mass. Instinctively your body already knows how to do this, so if you put a leg out in front of you then you will automatically lean backwards to keep your balance.

Apparently I suck too

Haha.



(No disrespect to the graphics' author of course. Just for fun.)

How cheap!
They traced a picture from wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores

Amazing that they managed to do this 9 years before wikipedia was even founded.

I imagine their artists had access to LucasFilm's stock image library. I am curious though as to how many of their backgrounds are based on some reference photo.

Hi everyone, thanks for the thumbs up, I hope it was useful to some

Yeah, keep sending backgrounds, but it'll take slightly more time for next chapter.

And keep painting!

Hi Andail,

Not sure where to post this, but I thought it might be useful to someone.



This is a screenshot from Indy 2 and behind it is the actual setting. This makes me curious as to how many more Lucas Arts backgrounds were drawn from photographs of real places. I don't know if it'll be at all useful for your tutorials, but I find it a useful observation.

Lighting is better for sure. But yes, I think something should be done about the bed height, etc.

For example, look at this:


I drew a red line from floor to top, then copied it onto the bed in comparison. (I know the bed is further back and therefore bigger than it appears, but the distance is trivial.)

This would make for quite a hop to get up into the bed area. Either that, or it implies that the bed is quite small.

I think that's a fair point.



But I like the previous iteration better.

1.  How do people get to the bed with that tall shelf to get over?

The height of a character at the nearest point in the room is about 3/5th the height of the screen. The image is actually derrived from a photo of an actual bedroom, so the proportions should be more or less correct.

Although this is still an interesting point. Do you think it would look better with the whole sleeping arrangement lowered several inches?

2.  The way you've applied shading is a bit confusing to me.  For instance, the right side of the room is darker (which is fine for a light source on the left side) but there's no allowance for shape, ie, the bed is shaded with the same methods as the wall behind it and the shelf.  This works against your perspective, making these objects seem flat rather than giving them depth.  My advice is to look at how light streams through a window in your bedroom on things (or pictures in google) and approach the shading that way.

This is good advice, and something I was trying to work out myself.

I've recoloured the room, although sadly the palettes still don't line up between room 1 and room 2, and I've taken your advice about re-shading it.



Tell me what you think.

Cheers,
Sythe

You think I am insulting your intelligence by trying to drill into your head, that your issue with the large resolution has given you this gigantic canvas, which you fight to fill.  But then you answer it by saying that you're not trying to make a pixel art game.

I'm not fighting to fill it at all. I have a thousand things I would very much like to draw, but as I pointed out, actually moving from paper to digital is very difficult. If you can help, that would be great.

Sythe.. buddy.. Sythe.. it's not about 'pixel art' or 'painted' or 'photo'.. it's about emptiness.  And I felt the emptiness was caused by the larger resolution--and it more than likely is.  If you can manage the large resolution, then by all means.  I have no issues with resolution.  It's emptiness, I loath it.
So take an axe to all that emptiness and fill it in with your crazy imagination, and make use of that tablet you have and go crazy my boy!

I'm going to bow out of this resolution debate, because I don't think it's going to be productive.

But I agree with your sentiments about the volume or negative space problem. Any tips you can throw to me as I go would be most appreciated.

Incidentally here is a do-over of my second room, if you have any suggestions.


Tomorrow I'll go over all of the suggestions posted so far and see if I can improve it further.

[tons]

Ok, I dig this. But why is the left upper part of the third window from the left pointy when no other window corners are?

Fixed, thanks.

Paper drawing and scanning....I tried that. I draw, scan then trace it so I get lines of the same width. I tried vectoring it, but it didn't turn out as well as I wished it to be.
After a while I just sketched on paper, and then added precision/alignment while tracing it. Then just add colours and details.

Yeah that's what I've been doing also. But I would be very interested if anyone has better technique.

I really like the new pic! The size issue on the forum though- these are big pics and it makes looking at them awkward...

Are you going to animated the background, or add an object animation for the planet, etc?

I'm asking because the style will make animating a little challenging.

If not, cool, just asking.

Are the kickboards / gaps for legs in front of the chairs and under the control console highly reflective, or is there a line across the floor there? If reflective, cool effect but you need to check the reflectivity angles. If it is just a line across the floor then definitely shade that in, darken it right down to convey that it is in shadow.

But it's looking nice imo.

I wasn't planning to animate to any greater extent than a flashing light and twinkling stars, but I'm curious: what parts would you animate if you were constructing this scene?

Incidentally, thanks for spotting the kickboard thing. Fixed it now.

Yeah these images are so freakin big, they totally make viewing this page really awkward with my resolution (progz, can you resize them for him/her?).


Anyway, I gave a quick go at how I think you could greatly improve your backgrounds.  I lost interest after a little editing, but the majority of my points were made.



