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What are the chances of those two moons being in the exact same position of their orbit 10,000 years after the first picture?

So if I put in an secret hideout of Kazaa/Skype programmersÃ,  , would it be reconizable that it's Estonia?

An interview with the programmers in a British web design magazine said that they were Swedish. Even there names sounded more Scandinavian than Fin-Ugric.

I just tried the Film Grain (Filter -> Artistic -> Film Grain) look on the first photograph and it created a nice future noir-ish feel.

Medieval London Sewer:

Sewer means "seaward" in Old English. London's sewers were open ditches sloped slightly to drain human wastes toward the River Thames, and ultimately into the sea. Sewer ditches quickly filled with garbage and human wastes, which overflowed onto streets, into houses and marketplaces throughout London.
Ã,  Ã,  By the late 1500s, King Henry VIII wrote an edict which made each householder responsible for clearing the sewer passing by their dwelling.
Ã,  Ã, The King also created a special Commission of Sewers to enforce these rules. However, no money was provided to pay its members. Therefore, the Commission was not installed until 1622, when it was decided that fines for non-compliance could be used to fund its activities.

So we're already in the Renaissance period before anything was being done about this metropolis' sewers.

I think the big objection here is that you have said medieval sewer when you obviously mean a medieval style sewer in a fantasy world. If this is the case, the brickwork needs to be made uneven, and the lighting sorted. Crap floating in the sewer - more crap than water, really - would help it look like a sewer too rather than an underground canal.

I will. Thanks.

Can you define "transition scene"?

He ment if this scene will not be playable, if it would be used for a cutscene or something.

In that case it is not a transition scene.

The whole path isn't visible because a part of it (closer to the monastery) is behind a small hill. So Yak suggested to make the whole path visible if you're planning to make this background playable. That's because the character would be just a few pixels tall that far from the 'camera', and once behind the walkbehind (in this case - the hill) it would be quite hard to figure out where he is exactly.

Gotcha. I realise my sprite is going to have to get very small when nearer the monastery. What I'm going to do is make the path lead off behind the bush in the foreground and then reappear in the distance leading up to the monastery. At a certain point the character will move into a new background - a close up of the monastery gates. I think this will be better. It also has the bonus of only having to animate the sprite at two different sizes rather than actually animate him getting smaller as he walks into the distance.

Thanks for your comments.

Bloody gorgeous.Ã,  I especially like how it's not in the stereotypical time of day (e.g. red sunset, twilight, middle of the afternoon).Ã, 

Thankyou. I'm pleased that you liked it.

If this picture is only a transition scene then the only things that need addressing are the ones damien mentioned.

Can you define "transition scene"? I've only really downloaded AGS today - although I've looked at it on numerous occasions over the years - and, although I play some graphic adventures, I'm not too au fait with the jargon.

With so much detail in the background, the foreground looks a little bland and cartoony by comparison.

I can understand that. I'll look to make the foreground more detailed and interesting - maybe by adding a crumbled wall or stile and some more defined areas of grass. A small animation somewhere may help make the picture seem active too.

A little bit more textured /shaded detail on the tree and sharper leaves on the bush (with higher contrast shading) would do wonders.

I'll certainly give it a shot.

You might even be able to get away with blacking out the tree entirely (though I think it'd be a shame as touch-ups could solidify the image).Ã, 

Originally the tree was a simple silhouette but it just didn't look as good as actually colouring in the tree and making it part of the picture rather than a part of the pictureframe. I'll endeavour to make the tree's colouring better too.

If the front of the monastery is meant to be played on then the path should be visible whereever you need to perform actions.Ã,  Walking behind the hill would be fine for transition but could be frustrating when the char's just a few pixels tall.

Transition again.  I'll respond to this once I'm clear on what you mean.

Excellent stuff.Ã,  The buildings pique my interest and the picture's very moody.

You don't know how pleased I am to read that. I, more than anyone else, am amazed at how it is looking thus far. The only other scene (or background image) I've done is the one in the tutorial by Misja van Laatum on the Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth website. Until I read that I had no idea how to use Photoshop. 

I've been toying with the idea of making a game set in a medieval monastery for a long time (too long) and have been torn between whether I'd do it as a text adventure or a graphic adventure for just as long.

