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Thanks for all the suggestions .  I had a look at Toon Boom Studio and it looks incredible  :o  It's a shame about the price tag, but maybe it's not completely out of my reach.  If it is though, I'll take a look at some of the cheaper alternatives.

There's a mirrored version here, for anyone who didn't grab a copy. Couldn't find anything about why the original was removed though, so lets innocently assume we're still allowed to read it.

At least I will read it, once I get around to actually playing Grim Fandango...

Removed at LucasArts' request, apparently - the reason why I'm not hosting it on my site and you're unlikely to see it on any of the other major LucasArts fan sites either.

TerranRich - Thanks for the suggestion, are you sure that's the right link though?  It seems to be more about a team of animators than animation software

Miez - Good idea   I'm not sure why you say "Why not simply use Flash" - it never occurred to me as an obvious solution :p.  The program I use for drawing at the moment gives a very different style to drawings produced with Flash, but I'll have a go at importing my art and making use of the keyframe/motion etc. features.

Any more suggestiosn are still welcome

Looks great!  Normally I don't really enjoy that type of 'vector' artwork, but I really like your style.  Your character looks awesome too.  Normally I'm very critical but I really have nothing to suggest here 

I've been doing background and character art for a while, so I'm quite comfortable with that.  But now I want to move on to making fully animated cutscenes.

The style I'm trying to create is similar to Curse of Monkey Island's, so also similar to a lot of cartoons you see on TV I suppose.

Does anyone have any recommendations of programs which help with any stage of the process?  Thanks.

I like your drawing style, especially the way you did the rocks on that castle.  I find it really hard to draw natural shapes like that.  Only thing I would suggest is that when you first draw a background like that, try to stay away from one point perspective (where the lines on the x axis are horizontal) and try to use two point perspective (like if you look at it from the corner).  It adds a lot more style/interest if you draw scenes from different angles.

Thanks for the advice guys.  By the way, does anyone have any comments on my colour selection?  This is the first time I've used such a range in hues for single objects (e.g. blue shadows on the sand)... how does it look?

I'm having a hard time seeing any depth.  There are a few people in the forums that can help by telling you what to do.  But one thing I would try, is to overlap the cloud with the tree.

Yeah I see what you mean about the depth.  I think the main problem is that I messed up the shore by curving it, trying to turn it into a horizon line aswell.

I really like your style in this one, but as Ryan said it lacks a bit of depth. I photoshopped around with this for a while and this is what I got:



The main differences are pretty obvious (island, close-up bush, the waterline), but I also changed the path, trash can's shading, contrast on the left and the tree a bit and added some distance haze on top of the island and horizon. I also shaded the water up close to a more greenish hue. I just doodled the wave so it's just reference for you if you decide to go that way. Hope this helps a bit.

Wow!  I really like what you did there   Extending the shore out definitely gave it a lot more depth, and the way the island in the distance is faded into blue/grey looks great. To make it look even better though I'd have to redraw the fence/bushes on the left because at the moment they're a lot higher than the horizon line.

The path aswell gives a really good sense of depth - I was having a hard time making the trail of the path look good, but your one works really well.  I like the waves and blurred bush effect too... both of effects (the waves breaking against the sand and an object in the foreground) I wasn't really sure how to achieve.  The only problem though is that for the waves to look realistic they'd have to be animated, and it would be a real challenge animating waves in that style.

I really appreciate the draw-over, it helped a lot

Itlooks as if the sand dune and the ocean are two spheres, the sand dune in front and the ocean in back. If it' s beach, where's the shore line?

I'm not sure what the character would do here, but there's not alot of room: If you draw a diagonal line from the top left corner, to the bottom right more than 50% of the BG is unwalkable, at least. Then there's an umbrella in the way, plus a palm tree and a waste basket.

I say, maybe til6 the umbrella backwards so that we can see the rest of the sand. The palm tree is fine where it is. Make a shore line, move the waste basket backwards a little and shrink it.

These are all very subjective and are just suggestions. I love the clouds, the whole "painted" feel of it is welcoming, but it just seems like it would be difficult to use this. It would probably be a place the character would go once, to pick up a radom item. You can add more versatility by adding more playing space.

That's all for me, really love it though. Good luck!

EDIT: See how much a shore line helps? =P It instantly adds more space for the character to walk. Pixel also blurred the bushes near the "camera" to give a sense of depth, which is a really nice touch.

Yeah, when I drew this I was just doing it for the competition, so I didn't really think about walkable area.  Now that I look at it with that in mind it does look really cramped.  Tilting the umbrella back would probably be a good idea, although how it is at the moment did save me quite a bit of drawing

I drew this in 5 hours earlier today for a competition to make a background following the theme 'beach':



With more time I guess I could have added more detail (more objects) and smoothed out some more of the brush work.  But apart from that does anyone have any C+C or ideas on how I could bring it closer to the CMI style?

Thanks

Well in my opinion the glow from the light should be nowhere near that big.  I'd say at most it should be half way between the first and second circles of lights you made (out of three)....  I would also use make it smooth, so that it fades out towards the edge.

For shading, your shadows at the moment are ok, but you should make the walls get slightly darker the further from the light they are (again with a gradient) to avoid your walls looking plain because they're the same shade all over.

Ok well then I suppose my question is- is it always a good idea to have a high contrast in scenes, regardless of the overall lighting. 

No, it's the lighting that causes the contrast. On a sunny day there is high contrast because objects are lit by the direct rays of the sun and have dark shadows behind them. On a cloudy day there is low contrast because the light is bounced around by clouds and comes from everywhere.

