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Did that GUI worked for you?


Right now I'm standing at a crossroads with my game. I like the MI2 GUI a lot and I've already started to draw backgrounds at 320x142. On the other hand, designing puzzles were you have to e.g. push
objects rather than simply use them might come out a little unfair. (like in DOTT, Hoagie had to push the bed in order mess it up, getting the soap and so on...)

So I'm now thinking to reduce the Scumm GUI to something and stumbled upon Flight of the Amazon Queen. What do you think? Using MI2 and try to avoid push pull or using a simplified one like Flight of the Amazon Queen?

Well, after this extensive night color debate, I think I might come up with the next steps.

When I chose the colors, I had a clear sky with a bright moon in mind. So there's still enough light for a blueish complexion.
But first i had to the outlines (and felt like a trained monkey doing this )



I had a hard time, doing something with that much grass. Applying photoshop effects looked cheesy and just a green filled area empty and unfinished. So I scribbelt some lines in a pale color. There's also shadow for the trees.



Then I've doubled the layer, blurred it and put it behind the original layer to get a deeper look. After that I've added some highlights and searched for a better matching color. What you now see is green + little amount blue = cyan



The grass still looks like water to me and I'm not sure if I've done the shadow on the fence right.
Also, do you get a feeling for the depth or do I need more tree like blobs in the background?

Almost forgot: Here's a wonderful photoshop plugin to do Deluxe Paint like gradients.
http://depthdither.graphest.com

Well I've just dropped in after 7 years of absence, but this place inspires me alot lately. There's the critics lounge and all those competitions. For me, this is all new, but after all, this place is mainly about making games hence it could become boring after all.

What I find even more interesting, is that lately a lot of people coming back to this place. Like Squinky, Octompus/Simple/Phil and myself.

I'd wonder who's next... Greg Hurst? Bubba? Those Gods of AGS crew (like salva or Reto Schmid)??

[Meet Gargoyle Granny]

Since I don't want do be the last one, just showing one granny, here's a different approach in low res.

Meet Gargoyle Granny


Granny Rubuncle: The last time I flew? My dear, that must have been a long time ago.


She about 54 pixel high, and founded the orphanage as the cities begun to get too fast-paced for her.

This time I worked without a sketch and created the skeleton in inkscape.

looks more like a pokemon


Now I've imported the bitmap export from inkscape to my pixel tool (ProMotion)


Here's the basic coloring again.


Shading and a dress


A foundling on her arm and done



Here's a little sample animation on a background I've stolen from Gilbot's Sprite Jam (Thanks  )


Well, that's it.

Wow, like I would have posted on Slashdot 

Maybe some artists also wants to mimic this effect, which indeed is quite beautiful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hour

Anyway, I might now try to find some colors for this background.

Yeah I know, the coloring of the pirate nanny sucks.
Mainly because I was to lazy to do a good per pixel shading. Instead I just took a pencil at 30 % visibility and corresponding dark color - well, not the best technique for a sprite
Besides I'm afraid that tweaking that sprite's shading won't help anyway, because I'm sure it's not exactly what Misj' had in mind.
Somehow your granny reminds me of GBA or DS sprites. I can't say why - must be the perspective - really neat stuff.
The orphanage btw. is from The Three Stoges, it looks even better on the amiga version. But Cinemaware generally did an awesome job on graphics these days.

Cool, thanks!
Paintings can be good referenced too, right?

By the way - does night look blue because of the sky? Or because in the darkness our eyes can see blue better than e.g. red ?? Can't get this out of my head  :
Right now, it's just dark outside - no blue at all.

I'd like to join you too!

Is the last week of July still valid? Unfortunately my boss wants my vacation plans 2009 next week.   

Most cartoonists like vector programs like inkscape (free) or Adobe illustrator or even Flash. In Illustrator you can also import scanned sketches and convert them to vector.

But as I've started to post without the Alien Hominid screen... here's an example of a very geometric object with straight lines and bended lines. (which looks far from good).
So yes - you can bend lines to get a cartoony look, play with proportions and use bright colors.

[/me]

Irony: /me talking about perspective

Anyway, your're drawing in 1 point perspective and all your diagonal lines should cross a vanishing points. I've added those extended lines to your images to show what I mean.