It was only a quick edit, so don't expect much.  I was meaning to put some display screens where you have that awkward 'dash' with lines running down it.

Definitely much respect for your skill and many thanks for taking the time.

Notice how I totally removed that useless area to the right of the screen?  It was completely void of Anything of any interest, except two doors with odd perspective and what appeared to be a mattress nailed to a wall.

The room is supposed to be two combined rooms like lucas arts used to do:


The separation might be completely unnecessary, but it seemed like an interesting experiment. I guess it also gives the impression that the ship is rather large, which is one I want to make.

I cropped off all the bottom and left side of the image.  This is one reason why I had strongly suggested that the resolution you're using it too much for you.  Resolution should only improve detail, NOT make bigger walkable areas and tons of empty space.  Hopefully this will sink in, and you'll understand what I mean.

I understood the first eight times. No offense, but I wish you would understand that I don't want to make a pixel art game.

I was going to put in a display screen running about waist high along the back window.  I also removed the strong bubbly shape that window had, it had made the scene look as if the camera was using a distort lens to take the photo.

Your perspective was all over the place.  You should Google 1 point perspective.
The front dash/control panel was the worst area, I tried to correct it as best as possible.

I was also going to darken the chairs a bit, but as I said, I lost the energy to touch up everything.


Let me know if you still don't understand the gigantic walkable space, and bare background issue you had on your versions (this edit still has tons of emptiness issues).

You don't need to insult my intelligence and ability to draw in every post. I appreciate the valid criticism and efforts you have donated. But I do not appreciate the much insulting pat on the head *that's called perspective*. If I were giving you programming help, being a software engineer by trade, I would not insult your intelligence by assuming you didn't know what a variable was then continue to labour the point seemingly without reference to the conversation which had quite definatively moved on.

Hello, although I agree on some points with Chicky, I'd like to avoid that part off the discussion...so none of this is written with any "attitude" just what I've noticed:
- looks nicer now, you should redo the other room like this as well...or at least try and see how it turns out, same style gives better atmosphere overall, I think

- maybe more lights, like near the edges, would make it look more starshippy (don't think that's a real word, but you know what I mean ), I think there's too much dark
spots now, maybe something beween the two lightings. The windows look cool, might wanna try making it seem like some light is coming from them and lighting the floor a
bit

I'm having a go at the other room now, but my graphics tablet just quit and won't come back to life.

Good suggestion about the light coming from the windows. Although it would only make sense for it to come from the front window (since there only a heavenly body to emit light from that direction.) On the other hand I could change the orientation of the ship in the story so there is a star near one of the rear windows. Although this would cause a long-shadow effect.

I could also try just pretending the windows emit light of their own accord, which might be cool.

- the 2 doors on the right part of the top wall (actually not sure if the other is a door, so the two shapes that are not circual) have different perspective,
I know this is a 2point way perspective (at least I think it is) but still the doors are next to each other so they looked kind-of mishaped volumewise. Also at the far left, the panel
seems to suffer from perspective deformation, or actually lack of it

Just to clear this up. The room is actually two rooms co-joined, where the player walks (and the view port transitions) from left to right. That's why there are two sets of two point perspective.
Oh and the second door on the right is actually an airlock, so it's structure is inverted to that of a normal door. I probably need to find a way to make that more obvious.

- also, and this is more of tip/request/plead, than a critique, could you resize the pics next time, make them a bit smaller (doesn't have to be miniature, maybe half the size),
it's much more easier to overview the whole scene that way. that would be much appreciated.

Ok good suggestion. I'll upload a thumbnail and provide a link to the full thing in future.

Thanks for your comments.

Cool! I can see what you are going for, I think. And with the normal sized pics you are using as opposed to the teeny tiny clunkers suggested, you really can go for grandeur, especially in the outdoor scenes. Looking forward to seeing more, amigo. Or amiga.

Hi Goldfish. I've had a go at eliminating some of the blandness with some texture and found a decent shading tool.  More criticisms / comments / advice very welcome:

I didn't want to bully, I wanted to give you my honest opinion. That comment about what looks like shit wasn't addressed at your images, I just thought of the ugliest game graphics I have seen so far in the several years I've been visiting these forums. It was meant as an example to underline my main point, consistency. So I apologize for the misunderstanding.

I did say though that your character doesn't fit the style of your latest background.

Apology accepted. And the character is a stand in. I intend to scan the high resolution paper versions of her at a later point.

On to constructive criticism:
-If you can make them better on paper, why not draw them, scan them, vectorize, then color them?

I have tried this previously, and it is immensely difficult. Sketches are not lineart, and there are very few decent methods I have come across to take them from many-lined graphite shaded masterpieces to an acceptable and consistent game graphic. If you have a good technique for doing this, please let me know!

You might also take a look at Google's SketchUp.

Already using it for my space ships, thanks good advice.

