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Little did I realize there's buttons next to roger's right hand that I can use.  This is how I'm supposed to get wd40 to tell me i need to go to gingivitis (or whatever 81100 happens to be in the version you have).  To me this is a design problem, although it's very possible I could have missed some instructions somewhere.  The manual that comes with the space quest collection (the new one) for 1-5 is actually the one from the old collection.  It merely tells you how to get started at first, and then goes on about copy protection. 

So finally I tracked down a walkthrough that tells me I can press one of those buttons, that i've never used the whole game (although I could have got wd40 to scan that one toxic planet earlier).

Thanks for the help!

smiley - usually when I "command" wd40 it says something to the effect of I can't take command of the situation.  However I will attempt to do it again.  It is possible that i'm not clicking on the right hotspot to command wd40 -- if I just talk to wd40 she tells me "the plan".

MrColossal - I wasn't looking for a hint as to what to do next.  I looked in alot of faq's and walkthroughs -- I know exactly where to go.  I wanted to know why you were going there, it's something that most of these sites don't tell you, they just tell you exactly what to do.

GarageGothic - Yes exactly what i wanted to know why am I going to Gingivitis to find the goliath....  And I think smiley has given me what I needed to know, assuming it works (when usually it's failed).

Okay this is just bugging me.  After saving Ambassador Wankmeister you're supposed to catch up to the Goliath (now manned by a mutated Captain Quirk) -- only, there's no clue as to where i'm supposed to go to find the goliath.  (This is after you've been through the genetix labs) -- So I look online, and I look at every single hint and walkthrough I can find, which tells you the exact coordinates but not how you get this information.  How does the player find out what planet to go to next?

Anyone who can figure this out will get my congratulations ;-)

Well part of this for me is the fact that I don't have most of the puzzles done... I need to complete some puzzles before I can judge how long it will take to play.  Obviously it will take longer for someone who doesn't know the solution, but I feel I can give a decent guestimate about how long it will take the average player once I know how long it takes me to do stuff.  But I will keep your suggestions in mind.

okay so work on the room until it's finished.  Draw a frame of the character, i am planning on using scaling to make them fit into the room.  I'm probably going to use the full size of the paper (8-1/2 inches) for the character, to make sure everything fits together, will probably scale up part of the background that he works in, do my animation over that, and then scale the final image down in the program.

So you basically think all the backgrounds should be done first really?

By the way i've finished several games but never an adventure game, so we're sort of on the same footing, except you've got 2 months on me ;-)

Thanks Oddysseus,

assuming no one else replies, i'll probably do a clean up sketch and and ink, and then do the base coloring.  After that i'm deciding whether or not I should continue to finish the background, or wait until i've started the animation of the character working within the room...  As I'm the only person working on this, I needed a working but still not finished background (final yes, but you get to play with the drawers and books in the book case, and putting clothes in the closet etc)... So i'll build the animation without any real details about the character... more than a stickman though, probably a humanoid form with no features, when i can get him to walk, i'll start finishing up the background by adding lighting and so forth... then i'll start detailing the character, doing a back and forth between the character and the background.

It all depends, and anyone that has suggestions on what you think it's more important (finish the background, do the animation, or do both back and forth till each is ready).

Thanks to everyone
Keith

Well here it is, black sketch number 2… things have been adjusted again… this time the quality may look a little worse, because I was attempting to not use sketchy lines, which produces crappy non-straight lines, verses sketchy straight ones… in any case this one is better in the fact that I added the details to the door, posters, and then I added some extra width to the computer desk, as well as decreased the depth and width of the book case, so now lines don't meet exactly… Hopefully this is more satisfactory.



Keith

the desk is supposed to be wider than the dresser... meaning the desk should come out further from the wall than the dresser does.

Will improve it, and scan and upload a new version.  Thanks.

Keith

Not really sure if anyone is checking this out anymore, but I created another, not so drastic of a change.
My web host will be going down soon, so I don't know how long this image will stay up... But attempting to migrate to another host.

First black pencil sketch… Not sure how the final clean up is going to turn out, but I modified this sketch a bit… made the dresser only 4 drawers and the bookcase only 5 shelves… the hamper has changed shape to be a bit more dynamic, and I even made the closet seem a bit smaller.

Thanks for the crit

Hmm, I can fix the closet I guess... As the next phase is a clean up with regular (black) pencil. 

Indent the shelves? you mean so it looks completely open and as though the shelves were placed in there seperately?  I guess in a nice piece of furniture the shelves are flush with the casing, however, in some of the cheaper ones (like what i have in my aprtment here) they were put in.  I will keep it in mind.  In fact i'm going to slightly modify the book case, it may have 5 shelves instead of 6 because those appear to me to be too small after I drew them.

