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You are correct DCIllusion. Light that reaches earth from large astral bodies is presumed to be all going in the same direction. The bodies are of such a large size that the light that reaches us is virtually parralel.
Light from the moon, being a LOT smaller than the sun, may be less parallel, but not to an extent that we could notice it by the naked eye.

Parallel lights mean parallel shadows and thus will they share a vanishing point.

q.e.d.

Hey there, finally someone who's using 3d aswell. I don't feel so alone anymore

You've got a nice room going there. Nice clean style and good sence of proportions. There's still a couple of things you could do to liven the place up IMO.

First off, the room doesn't seem to have a purpose on it's own. There's a workplace with a laptop, lockers and a big ole trunk. Not items i'd see in the same room somewhere. But of course, i don't know anything about your game.

The table needs a little contrast, part of it fades away in the wall with the bright white. Especially the top left part.

The lockers still miss two things that i do see in every standard-highschool-movie locker (i'm not from the states so i'm not familiar with any variations in design, hollywood doesn't seem to know either ). Add locks and uhm.. i'll call them air holes. Hope you know what i mean.

The chair still has a square shadow, but after you made it look more comfy (nice edit) the chair doesn't look square anymore.

And last the corridor behind the left dooropening seems only a few feet wide. You could move the wall behind it further back to increase the space.


Nonetheless a nice bg. The style is very easy to the eye (not to create, but to watch). It's a good idea to use 3d to get all objects right and then paintover for a more pixelated or cartoonish look. You'll never have to worry about perspective and shadow again!

Good luck and let me know how it works out.

If there aren't any changes in physical objects in the bg then at least your first background can server as a template to create your other mood-bg's.

However, i presume that these moods are all different and easy to identify for the player in terms of visuals. Then it would be logical to say that your entire color scheme and shading would change alswell with every mood. This would mean an almost complete paintover of your template bg.

That may be easier than starting from scratch but i think that would still be a fair amount of work. If you were doing it in 3D then your task would have been a LOT easier.

I'll leave to the more talented and experienced one to provide you with possible tricks to save as much time as possible. (Mostly about handy features in graphics programs i suppose).

Your idea sounds pretty original though, so good luck on your efforts!

Very nice.

Two points i noticed (and i'm for from being the expert here):

When the arms bend they look like they've been folded flat because some lines are extended too far.
Also the left underarm seems quite thick at times compared to the upperarm. When i the individual frames i noticed this got you into trouble at the elbow.

I've done a quick paintover to show you what i mean. Use it in any way you want, or not at all.



original -------paintover

Good luck, and don't let that guy drink and drive! I've been watching him for only 3 minutes and already he slammed down 50 or so beers...

Thanks to you all guys.Ã,  Your critics were very valuable to help me get along with this room.

Overall look: I agree that the overal feel of the room is too 'clean', especially for a basement. In the past i've noticed this in my style aswell. Although i real life i'm as sloppy as the next homeless guy under the bridge, in 3d i never seem to get it. I'll try harder to sloppy things up!

Books: There were a lot of things wrong with the books. It turns out they were very out of scale with the rest of the room so i scaled them down and removed about half of them. Also a nice texture for at least the one in the front is a good idea. I also liked the remark that is a perfect opputunity to show the owners personality. However, i have not a clue yet who that is going to be (read first post) but i will definately keep that in mind when i do find out.

Lighting: As always, this is one of my weak spot in the 3d department. And unfortunately, lighting makes 60% of the picture. The hard shawdows, while a valid remark, was a result of the render settings, not my design.. I'll use softer shadows in my next render.Ã,  The renderer i'm using is a bit clumsy with global or abient lighting so i have to cheat my way around it by using extra (invisible) lightsources. The light coming from upstairs is a good idea. It'll definately add some realism to the scene and produce a more attractive picture to look at.

Here's the new situation. I'll probably add some more stuff later on, like a computer and stuff to make the room look more used instead of a 'showroom model'. It's become quite dark but i quite like it..



Hopefully you guys will be available for the next round of critiques because i absolutely appreciate the honest and valuable help you've given me so far.

Thanks!

GRUDGEFULL EDIT: When going for realism, please don't use a renderer that doesn't know what light falloff is.

Do we get to bite someone's ear off? 


sorry, i couldn't resist.. Good luck on the game!

hmmm... ear.. tasty!

Hi guys,

After a long time without AGS i'm back on track and ready to create!
To help me get a story going and to get it to grow in my mind i'm creating some small rooms to get the right feel for the game.