-Get rid of the gradients; use lines of different width to convey depth and detail.
-The vectorized image of the meteor's surface doesn't fit the ship's interior or the character; I'd suggest reducing the colors of the photo and retouching it by hand.
-Also think of the lighting conditions; a single light-source will produce hard drop shadows, multiple light sources will generate multiple fuzzy edges.
-Avoid filters whenever possible, they make every image look cheap. Subtle filters are okay for photographs, everything else will suffer.

All very good advice I will seek to incorporate. Thank you.

I agree with you one hundred percent on all counts Sythe.

Now if I may, I WOULD like to offer critique.

Leaving aside the many absurd canards attempting to avoid your spot-on characterisations, I would suggest you soften at the borders of your screens, and darken too, coming into a sharp focus in the centre of each screen where you want attention drawn. Also if the protagonists are furries etc. then maybe consider keeping the world they are in a little bit whimsical... The control surfaces also if they are going to be frankensteined in, I think maybe consider matching the line width used in the original sections of the screens to the apparent line width in the photoshopped bits, to make it a little less jarring.

Finally the somewhat watercolored and / or rotoscoped effect as in the alien world is also going to be a little jarring if the interiors of the artificial environments are going to be clean lines and negative space (in the artistic sense).

Maybe some textures on the expanses of space. Consider the emotions to evoke in each screen.

I sincerely mean my critique to be helpful, and if you feel I've colossally missed your point please say so.

Great comments; many thanks.

I can definitely get a sense the negative space issue & the plainness of the backgrounds. I'm pretty confident I could make them better on paper, but digitally this is completely foreign to me. So I'll experiment with some art tools and try apply your suggestions, and post back here when I've got something new.

It's not that low-res is better than hi-res, it's just that the bigger you make the background, the more you have to fill it with good art.
Every mistake you make in low-res will be magnified in hi-res and become much more flagrant.

There is a good principle that says that you should always do the most of whatever media and restrictions you've got, before you change to something bigger and more advanced. It's like when a beginner wants to start making film, and immediately buys a $5000 camera because it's supposedly the best, but since he can't handle it, the results end up worse than with a really cheap budget camera.

Either way, it seems that you've made up your mind already, so we can only wish you good luck with your endeavours

Thanks for the kind words.

In your camera analogy, because I already have an almost finished high-res game, it would be like purchasing a $50 camera when I have a $5000 camera that I already own.

But don't post them here and get all upset if people do anything else except praising them.

Of course this is not what I was doing. And that you'd post this comment in full understanding of the preceding conversation is bullying, even if no one wants to admit it. Critical feedback would be: "These backgrounds are sort of plain, here's how you can add some detail to make them more interesting." or "For your next game you might consider using a lower resolution, because this tends to be less work." or "Darkly lit scenes are tricky to draw well, here's some tips on how to improve this one."

Not: "You can create a game by pasting photos of furniture in a line art room, using a double-sized, pixelated Roger as player character. But it WILL look like shit (see Other Worlds for a perfect example). Personally, I won't even try such a game, no matter how ingenious the puzzles or story are said to be."

Which is basically calling my game shit before you've seen it and insinuating that I've put no work into it because I refuse to bend to your expectations.

I COULD convert it to high res...yes...but WHY would I want to?!

Because outside the cliques on this forum, every modern game is made at resolutions at or exceeding 1024x768.

I'm certainly not very good at digital art, but the last thing I'd want to do is use low resolutions as a crutch to hide my inabilities.

I have taken some of the good advice offered in this forum (with respect to the layout and style of my backgrounds). The rest appears to be "you should change to low res, despite being 80% finished at a higher resolution because X" where X is any one of a million subjective peer-group preferences.

Also, as we've said, it's completely up to you, but we're just doing what you asked, we're being critical. Also, harsh as it may be, why not take some of the advice? You might be surprised at what you can make.

I've had some good critical feedback, which I highly respect, and some snippy stuff which I don't care for at all.

But if someone were to turn away from what they actually wanted to make because a few senior forum members bullied them into it, then I would have no respect for that person. Have some integrity and make what you want to make.

To throw another tire on this bonfire; I'm making my game in low resolution because it's easier to draw backgrounds and far easier to animate. Once I know what I'm doing here, I'll move up to high resolution. It's a learning curve, you don't run before you can walk.

I considered this also. But the low resolution stuff is pixel art, which is a separate skill to high resolution / general art stuff. If you are happy / want to learn how to make games in the retro-feel early 90's genre, then I say go for it.

[max]

I would love if you'd take into consideration of scrapping the game you've done at this huge resolution, even though it's a huge pain in the arse, and at least play around with 640x480 at the very max.
Toss in more detail, etc.

Well that's interesting.

But when I scale down the rooms I get no sense of better quality from them.

Maybe you can help me understand how a lower resolution will make my backgrounds look better?