Yep that cube is indeed a hamper... I will probably go look at real life hampers to see how they look and adjust accordingly, as it's possible the size is even incorrect.

As far as 3d on the door frame, and the wall trim (even the closet frame) -- I always figured that I would paint that in, rather than draw it, although I suppose I could find my way to drawing it, when I do the black pencil version

Anyways thanks again for looking!
Keith

Okay let's try this again, I think i've almost nailed it. I also did something that might be a little risky. I changed the bed around to the front, and added a book case in the back. then moved out the hamper into the middle. So basically it's framed by some foreground objects, it's got everything I wanted in it, and it's got 1 more item (the book case), also the door may open, and the closet looks normal (I hope). Still just a sketch, there are a few issues, for instance, the drawer on the computer desk, i had it closed but since you'll be able to fool around with stuff, then I hollowed it out. I left the handle on the computer compartment because i'm not expecting someone to look in there… In fact I may remove the handle, just having the computer behind the compartment or shelf should be enough. (We can theorize how you get the dern computer out of there till the cows come home, but I don't think it will make much of a difference). Notice it's almost completely bare room, including the bed. This is on purpose. Also I think it will still be easy to move around. Of course, i'll still have to be extra careful where i put the pizza box with a couple of old moldy slices still in it, and the clothes and what not, probably limited to what you can see, except if I decide you can search under the bed (might work). So you have to clean up your room, and then find your library card.

Anyways let me know what you think.



Keith

I thought the original was great, but now it looks much, much more interesting, and yet even with the foreground elements and the room size diminished, it still looks very usable, like I wouldn't have any trouble navigating it.

a note about the closet... i'm usually just playing around with it, please ignore the inside of the closet ;-)

okay, i'll attempt to do a version that is like my original concept sketch.  It's just originally they weren't turning out right, but now I think I have a handle on some of this stuff.

Keith

Thanks for the crit --

I haven't decided on the sprite size, i can scale in-engine though to make sure it all lines up.  It's not so much the amount of sprites i can fit, it's more, about the walking room of the only character in there.

Been playing a tale of two kingdoms and there's a scene in that town of havgan where the druid is, and right in front of the house of that lady that makes cider is a tree -- I found it hard to find the opening until I realized I was to click on the tree that was covering the doorway up.  This kind of thing, is what i'm hoping to avoid.

As far as making everything smaller, i'm still considering -- because like I said, some of the screen area won't be used up then -- of course I could do this on purpose though, less to draw, but sort of would waste the space...

Will give it some more thought.

Keith

Doing a background is harder than most think.  Correctly the bottom pic is the best looking one as far as composition, however if you're doing backgrounds for a game, you need sufficient floor space and at least an indication of where you can walk.  That's hard to do with that original picture.

The problem with the previous version though is the fact that it failed to address the fact of the door opening, if I don't have any room I can't get the rest of that in there.

This comes to the current version, I guess I can see what you mean by huge.  I tried to make the back wall smaller so i could add more room to put all the stuff i needed in there.  If I get more crits about that i'll probably go back and do another version, but i'm running out of paper! ;-)

so you do this thing where you make it interesting, but you can't walk a character around in that, then you try to add in stuff you want but then you can only make the image so big.  I need to make it a wide aspect ratio so i can fill the screen with the room, rather than only use up a small portion of it (maybe this would be better?)

In any case criticisms appreciated...  Will look into doing another version.

As far as posting images, i guess i can try that, but maybe later, i'll have to figure out how to do so ;-)

Thanks,
Keith

Hello my name is Keith, and some of you might have seen me as Uhfgood in irc --  I guess in a way i'm new, but more like i'm a long time lurker.  I might have posted here a couple of times, but not that much.  In any case i'm working on my first background, and have just started some sketches... Just wanted to get people's opinion.  These aren't in any way finished, but I'm wondering if anyone could give me an idea if the layout or composition is ok (or the scale).  Instead of posting a picture here i'll post a link to my blog, as I use that to document my progress... the top 4 posts have my progress thus far.  Here's the link - http://www.gamesafoot.com

If i'm out of line in anyway please be gentle, I will try to correct myself in the future.

Thanks
Keith

Edit: Decided to attempt to add in the images directly --

latest version -


previous (second) note: no room for the door to open -


first try -- perspective is way off


original concept -- I was attempting to make this and then realized that in each version I didn't have enough floor space for the character to walk around -- i still may go back to something like this though


Please note, i'm not attempting to emulate a cartoony style.  My backgrounds for this project I want to be somewhat realistic and of course pleasing to the eye (but the pleasing part is later when i paint it ;-)

Please read the blog posts for a more in depth description of what I was attempting.
Thanks.