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Here's a new end-game screen, shown if the player becomes a trader/merchant at the end of his sci-fi career.Ã, 



Here it is on a black bg, like in the game:
On black bg

Think I've come to the point where I need fresh eyes on it, and suggestions on how to improve it. Paintovers especially welcomeÃ, 

It's very ... purple, which I like, but which would become a bit oppressive for a whole game, since I imagine the  connected outdoor locations would have to have the same lighting.

I'm a bit split between the top one, where I like the tone better, and the bottom one, where I like the brightness better. Maybe I'd take the top one and make it  little briighter, but without the saturation in the bottom one.

Regarding composition, I'm really fond of the terrace on the cliff-side. Put more details like that in the picture. Also, I think there's a problem with the road - I guess it's supposed to lead around the hill, but it seems to come to a dead stop at the base of it. Or wait - is it supposed to lead into a forest? Then the trees should be much bigger (compare their sizes to the houses in the foreground).

Since this is going to be a game background (random in what sense?), I think there could be something at every exit to catch the player's attention. The coast and the hills to the right are pretty detail-empty areas. Maybe put something there to hint at why the player should go there.

Hey Endrews, your game looks cool (very much like Heroes of Might Magic), but when I follow the download link, and press the red link, the same page just loads again - I never get to the download. Do you know if there's some limit to the amount of traffic you are allowed at your free download site - perhaps we could find a download mriror for it somewhere???

Ok, it's been a while because I've been working on other things, but here's a final polish of the banner.

I made both starting and end frame solid, so now I hope there's no problem for people who have disabled animate gifs in their browsers.

Thanks for all the C&C

>> Final Banner on black bg

Hey - he looks just like Blue-Suited Man, only betterÃ,  . I think the overall proportions are good, so these are justÃ,  a few suggestions.

* His shoulders look raised .
* Maybe make his neck longer and pull his head one or two pixels back (right).
* Add knees.
* More contrast to make details in clothing stand out.
* Maybe try out some selctive outlining Sel-out tute

Very nice job so far, with so few pixels and colors, keep it up.

I think the posture is just a tiny bit exaggerated - like he's poking his head forward to examine something. It looks too off-balance to be a relaxed pose. Also, the knees are a bit low, and the hair looks very glossy. But I like the style, maybe it could even go without the outlines, like in Another World.

Ok, here's the latest miner remake (added a drill and an oil spill on the floor, changed the piping and floor textures and rendered bigger). I think I'm finaly done doing these four images.

>>> Final Miner End-screen

Update to the junkman scene:

>>> Junkman mod2

Took me some time to do, since I've been on several detours trying to add other light sources. Finally got back to this, which is close to the original, but where the sun is a bit higher in the sky, and off-center in order to allow for illumination that enhances the important things in the scene and still seems somewhat realistic. I liked the sky in the original better, but with the sun that low on the horizon, the whole scene would be totally in shadow, so this is it.

You guys are still welcome point out flaws (I'm learning from this), especially in the barkeep and miner images, that I still need to do updates on.

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Edit:

Here's what I think will be my final edit of the barkeep scene. Given the composition, there's really no way i can think of to lessen the 'horror vacui' it may inspire, so I'm just going to apply the lesson learned in future compositions and make them less empty. I did put in some barstools, but most of the changes are to the lighting, the background and the reflective materials.

>>> Barkeep mod2

Nice composition - I borrowed some of it in the latest remake.

Mainly the skyline and the foreground crates add some much needed depth to the image. I really like your use of color (good effect with the purple/cyan sky and the yellow lights) - I also saturated the lights a bit, but it's hard to get the complementary effect without setting up a lot of lights, so I think this is how far I can go with it in this scene - but I'll keep it in mind for new scenes. I also thickened the doors and added some hinges. As for the recrop and the central strip being empty, I see what you mean - it should be broken up for a more interesting composition. On the other hand I like to have the important elements slightly off center. But thanks for ideas and the paintover - it is really good practice to try and achieve similar effects in 3dsmax.

So here is the new version:
>>> Latest smuggler remake

(I like the painted quality of this one, too, comes from playing with color levels)

well... back to work on the remaining scenes.

Maybe it's just me, but I think he kinda looks like a cartoony dog's head seen in profileÃ,  - but maybe he's supposed to

Thanks, I think this got me to a point where I'm satisfied with my last remake of the smuggler scene.

>>> Latest smuggler remake

Following most of SteveMcCrea's suggestions, in this version I set up new lights for the entire scene, giving the lamp a warmer yellow glow and the shadows and ambience level a bluish tint.
I moved the man, to make him actually touch the side of the container - thanks for pointing out that he was leaning on thin airÃ, 
I also made the container doors a little taller. They are actually wide enough to close the container when the come together, but I guess the POV obscures it. I think having made them taller helps sufficiently, since if they take up more of the scene horizontally, they stand out in the image too much in my own opinion.
I didn't actually fix the stars in this version, but I omitted them from the final Unsharp Mask Filtering I did on the rendered image in GIMP, so they're not as bright as in previous version. My hope is, that since the scene is darker overall, the stars won't seem too bright anymore. Any opinions?

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'll start doing remakes of the other 3 scenes/images now.

And Eigen - I like your version, although I want color versions to be used in the game. Your interlaced effect is cool and very sci-fiÃ,  - reminds me of how it was used in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire.

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Edit: An Update of the junkman-image is here:

>>> Junkman modification

I redid the lighting to get some more realistic shadows and added a few thorny shrubs to the landscape. What do you think?

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New Edit: Here's an update of the barkeep image.