Today I thought I'd try my hand at making a background to see if the graphic adventure route would be the most interesting. So, I did this picture - an external scene for the monastery.

Happy to hear any comments about this:



Thanks.

While most medieval peasants would have just went in a hole the major European cities developed something akin to a sewer. Typically, waste was carried away on small waterways. These were simply covered over with brickwork and functioned as sewers.

So, with respect to your picture, you could thin the waterway down to about the width of two people. The flaming torches seems silly - maybe use lights from cracks in overhead brickwork. Incidentally, your brickwork seems to modern too. The bricks are all quite even. The hole in the photograph below is a ruin of a medieval sewer. Notice how thin the hollow is.



Consider condensing the image to make it seem more claustrophic. An example would be Misja's tent at Bimini - a preliminary sketch can be viewed here.

Also, rats are always a nice bet for a sewer. 

[bosses']

Care to explain how it's not exactly 'correct'?

bringing me to this town in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere to bust a bunch of snot-nosed punks for shoplifting.

From the original it is clear that the character speaking is stuck in the location and stuck within the drudgery of picking up low-key shoplifters for their crimes. The way you wrote it made it sound as if that was the sole reason the character was in the location.

Also, there is clearly own one boss in the original post. You have made multiple bosses by saying bosses' - unless you just made a mistake with the grammar of boss' (or boss's for the pedantically anal.)

I understand that both our versions are rewrites of the original - we only had the details within that with which to draw upon. Any embellishments would not have held true to the original poster's story.

And, to Babar, you are so right.

Fixed:

Sure, I'm not such a bad guy but it seems that most of my choices go against me. The perfect example, I suppose, would be ignoring my gut instinct and accepting the ideas of others which, incidentally, brought me to this nowhere town where busting punk kids for shoplifting is the measure of excitement. And, to top it all off, my boss is never off my back. His bitching and moaning is always ringing in my ears until I get out of this shithole and wash the day away with a relaxing beer.

Be aware that Progz's rewrite was not exactly correct.

Look, I'm not such a bad guy, let's just say that some of my choices turn out all wrongâ€"the best laid plans and all that rot.  A perfect example is trusting the words of a 'friend' of mine rather than my own gut feeling, bringing me to this town in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere to bust a bunch of snot-nosed punks for shoplifting.
It's not all bad, thoughâ€"after enduring an hour of my bosses' incessant bitching I may just be able to grab a beer and get the hell out of this shithole before I completely lose my mind.

Sure, I'm not such a bad guy but it seems that most of my choices go against me. The perfect example, I suppose, would be accepting the ideas of others over my gut instinct which, incidentally, brought me to this nowhere town where busting punk kids for shoplifting is the measure of excitement.
And, to top it all off, my boss is never off my back. His bitching and moaning always ringing in my ears until I get out of this shithole and wash the day away with a relaxing beer.

I haven't downloaded it yet but...is it any good?

[hellllllp!! please]

hellllllp!! please - that's indicative of what's required.  

It's very faint. Does it say Icon Bazaar or something?

I'll look up anti-alias, too.  

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Just learnt masks today.  :

I'll use a .png then as everytime I try to convert to .gif with either MS Paint or PSP7 it leaves the image with reduced colours and speckled. Sorry, I never realised that a .png could be uploaded.

I've fixed the image's size.

I'll also have a shot at reducing the length of the steps he appears to be taking.

Okay, I've been playing about with PSP rather than MS Paint and, for the first time ever I seem to have produced something that's alright. Not perfect, I know.  

Any comments or feedback on this new monk?



Thanks.

Oh, hehe, I had the impression you may be from israel vause of you nick.. hehe
I can imagine your accent if your from Glasgow! Sorta like in Taggart, no?

Yes. I sound exactly like Taggart.  

I, being a big Umberto Eco fan, chose Abulafia as it is the name of the computer in his novel Foucault's Pendulum.

I'd just wanted to do a murder mystery with monks like The Name of the Rose.

hehe... cool. I've been playing with the thought of making a "The Name of the Rose" adventuregame for a while now...
actually it's not cool! you're stealing my idea!

A game based on the book, inspired by the book, or the same style of setting as the book?

Where are you from?

I've updated my profile now. Glasgow.  8)