Messages

Your perspective sketch assumes that a lot of different lines are parallel. This is not at all a necessary assumption. (For instance, there's no reason why the low stone wall around the property has to be perfectly parallel to the side of the house.)  I actually think it looks less natural for everything to line up (even the grass by the path) than to have things pointing in different directions.

Given your somewhat loose style and the sagging state of the house, I don't think there's anything wrong with the perspective, and you could should just leave it as it is. I think the new roof looks great.

Hmmm... positivie feedback... interesting... I might just change my mind again. We'll see. I'll put this one aside and work on some other backgrounds for a while. If I can get the time. I'm teaching at university starting next week, so I'll be busy as hell.

Its defo not finished. The first thing that strikes me is the sunrays and lack of highlights. there are no highlights at all, in fact... Just look at where the rays are going and add sharp highlights to these places, right now it looks dull and lacks point of interest.

Well, as I said above I'm scrapping this image. However, I'd like to see how you would go about highlighting this scene. Feel free to paint over.

Erwin_Br: I don't ususally trash images that I've put a lot of work into, but I agree with you: you live, you make mistakes, you learn.

So: I'm scrapping this one - the list of problems has become too long.

:o What?

Do you really care about a 100 % correct perspective so much? I'd keep it, it would hardly bother anyone playing the game, not even those who'd notice that the perspective is not quite correct...

I've changed my mind about how the whole screen ought to work. I'm making it a scroller now, at least twice as wide. This was a useful learning experience, but it has to go.
In order to salvage bits from this screen I will need to print them and incorporate them into new drawings - cutting and pasting by hand. I might not bother and start from scratch instead.

Actually, now that you mention it, this drawing is basically flawed, perspectivally speaking.



The red lines indicate what it would have to look like to make sense. The right-hand vanishing point is a bit too extreme (and not very realistic) and has given me a world of problems. You live, you learn.

So: I'm scrapping this one - the list of problems has become too long.

I might keep the big tree, though. I really like the way it kinda looks like a hand (thumb in front)

This house is actually quite big. I had to redo my overall plan for it, so now I'm working on a new sketch of the whole house seen from a different angle.

This is what it looks like now.


A lump of orange play-doh or a convincing-looking roof? I'm not sure myself, so I'll let it rest for a bit while I work on other things.

I find it a little confusing. Sounds like it could turn into something interesting - depending on what you do with it. It could turn into an intellingent and important tale about politics, guilt, right and wrong, terrorism and the state of the world. Or it could simply turn into a Jean-Claude Van Damme-style stoopid revenge/action story.

Your grammar needs some work, too.

I've fixed the roof now. It looks a bit like your suggestion, Tuomas, although it goes a bit further to the left.
I always save cropping for last, but thanks for pointing it out anyway.

I regard it as finished now. You'll get to see it later. At some point I need to (try to) reqruit people who can do what I cannot. My programming skills are basic, and I could use some help with animations.
When I have a number of nice screenies ready I will call out.

Later, and thanks for all your helpful suggestions.

I hate to admit it, but you guys are right. I'll need to redesign this house.

RT, now that you mention it, it does look a little... plasticky. I'll get on it. Thanks.

About the angle of the roof - I imagined that it goes a little something like this:
_____
/          \

...so the house won't be that narrow. There will be another room where this is seen from another angle.

Is there anything that should be improved?

I guess it depends on what you're aiming for. Right now it's pretty hard to tell what your aim is in terms of mood/style/etc.

A line or two about your intentions would be helpful.

Something like a fairy tale for adults. Not in the pornographic sense, but you know.

Thanks for all your advice. It is fascinating (and somewhat depressing) to realise how blind you become to your own stuff. What bugs me is that I saw both the problem with the stairs (as I drew them in the original pencil sketch) and the left-hand corner rock, but I just could not bring myself to take action. It is a whole lot better now, I think.
Here's what I did:
1. Coloured in some details I had forgot (mushroom above and behind the afore-mentioned rocks)

2. Added a second rock and removed the tangent problem. The outline still sort of follows the path, but not exactly.

3. Fixed the stairs.

4. Darkened the whole image, adding more shadows, including some cast shadows. (on the pipe along the wall, on the roots of the big tree, next to the stone fence, on the stairs, etc.)

5. Removed some squiggly lines from among the leafwork (compare the area behind the beams).

Won't do:
1. Will not do anything more about the roof.
2. Will not untangle the "random" lines of the leafwork. Too much damn hard work. Branches are a pain in the neck to draw, especially en masse.

Here it is, now:

I can't stop fiddling about with this one. Should I stop now? Is there anything that should be improved. Is it a bit too orange?

The light on the background sky should follow the outline of the horizon (ie it should be horizontal) rather than the outline of the caravan, which seems to have a halo. If you want to make clearly visible the shape of the caravan you should add a highlight reflected from the fire.
Apart from that I think you pretty much nailed it. The ingame shot looks genuinely SCUMM style - enough to make me feel somewhat nostalgic. No mean feat considering.

This is a really great-looking image. Very evocative, in that it seems to be part of (sevral) bigger tales with lots of interesting characters, etc. I have a couple of niggles:
-I agree that the magic effect needs some work. It makes little sense that it appears to be smoke, seeing as it comes out of a book. Something more whirly with little stars and sparkles.
-The elf on the right seems to stare off into space rather than into the book.
-The bloke about to murder the poor unicorn looks a wee bit too much like Conan.
-The picture features a unicorn. Unicorns are girly.

This one's going to turn out great! Keep up the good work and spend as long as you like. Post it again when it's at that "it's really finished but I keep making small adjustments stage"

The view-point is too close to the floor.

It's not so much the view point but the size of the object. The room is just four times as high as the books on the left.
The chest is half as high as the room.

You are right, too. Back to the drawing board.

Andail: I think you nailed it. The view-point is too close to the floor. No way to easily amend that., hafta do it from scratch, then. Ah, well.

The protagonist is a somewhat diminutive teenage girl, but she's not THAT short.

Hi. I thought I didn't want more C&C now, as I've been getting more confident. However, I can't seem to get this room right. In this room the view changes to the first person perspective, so there need not be room for the sprite. Somehow, though, it just doesn't feel right. I might want to redo the whole room on account of the boring perspective, but I think you can have the odd room with one vanishing point, for the sake of variety.
Help, suggestions, paintovers: all very welcome

I think it looks absolutely brilliant, and definitely quite artistic (despite what you say), but - as people have remarked - it is not very practical. But I do love the style.

Thats really sexy.   I'd love to play a game with these graphics

Thanks a lot, although I must warn those that would like to play the game that it will take a long time to finish, between jobs, writing articles to boost my academic career, having a social and family life, playing other games, writing music, having no useful programming skills, etc.

How do you people get the time to finish games?

I never meant to sound harsh, I just think it's pretty normal to have a lot of sky in pictures.  This is a scrolling screen btw, goes just alittle bit more to the left.

About the near-pentagram: the lines need to be on top of each other - look at any black metal or heavy metal album... I am glad you agree, Q.

The yellow outline on  the lips is there to indicate that this is the currently active icon - I've been having doubts about the lips having a yellow outline, then another outline on top of it. I like your new colour, though I could probably do away with the outer outline completetly and go with Garage's suggestion - which is good, G.
I realize I've been a little lazy on the GUI.

About alpha channels: I need to do some research re that, 'cause I have no idea what it means. Something about transparency?