>>> Barkeep modification

I changed the windows' materials and reflection maps to try and make it more clear that they are reflective, nor see-through (except for the window to the bar). Since they are reflecting the starry sky it will b hard to make them appear any less see-through than they are. I also bevelled the building's concrete edges to make them less hard. The sparkles from the row of lights are added in GIMP, as is a little bit of sharpening. Image looks rougher, perhaps too sharp compared to the old oneÃ, 

Thanks for the link, I spent some time on those forums looking at tutorials and tricks - some of those guys just make me wanna forget about computer art, they're light-years ahead of me, but hell, I did some updates on the smuggler image anyway, mostly
* bevelling object edges to make them less clean,
* adding some geometry (pillars) to the building,
* changing lights and shadows,
* adding detail and a spaceship to the background, and
* roughening up all the textures to get more grit and dirt.

I fooled around with some fog and volume light effects, but can't seem to get the proper sense of depth to the effects so I deleted them again. Maybe those things are actually easier to do in postprocesing in Gimp or Photoshop. Any hints?

Here are two new versions of the smuggler scene, crits are welcomed:

Modification 1

Modification 2


(Original)

I think it was pretty cool - especially liked the straightforward absurdity of the cop axed to a lamp post in the beginningÃ,  Guess the axe had to come from somewhere, so where could be more natural?Ã, 

So what would you modify/change/tweak to make it a better animation?

Only thing I can think of is that when the chicken sees the truck from "Feedback Company" he looks extremely scared. But then there's a new scene, (chicken up close) where he looks really cool and unaffected, and then gets scared because of the truck all over. A bit confusing, like the animation took a small step back in narrated time.

But cool animation anyway.

Thanks, those are good suggestions. I'll add some stuff to the miner and smuggler pics like you suggest.

I see what you mean about the shadows in the junkman picture. Kinda forgot that the background sunset was a texture and not a real light-source, but I'll put one in there that matches the angle and light color, and casts appropriate shadows.

And you're right - the barkeep image windows are supposed (and set) to be reflective, and now that you've pointed out that they could also seem transparent, I can't see them as reflective anymore. Strange optical thing. I'll try some different settings on them.

About the textures, I collect them from anywhere (games/modeling packages/photos) to build up my own library and then combine them into materials. I'm using 3dsmax for these scenes, and it comes with pretty good maps and materials. Things like bump-mapping, or masks for other settings often need to be drawn specifically for certain geometry, but max can generate alot by itself. The sky background in the barkeep image is an example. It uses a tresholded noisemap to generate the white stars on a black background, then a gradient ramp map to fill the black with tones of darkblue, then it blends another noise map with different settings over the scene to create cloud effects, and yet another gradient ramp map to shift the hues vertically. The mountains are then image-googled and pasted on.

If you wanted to avoid displays like this in different browsers, you could make sure that the first and last frame in your animated GIF were full frames, rather than updates from the previous frame...

Ok, I'm glad there's a solution like that. I was starting to think about how to autodetect gif-blocking in peoples' browsers, which I'm glad I wont have to.

Hey - remember Pirates! and it's open-ended gameplay where at the end of your career you would get a detailed description of your life after the retirement from privateering? Whether you became a barkeep or an admiral of the Queen's fleet, or something else?

I always thought it was a cool feature, so I'm doing almost the same thing in "Space Darling", an AGS sci-fi game. I've rendered some end-game pictures to go with the different rankings (4 out of 10 by now), and any crits would be appreciated. The pictures will go with verbose descriptions of their depicted stations in life, the score and some stats. I haven't decided how much to resize them for in-game use,Ã,  but they're probably going to be somewhat smaller than they are now.

In my own opinion, the pictures have some atmosphere - but also, something seems to be missing. I'd like (also very particular) suggestions on what to do with each or any of them that will make them better.

I've compressed the pictures just a little, but they're still around 500k, so here are the links:

Junkman

Miner

Smuggler

Barkeep

Why don't you work on your game instead of devoting a whole week to a IMO totally superfluous and annoying thing like a website banner?
I can't see any big changes from version to version either, so post a background or character or something else worth of our time.

Some people have found it worth their time, for which I'm grateful. And I don't know where you got the notion that I spent the whole week working on the banner. I also rendered some end-game screens that are coming up shortly.

Desmond>>
Look what you did to my bannerÃ,  :o But I see your point. I didn't know about people blocking animated GIFs in their browsers. Is it common?

I agree with rharpe. If you're going to have it animate, have it animate every 15 seconds or so. It looks good (though aliased looking, due to gif?), but would be distracting from the website.

I might try that solution. But I'm hoping it wont as much distract from the website as add to its atmosphere. It's supposed to be a game website, so I want the atmosphere from the game to be dominant there... even if it takes some animation.

Er... Thanks for your two cents, guess it all adds up. Obviously I disagree with the first bit, the second I just don't understand. Games with just a few loops? Like "Duck Hunt", or what?

Maybe you're right that I should keep it static or just with a minimal pulse. I'll have to make a few tests to see

Here's the newest attempt at an animated one. It has same speed as the top one, with an extra frame in between the existing ones to make it smoother. And less colors to cut down on file size.


On black background

Yes, I like the slower ones better myself. I did add some more frames in the  new versions, as well as adjusting the framerates. But maybe I should add more frames, then, so it can be made as slow as the first one, but in fluid motion. Problem is the effect I've used depends on random clouds filter, so I have to make the in-betweens manually (new random clouds frames will just make it appear more random). I will try though. This time I'll also try to cut down on filesize a bit - banner takes too long to load, I realize. Thanks you guys for the critique, and glad it works in linux. 

I used Gimp for the effect:
1. rendering clouds inside the text (alpha to selection),
2. make a copy of the text-layer and set it to subtraction,
3. make a contour-dependent gradient fill in the new layer,
4. merge the text-layers,
5. invert colors,
6. adjust color levels,
7. colorize it to green.