This tutorial shows a room in 1pt. perspective (though the website looks pretty outdated)

http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/

Something similar as flash video.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/140001


@Akatosh: lol, what a double post

[light]

Allright, I've outlined the house and did some very basic coloring just to check which walls are going to lighter or darker. I've also adjusted the sketch to Loominous' suggestions like more trees, higher horizont etc.

Now I'm running in a little problem: light
In theory, light hits a surface and the reflection is resulting the color. For moonlight it should be that the sun shines on the moon and the moon reflects it to earth. So far so good. Now why does it appear blue?
Are better: why is it alway drawn in blue? If I take a picture with my camera and mess up with the white balance - yes, then it's blue. I'm also aware of the "blue hour" short before dusk. And sometimes in cheap movies, they just put a blue filter on the camera, simulating "night".

But what I should I do? Color it with daylight colors and put a blue filter on it? (I assume, this whould look really cheesy) Experiment with different shades of blue and on places with a stronger light source I use the object's real color?
Does anyone know how I can predict the colors I'm looking for?

Thanks for your help, too bad I missed the background blitz workshop  Except from needing an orphanage, it would have been my thing.

Contructing in 3D really gave me hard time, and I doubt I'll ever do it again It took a me whole day to understand Google Sketchup and to build a simple house.
You're of course right on the horizont, I've set it lower than it came from Sketchup because I wanted just a little piece of sky left. I guess I can't bend that rule either

So thanks for the input, let's see what comes next!

So here's my entry. This granny would fit best in Neil's orphanage or a pirate's orphanage (which I would prefer  )

Granny Rubuncle: Call me granny again and you get to feel my cub. It's Bucaneer Rubuncle or simply ma'am

There's a flat colored version, as well as a more detailed one. There's no anti-aliasing or semi transparency on the outline to keep a good contrast to the background.

Height excluding the hat is approx 147px which qualifies her for the 800x600 resolution

I'm definately not a good role model, but I kept track of this creation anyway.

1) Drawing a skeleton


2) Flesh and muscels


3) Some more details and a hat


4) Clothes: coat


5) Clothes: dress


6) Oh dear, the neck is way too long - put the head a little lower and hid the skeleton layer and improved the contrast of the sketch


7) Outlined the sketch (having the layer at around 20 % visibility)


8.) Basic coloring
At this stage, I like her most - it might also be the easiest to animate.


9) Nonetheless I've tried some advanced coloring and miserably failed

Not an entry



But I'll join you this week...

Dear critics lounge,

thanks again for the feedback on the last two background I've posted. This time I'm a little smarter and present this background before it's too late change a thing So this is going to be a work in progress .

I've followed your advices on perspective and build the house in Sketchup (which was a real pain btw) and drew some sourroundings.

This night scene is going to be a side scroller with light coming from the right side (which leads to the caravan scene I've already posted here some time ago) The moonlight is intended to be behind the viewers right shoulder.

Does the composition work for you? Do you have some better ideas for the house and the garden?

As always, thanks a bunch!

--edit: all stages so far:









And here's the final! Thanks again for all your help on this, guys!

You never know, what happens _behind_ the camera 


Btw. I've first read "Could also be your prostitue, ..." thinking wow, that's really rough beard talk  8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CGOh-jb4QM

Its an old Amiga Demo - the first 30 are just incredible. Back then I wished, someday all games would look like this...

My beard makes other people look ashamed 

I just played around with SketchUp - which makes 3D modelling quite easy for a guy without the ability to think 3D (like: That tree? Oh thats just a cylinder with a sphere on top with a semi transparent texture to it.  )

Unfortunately SketchUp isn't good at lighting (only with plugins which are quite pricey)... so is there something even more quick and dirty than sketchup?

@snarky
Thanks for the advice (I should have added this in the reply above). But seriously, your room would have totally worked for me in a game

Thanks for critics - my tears are slowly drying 
So you should have two vanishing point in the viewing range - but that's actually a great hint, I hope I can avoid it in the future.
As for the 3D App: I followed the ginger bread tutorial for blender, but doing a whole room would take far too long for me.
The longer I watch my background, the more I think you're right with the 3d shooter comparision. But the light and the lamp I don't think I'm that wrong since the lampshade is semi-transparent and lightens the whole room. I even tried it at home and watched the light - the whole rooms was somehow lighten. Do you have any reference material for it?

I really appreciate all your comments - I hope my next screens get better. Thanks a lot!