Indoors, a  single spotlight would cause high contrast, but a lot of lamps would reduce the contrast because the multiple sources of light would illuminate the shadows.

But the range of values available to an artist on paper or screen is never as great as the full range in nature, so it's still often necessary to use the full range, but emphasizing either the high values or the low values as needed. It's all illusion. If the illusion works then you're doing it right.

Ah ok - thanks for explaining that

Ok well then I suppose my question is- is it always a good idea to have a high contrast in scenes, regardless of the overall lighting.  E.g., in a scene set during the night, should there still be shades of colour close to full brightness near the light source, and in a scene set during the day, should there be areas in the shade which are close to full black?

Ok thanks... I think I understand enough about colours now .

The only thing I'd still like to know about is the question in my first post about tonal range.

Yeah this was very useful:



Thanks, I get it now .  Should cool colours always be used for shadows then?  For example, if I had a red sofa, what hue should the shadows be...  blue?  Or is that too extreme?

And, as a the shadow on an object increases, the Value lowers, but should the Saturation rise?

Also if anyone could answer my original question on tonal range that would be great.

I used lycos.co.uk a long time ago (about 3 years ago) because it was one of the only free hosts i could find offering php/mysql database, and it was great for that.  The only drawback I found were the ads it added to the sites.

Great!  That was really helpful  So in the example of the palm tree leaves, the highlights are yellow because they are reflecting sunlight, and the shadows blue because the 'bounce light' source is blue?  In Bill Tiller's article he said "using cool colors in the shadows and warms for the highlights"... what exactly is meant by 'cool' and 'warm' colours?

Ah I see, thanks .  So is it the case for all colours that the hue should change when dealing with lighter/darker areas of an object?

The black shadows at the top don't really seem like they're part of the room.  They don't seem to be affected by the angle of the walls at all so it just looks like a flat 2D shadow painted over the top.  Try and make the shape of it change where the walls meet.  Also I don't think it should be quite so dark.

I do like it though... apart from the shadow at the top the objects are shaded nicely .  Just as a note for any future backgrounds you make though - you should try and use 2 point perspective rather than 1 point perspective where possible... it creates much more interesting shapes.

Yeah, I had exactly the same problem... my game has been through 3 background artists that way.

So I taught myself how to create background art, character art and music 

In my opinion those are the only elements of a game that really need continuity - the people doing the other parts (cel-shaded 3D modelling, puzzle design, dialogue writing) are happy helping out anyway and have been with the project a long time (probably because it's less demanding than art or music), but if they did decide to quit their work could be continued from where they left off by someone else.

[Hue, Saturation and Value]

After buying a Wacom graphics tablet a few months ago I've been working on creating my own background art style similar to that of CMI.  I've definitely come a long way since I started, but I still think there's a lot I could do for my backgrounds, I'm just not really sure what.

I suppose the main thing which I'm not sure about is colouring.  I really don't have much knowledge of Hue, Saturation and Value - when I pick a base colour for an object and then alter it's values for shading and highlights, I'm really not sure what I'm doing.  I remember reading in 'How To Draw Monkeys the LucasArts Way' Bill Tiller saying he used a green-ish hue for the leaves of a palm tree, a blue hue for the shadows and a green-yellow hue for the highlights... what I want to know is why he did that and what the general rules for selecting colours are

Another thing I was wondering about is Tonal Range.  When I posted some art here a while ago someone told me that increasing the tonal range of my work would help a lot.  However, now, everytime I draw something I end up thinking that the tonal range isn't enough, and having the re-draw it darker and darker.  Is it always a good idea to range from fully bright to fully dark, regardless of the overall brightness of the room?

So if anyone has any tutorials on that sort of art style or answers to my specific questions I'd be very grateful.  I've already read Tiller Techniques and How to Draw Monkeys: The LucasArts Way.

Thanks a lot for the replies I really appreciate it

About instrumentation. Well.. Only one thing to say to that: Experience.

Yeah I suppose you're right - I've been looking through some midis from LucasArts adventure games to see what instruments they use, and it's already given me a much wider range of instruments I'm farmiliar with and can use myself now

(final version of the theme)
» http://www.screen7.co.uk/music/midi/scores/nelly_01maintheme.mid
(ending sequences)
» http://www.screen7.co.uk/music/midi/scores/nelly_21happyending.mid

Those are really good!  Definitely a catchy tune, it works great as a main theme

There are lots of conventions and methods in music that even I don't understand yet but there are also some basic ones that just about anyone can follow, like ways to make the player feel they are moving, to make them feel in suspense etc. I was going to write these up with examples but it's not really what you were asking.

That would actually be really useful actually - just the sort of thing I'm looking for.  If could write up a few of those that would be great

Anyway. You shouldn't even be asking this. You're Grade 5, so get thinking! :p

The extent of composition in grade 5 theory is completing an eight bar melody with a given two bar opening I think I'm going to re-read some of my theory books though, because I've forgotten a lot of the stuff and it's probably more useful than I thought

Discord in G*
Tribal Rhythm
Foxtrot Theme

Those are pretty good for someone with no theory.  The problem with using random notes though is that it will be hard to match the melody with backing chords from another instrument, as they have to sort of match the notes in the melody, which won't really work if they're random.  For relatively simple tunes with just one or two instruments that could work, but I'm trying to create more complex tunes


A method I have used a couple of times for composition is picking a key signature, then starting with the tonic triad (e.g. for C major the notes C, E and G), and then using just the notes in that chord for the other instruments (except for the melody which goes out of it occassionally), and then progressing the chord up or down one every few bars.  I think it's an ok method - pretty easy to do, but doesn't create a very interesting melody.


Thanks again
James