Messages

I like the style except for these things:

(i) the lightning is boring imo. The lantern on the right wall could provide some nice (dark) shadows; instead the whole room seems equally illuminated by some soft lightning coming from somewhere.

(ii) the color of the outlines doesn t fit well imo. You mention that you might use ink n I guess that would take care of it.

(iii) I don t see the point of including the table in the foreground. If you d crop the pic at about halfway up of the left chair the pic would gain some intimacy I think.

Other than that I like it.

Btw, think those beams would look a bit better with some woodtexture.

Really nice. Only thing I can think of are the flowers on the right that stands out a bit too much imo.

Other than that great.

I m not very fond of the movement towards simplified guis (ie one button=open,use,push,whatnot). The illusion of control n presence is lost imo when the actual (chooseable) options are reduced, n turns the game into more of an interactive movie.

(At the moment my own gui contains 12 verbs n the amount might grow.)

So if you wan t to please the likes of me, go with an extensive MI2 sort of gui, but if you re aiming to please a broader audience a simple one is a safer bet.

I think he could use a thorax. Very interesting style though.

Nice. Really like the style especially the meteorite. The only thing that bugs me is the flatness n brightness of the meteorite which could easily be remedied with a contrastboost (some photoshop leveling):

Just the thing I was looking for, thanks a bunch. Great work.

The keyboardcontrol didn t work for me though. I tried every button on the keyboard but nothing was triggered.

A minor thing: when you use the pickupcommand on an object that isn t fetchable, the message "I can t Pick up that" is displayed. The usual way of saying this is to my understanding: "I can t Pick that up".

Anyway, very nice effort. (this templete oughta be a standard feature in AGS imo)

I agree that it doesn t sound very much like a desert enviroment, n neither does it give me a sense of being stranded.

What I think might push it a bit in that direction would be some sort of chords sweeping in n out to give the feeling of the wind blowing across the dunes and the tempo could be slower to make it sound more desolate.

Here s a quick attempt just adding some chords with the whistlesound:

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517124/Downloadable/deserted_m.mid

(not the best choice of chords perhaps since they don t fit the rest very well but they should give you the idea)

One way to obtain highquality sfxs is to browse sfxcompanies websites where freebies are usually given out, like this one:

http://www.hollywoodedge.com/the_acb/webpage.cfm?&DID=9&WebPage_ID=16

Think I spotted a "doorslam" when I copied the link.

Some modifications:

The last one is a hugh improvement imo, but the lack of contrasts makes it flat n a bit dull.

To give it depth increase the contrasts n then reduce the saturation.
(for the most realistic/convincing results the objects should have less contrast n a colder colortone the further away they are from the point of view (not done in this version)



Btw, the contrast level in my example is delibrately set a bit high to clarify my point.

The great brightness of the moon came along when the contrast was increased and should be lowered.

(I also added a bit of turquoise to the pic as well as some yellow to give it a more monkey island kind of look)

Could you clarify your last point for me? By fading at the end of phrases, do you mean trail it off every 8 bars, or at the end of the whole first section?

Phrasing is what instrumentalists do (if they re not beginners) when they play a line, n means that they subdivide it into smaller units.

What this means in the case of the flueline (n other lines) is that instead of just playing the notes at a constant velocity/volume, you should divide it using the volume controller to give it more feeling/life.

You can get an idea how to phrase it if you try to whistle it giving it the amount of emotion that you wish (the "flatter" the velocitycurve, the less emotional).

As a composer, phrasing is your chore if your not writing for instrumentalists.

This is all too often overlooked by computer/synth composers who then blame the lifeless/flat sound of the music on the fact that they re not using instrumentalists.

Interesting piece. The sudden styleswitch in the middle works very well imo n the chordprogression in the second part as well.

What I don t care much for is:

(i) the oboelines - the first would be ok if it the instrument was in tune but they re both pretty irritating (especially the second one) imo
(would perhaps work better with another instrument, though I can t think of any that would fit at the moment.)

