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I did a little bit more to make it seem like night and maybe give it some more depth, I wasn't satisfied with my little color-over.  I dunno what else to do at this point, and I'm honestly just flying blind at this, so I will just call it good and let you explore further from here.  Hopefully all these examples will give you plenty of ideas and you'll zone in on a technique.  As everyone has said, layers can be your friend, I hated them too when I first was introduced to them.  They get easier to work with the more you do it, and if you do decide to go with photoshop I highly recommend reading some kind of tutorial on the layer styles, blending options, and the use of adjustment layers.  Good luck!

Here's what I did.
1. I refined all the layers and reconfigured them by copy-merging them all to new ones so as to remove the linear-burn layers.  That way I could work on them, without them blending into each other and still preserving the basic color and line work from before.

2. I added some further shading to the house, the tree, the trash can, and the porch rail.

3. I added shadows for some of the objects, like the tree, trash can, and mailbox.

4. I added more light, then erased the light to make the shadow for the porch rail. (inspired by privateer's edit! ^^ )

5. I used a curve adjustment layer to pull out some of the darker lines from the background but left the mailbox, trash can, and tree somewhat alone.

6. Finally, I slapped on a color balance adjustment layer to give the scene a bluer tint.

RedPress: I know it's unfinished, but you've almost hit the colors spot-on! You've even colored the stars like in the original...

RedPress, what program did you use?

I'm currently using Photoshop CS3.  What I did was pretty basic, it works a little but it's not what I usually would do.  I just lassoed each object and copied each one to their own layer.  Then I took some of the colors from your other background and laid them out on a new layer, along with some of my own colors so that I could easily jump over and color-pick them out (that's how I matched the star colors).  From there I painted over each one and set most of them to linear burn.  Some of it was experimentation using multiple layers for the same object, like the tree.

Like Andail said, this is only the very beginning, but I thought we were just showing you ways to get started with color?  It was never my intention to present a finished background.  :/

If it were my background and I had a lot of time to spend on it, I'd probably merge each object with the color and line work and then go in and detail each one to look better.  After that I'd make a layer for shadows and maybe another for more value.  But yes right now it looks flat because for instance the grass is one solid color. 

I also made a quick coloring attempt at this, it's rather weird to me because I don't usually color over sketches, I typically repaint because the lines end up looking bleh whenever I do it. =]  But I tried.



You can see what I mean with the tree...of course I purposely was using one of the layer styles to try and preserve the line work (being lazy and saving time...), but had I copy/pasted the tree itself either before or after coloring it, and then worked on it alone, I could have done a better job.  Oh well.

This isn't a critique, but figured I'd throw it out there in case you wanted to give it a try for your next ones.

I'm doing something similar to this right now, so it reminded me of this.  I borrowed the idea from Scott Robertson actually.  You basically do a bunch of thumbnail sketches of value only, trying to establish some sense of architecture or any random environment.  Then you take those, align them in PS all on one layer, mix them up, flip them, spin them, put some of them on dodge, others on difference, whatever.  Then you zoom way in and look for a scene basically.  Anything that pops out at you.  Once you've got it, you copy it merged and save it on another file to work on.  It's funny because what you have here really looks very much like many of the environments that I start with from this method.  They're like happy little accidents really, and you can come up with some great starters to get you going towards something you'd never have painted otherwise.

And yeah thumbnails are great, I do them all the time for comic stuff and concept art as well.  They're usually thumb size, as big as your thumb laid out flat.  What I do is VERY roughly sketch in a basic idea to figure out the composition, don't worry about perspective too much, keep it loose when you do your thumbnails.  That way you can do ten different compositions based on the same idea very quickly without spending huge amounts of time on it.  Maybe a minute tops on each.  If you find one you like, thicken the border around it to remind yourself, then you can do another version of the sketch maybe the size of your hand and start adding in value.  Then you can scan that in bigger and go from there in PS.

Anyway not trying to repeat what everyone else has said.  Really like what you have there, though.  If I ever get around to finishing some of mine, I might post them as well.

Awesome! I'm excited to check this out too.  Beautiful artwork, and I really like that thing, the Sawhorse, that she's riding in the one shot.  I want one.

I think this looks neat too.  Just a thought, but it might be cool if you could always see the edges of the whiteboard? Good luck with your game!

I don't know much about floating point variables, but I do know that they can cause some strange behavior. Perhaps that's the problem, setting which dialog to run based off of a float.

Idk, just a random suggestion.

~Trent

Nah that's not it, I only use that in the custom one that I created from scratch, and I have no problems there.  My problems occur when I try to use the built-in new custom dialogs, and for that there is no floating point in use since the dialogs are in the editor and called in a different way.  Thanks for the suggestion though! =]

Pigeon poo on a stick!

A harp guitar.

Onions covered in special sauce.

My smelly socks wrapped over corndogs.

A miniature statue of Tay Zonday.

AGS: Because you don't need fresh air!

What have the Pongos done for me lately?  I don't even know any. :/

[UPDATE]

I'm having trouble figuring this all out, maybe someone can help me?

I want a dialog system similar to that of some Sierra games, where the dialogs show choices (much like the built in dialog system) and when you mouse over one, the text highlight changes.  I want to also add scrollbars and be able to limit the displayed amount to say, 7 at a time, but scroll up and down to see the other options.

What I have so far, is all coded manually without using the built-in system.  I've made a GUI and made buttons for the various topics.  Then, depending on whom I'm speaking with in-game, I change the text dynamically on those buttons to reflect dialog choices.  I use the following code, and include a float so it knows which corresponding conversation string I want to display (the float is for state changes, like if you ask the same thing twice etc).