This room is the 3rd i created and i'm quite pleased so far. It's a tiny basement bedroom with only minimal funrniture and decoration.

Like you probably saw before images created in 3d can easily become very clean. I tried to avoid it this time, but i think i overcrowded the room a little.

One important thing to note is that i'm not planning on having an animated player on screen. This greatly increases the choice of camera locations.

Lemme know what you think about it and any other critiqueÃ,  & suggestions you may have.

Thanks in advance!



edit: Still to add: Blanket on the bed and electrical cord from lamp to outlet.

Just like the computer in your appartment, on the top of the screen are a couple of commands (they're shown half on and half off the screen). Click on your work icon in the navigation program and at the top middle of the screen a command go will appear. Click et voila!

The feet weren't too long, I think the tip of the shoes shouldn't be standing up like that? Unless that's intentional.

So should I go back and extend the feet to how they were?

Yeah, sorry if i confused you. I didn't mean the shoes were too long. Like Strazer said the tips standing up was what made them seem like clownsfeet to me.

The backstrap is improved. It could get even thinner for my taste, but i don't know if that would get you in trouble (i suppose you want at least 3 pixels wide. 2 for outline and 1 for fill-color)

Still, the character looks great, i'm seriously thinking about stealing it

I agree with SteveMcCrea, the right (main?) character looks too much like a pussy. Mostly because of his lips and eyebrows.
Maybe a bit rougher hairdcut wouid help too.

Overall the characters go great together!
Well done and keep it up.

I think the main problem lies here in de hair.

In front view the character doesn't seem to have that much hair (even a receding hair line)
Then in side-view the character suddenly has HUGE sideburns and the hair looks something like a pacman sprite

Maybe you should make the hair stick out more from that circle that makes up the head now, just to show it's not a helmet but live hair.

The body looks sweet though, i like the shine on the shoes
Good luck!

If you have any suggestions don't hesitate to ask.

Uhm.. what?

Great work so far! I do like your character a lot!

Only have two points to share:
- the back side of his suit is too thick. The way you drew the character you're facing him from the side and a little from the front, right?
That means you see almost nothing of his back. Now it looks to me as if you're looking a little from both the front and back at the same time.  I hope you inderstand what i mean, kinda hard to explain.

- again the shoes I think they look a little too clownesque this way. Though i'm sorry i can't tell you how else to do it..

Keep up the good work!

Hahahah, i absolutely love that animation!
The color is great, style is funny and the bobbing head is genius (on purpose or accident?)

But i also think that having to see this althroughout the game could get annoying. You'd have to make sure the game gets and stays really whacky

And one small detail: On the front and back view it looks like he's slapping his legs together halfway. Maybe keep the legs a little seperated or add more frames for a more gradual effect.

keep up the work!

Thanks for all your opinions guys I agree i need to roughen it up a bit and add more little details to the scene.

The 'foamy blue thing' is indeed painted concrete. I guess i do need to work on that texture.. hehe.

The black area beyond the barriere is a part i still have to model.

Although these pictues are only yet to get some sence of style into the game the scene itself will be used. I'm not sure if a camera angle like in the top picture is very usable to put an animated character in (because of the huge scaling difference).

The 3d program i used is called Rhinoceros 3D and rendered with Flamingo (both from the same company). This model took me about 2 hours to set up, including making all the materials. Renders at 640 * 480 (or wider) took about 3 minutes each.

The advantage working in 3d is that you can invest time in creating a scene and then get 3 or 4 room backgrounds out of it. The style of 'drawing' will be concistent and in the end saves time

About the game itself i can't tell you very much yet, since not a lot has been decided yet. All i know is this:
Since this is a first for me, i decided i would keep everything close to home on familiar grounds. Every friday i go to met my friend so i decided i'd make an adventure about all possible encounters and problems i could have along the way. The pictures you see are part of his (old) appartment building

Hi all,

I know you guys heard it all before so i wont start with 'i'm new, go easy on me' (i'm saving the groveling till later)

For a new adventure im looking for a new style. Because i'm REALLY bad at drawing i decided to throw in some (emphasis) 3d skills. But a totally realistic look would be more timeconsuming then i'm willing to spend. So i took some elements in the scene and made them slightly out of scale & color (door & window posts and the grated balkony).





I could do with some fresh eyes.
Thanks in advance, i've been told this community is one of the friendliest and patient around.