(ii) the first fluteline doesn t work well when repeated imo (think the last note is what is ruins it)

(iii) the excessive use of crashes

(iv) the stringpads - the arrangement is weak imo n the far right pan makes it thin

But aside from these I liked it.

Btw, that flute sounds fine to me - might wanna fade it out at the end of phrases though (as well as all other instruments - but especially this one since it s very intense).

I m not very fond of n pretty much totally ignorant of the manga style, but I think I spotted some abnormalities:

(excuse the sloppiness)



(i) the forehead seems swollen, especially with the highlight
(ii) the eyes are too rounded n to close to eachother
(iii) the chin is oddly shaped
(iv) the hairline is placed too high
(v) the mouth n nose are placed too low n much to the right (our right)
(vi) her mouth is oddly shaped
(vii) the hair needs glossiness
(viii) her body seems too curvy n full (too mature looking for this teenagebody style)

I ll let the connoisseurs take it from here.

Did you record or sample it? If you happen to have recorded it yourself I d recommend that you record slides (followed by longnotes) as well, since they re common in saxlines n sounds awful when "bent" by trackers/synths.

(since high notes are bent most often you could skip the lower notes (to reduce the filesize)

Nice style. Could use a contrast boost though.

Thanks for all the kind comments :) (I don t draw very often so it s very encouraging).

Ali:

The whole room is lit by gentle diffused light coming from the window, so I think the light cast in the shape of the window on the floor, in spite of being really well drawn, is to strong. It's also at a really sharp angle, like it was from a street lamp.

You might have a point there. I was very unsure how n if I should draw that shadow. I ve never studied these things and the only, but pretty convincing, reference i had was the room that I m actually typing this in, that s lit up pretty much exactly in the same manner.
The sharp angle is explained by the location of the sun at noon which is the time of the day it s supposed to resemble.

I d be grateful if you could explain how it could be altered for more realism (my untrained eyes are probably deceived in several ways).

[original size:]

My first attempt at lowres graphics so be as brutal as you please.

It s inspired by 'futurewars' where the actual backgrounds often took up only a very small portion of the screen giving the feeling of looking inside a dollhouse.

The character was created separately from the background so the colors don t match very well at the moment.

I wanted to give it a sort of vintage feel so no anti-aliasing was done etc.

original size:




~Ingame size: (as viewed in 1152x864)




Any thoughts?

Edit:

Btw, the dimensions are 128x80 (everything but the background cropped out that is)

I think you should make it more compact if you don t introduce more lines, otherwise it ll get tiresome. Have the synthline start after the first fill (~20sec) and mute some tracks more often (example: mute the bass n drums n let the synth lines go solo, then reintroduce the drums n then the bass.

To get a richer sound pan out the hihat to the left (between middle n left) n the synthlines on each side (perhaps have the crash on right side). Also give the synthlines an echo on the opposite side (if the line is on the left side make an echochannel on the right - to do this simply copy the track n set the volume on half).

I like the style. I d add some contrast to the face to give it some depth though:

The difference between the versions is perhaps only audible if you have two seperated stereospeakers or are using headphones.  

The idea is that when you listen to a concert, live or recorded, you ll hear where the instrumentalists are placed on the stage. If it s not a soloconcert the intruments have to be spread out on the stage which will be heard on the record/in the hall. (an intrumentalist placed to the left will be heard as coming from the left etc)

The instruments in a symphony orchestra are almost always placed in the same manner. Explaining where they re all seated would take some time, so to get a picture of the placement, just look at some images of an orchestra.

Roughly they are seated as follows:

Far left: (pan 0-15)

Harp, 1st n 2nd Violinsection

Left: (30)

French horns

Middle: (40-80)

Violas, woodwinds, trumpets, percussion

Right: (100)

Trombones,  cellosection

Far right: (110-127)

Doublebasses

it does actually pitch soft and come back up to full strength at the end of the line

Think you re confusing volume with velocity. To alter the volume enter the 'pianoroll' of a track then in the menus to the upper left/middle, select 'Control' n in the other '7-Volume'. Now you can "draw" the envelope in the lower part of the window.