Code: ags

dialogButton1.Text = "Text Choice Here";
conversationString = 59.1;

When you click the choice on my custom GUI Buttons, the text is displayed in the typical Sierra-styled conversation box.  If I use the new custom dialog functions to make use of the Dialog options, then text is displayed Lucas Art style and I don't know how to change this.  I guess I'm just searching for the best approach to this, with the most functionality.

If I use the custom dialog with the new custom functions, I can make most of it work the way I want.  I've got highlights in the color I want, and I've got the options appearing where the GUI buttons would go.  Problem is, buttons won't show up no matter what I try with the custom options.  I read on another post that in the past buttons couldn't be used with the built-in dialog, but that these new custom functions might allow it?

Maybe if I had a way to highlight the button text, I could also manage to figure out a scrollbar rig,  but the built-in dialogs seem so attractive because you can name them, and they're easier to organize.  Any ideas??


UPDATE:
I've managed to include highlighting now with the text buttons without much trouble, don't know where my brain was.  But I still would like to make use of the custom dialogs, it'd make things a lot easier.

Code: ags

if (Button.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y) == dialogButton1) {
    dialogButton1.TextColor = 59326; }
else {
    dialogButton1.TextColor = 58960; }

Then I just repeated that several times for the other buttons.  I put it in Repeatedly Execute, because I didn't know where else to put it, but I think that's right.

Yeah when I was a bit younger, I had dreams where I'd be trying to get away from people and would make it to the end of the sidewalk to where I was no longer able to go any further no matter what.  Not able to run, nor walk away, just stuck there all the time.  Weird eh?

But I think it was something to do with freedom and fear, because I don't have those dreams anymore and I think they signified a desire to go somewhere in life but being too young to make my own decisions.  Heh or maybe it means that a little boy was buried underneath that point in the sidewalk, and he was trying to communicate with me from the other side?! =o

[Update]

I'm playing with the colors a bit...I'll have something to show you soon I hope, gotta make dinner and do some other things here but I like this background a lot!  You know, for being new to this, you're doing a fine job...better than I had.  Anyway I'll try to get that edit done to show you here soon.

Is the reason you chose light colors because of the color layer? Because no matter how much you attempt to saturate or darken, you cannot unless you apply those changes to the layer below it, the Values layer or the BG layer.  I've never seen anyone do this before, but I guess it works for the most part...but how to change color value easily?  That's why I put everything on its own layer, which may be tedious but it works for me.  Alright back in a while with that edit.

Update
Here's the quick edit...I didn't know how to approach things with your current layers, so I made new layers via selection-copy as new layer from the color layer.  Then, I set it back at normal, adjusted the colors with your color layer on and went from there.  If it doesn't look right over the color layer, you can just grab a color with the picker, color it in, then smudge at low opacity to smooth the gradations out.



Thanks for letting me mess with that, was fun!

Hasn't happened to me, but I bet it has to do with one of those Jumbo Wall, Extended Wall, whatever Super Wall applications that spam people without the user knowing that it's happening.  They really should ban those applications, rather than attack people for spamming since it's the application's fault after all.  But that would be too easy.

I think it's pretty amazing how these screens look quite good while still keeping an adventure game look. Not to forget they are pictures.

Thanks! =]  Well I do what I can, a lot of the pictures have heavy amounts of areas painted in, that are not from photographic reference.  Also, it's not like the elements from photos are like "pop, in you go!", they have to be adjusted for level, repainted for perspective, given a home in the background and then painted in...they'll never just sit nicely without some work.  Also good to take into consideration color and value perspective as well, but I'm still learning and I'm sure I make plenty of mistakes.  :/

I wish I was better at doing cartoonish-backgrounds and art though.  I seem to have more trouble with those.

http://mobilemeatmachines.blogspot.com/
Educational comics about animals made with love, good intentions, cold fingers and red ink.

Dude, I just read all of those and want more! ^^

Oh I see what you did with the eyes, yeah that helps a bit I think.  Good work ^^

ANIWZCS2Service [...] something required by Windows

So you may want to see if there's an AniWZCS2 or something service running?

There's your problem and your solution...

LOL I didn't even see that for some reason.

Maybe there is a specific wireless service that is trying to run with an automatic at startup configuration in Services that you could set to disabled instead?  I'm really just guessing.

Also from what I saw here, this is from someone who also owns a D-Link and has this problem:

"I found a work around solution to the poblem. I deleted LAUNCHER files
WZCSLDR2.exe from the program\ANI\ANIWZCS2 SERVICE and AirGCFG.exe
Program\D-Link\AirPlus G and the startup problem is solved. The D-link
adapter still works perfectly."

So you may want to see if there's an AniWZCS2 or something service running?  I'm not sure what else to try, but find out the model of your D-Link and see if there others using the same model posting a solution.

Well...didn't hear from avid_adventurer at all, so nothing to report in the sound department.  But, some new background work is ready to be seen, and I posted for assistance in the Recruit a Team thread because I'd love to get a team together to finish this and do more games in the future.

Here are the latest backgrounds, if you haven't seen them, they're all still in progress:

Arnie's Restaurant



Cotton Cove



Lytton PD Hallway



Old Warehouse District



And something different, not sure what will become of it right now:



Anyway, if anyone can help and wants to contribute, I'm looking for people to join for the duration of the project, and hopefully other projects....if you're someone who drops things after a week, please don't offer your services because it does little good and will only make things inconsistent.