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Messages - pslim

#261
Critics' Lounge / Re: A big apartment
Mon 01/05/2006 22:36:23
I really like the style a lot. Just three minor suggestions (and Farlander's comment about the perspective on the table is seconded):

The yellow looks great, but the orange doesn't look great (to me) with it. I would suggest making the sofa and chair quite a bit darker, if they must remain orange.

I think the minimalist shading on the walls is very effective, but you haven't done the same to the other objects, so they look slightly out of place. This is particularly true of the sofa, probably just because it's big. Maybe you could shade the sofa the way you've shaded the trim on the walls (make the top parts brighter, lower parts darker, etc)?

The details on the desk against the right wall are almost impossible to see at 1x zoom. It looks like maybe there is some shading variation in the color of the panels that make it up, but it's hard to tell. I would recommend upping the contrast there until the shape is obvious even at 100% zoom.
#262
Another thing that jumps out at me thanks to Afflict's larger version is that there is no textural difference between the floor and the walls. There should be one, since the floor and the walls are (presumably) composed of different materials (ie, carpet and... whatever they make walls out of).

What is his floor made of? If it is carpeted, it should look like carpet. Right now it looks like plastic, partly because of the high saturation level of the red color and partly because it's 100% uniform in texture.

One way of adding interest to the wall might be to add some damage here and there. Is that the only poster he's ever had up on his wall? If not, there might be some holes where push pins have been before. If the wall is wallpapered, you could have it peeling back at one corner.

I disagree with Afflict that the bulb necessarily needs a shade. If I were just a little bit lazier and my bulbs were just a little bit dimmer I wouldn't ever bother to put the stupid cover back on my overhead light when I change it. ;) Plus I think your rendering looks good... but Afflict is right, there needs to be a switch or a pull-cord allowing him to turn it off an on. Plus, with a single, small light source like that you probably want to add a lot of shadow at the edges of the room where the light doesn't entirely illuminate.
#263
Quote from: Krudmonger on Sun 12/02/2006 06:39:30
My favorite -- and most hated -- adventure game puzzle is still the Babel Fish from "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" text adventure. Another hated -- and not as favorite -- puzzle is the gold tooth puzzle from MI3.


God, I loved and hated that puzzle, too.


To this day my most favorite puzzle is another Infocom game, The Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

You find the machine at the mad scientist's house that takes away the letter t from anything you put in it, then you meet the king who is so sad because anything he touches turns into a 45 degree angle and he's turned his daughter into one. You put a jar of untangling hair cream into the machine and voila! Un-angling cream! Brilliant!

(You can also put the poor helpless rabbit into the machine and get a rabbi, but then you're walking dead without the rabbit, I think.Ã,  :=)

My second favorite puzzle is probably the rubber chicken puzzle from MI1. As soon as I saw that clothes line between the islands I immediately knew how to get there and when it worked I was ecstatic.Ã,  :D


I hate pixel hunts, and I really hate walking deads (don't see those too much these days, thank god). I feel that if I have destroyed any chance of finishing the game I should at least be warned. :0

I also hate puzzles that just feel like puzzles unless there's some reason in the plot for my PC to be solving puzzles. This is why I don't like Myst-type games... I just don't buy any rationalization for that many levers, switches, buttons and twirly doo-dads all in one place. In terms of forgetting you're solving puzzles, Gabriel Knight 1 is my favorite for that. There are mysteries, but you always feel like you're a writer investigating them, not a writer who has been sucked through a vortex into a land of buttons and levers.

#264
I think it's okay for the poster to be crooked, given the tone of the room, but right now, even though it's smaller than in the original version, it's still much wider than the door. You don't see a lot of posters that a square and twice the width of a door.

Even so, I suppose that would be okay except that the poster grabs all of the attention. Unless the poster is the most important thing in the room (and how much can you really do with a poster?) I would suggest making it substantially narrower. Perhaps slightly narrower than the door and half the length or something.

I would also suggest upping the contrast on the dresser to make it easier to see the detail, and establishing a clear source of light (lightbulb hanging from one lonely cord?). Also, the bed and dresser seem to be a bit out of perspective with one another, unless the bed is askew.
#265
I really like his hair, particularly in the the side view.

I did a paintover of the front view to give you some ideas of how you might go about giving him a more comfortable-looking posture, and how you might shade the pants.




--shortened his torso
--lengthened his arms a bit
--desaturated the blue (from 100% to 65%) and added two more shades
--shaded the pants
--broadened his shoulders a bit
--changed his face to make him look less crosseyed (though that's a matter of preference, I think)
--gave him a more natural stance
--changed his feet
--shaded his hair a bit
--shaded his torso
--futzed around with his belt
--gave him the collar he seems to have in the side view


Hope this helps at least a little bit.Ã,  :=

Also, I noticed that his anatomy doesn't entirely line up in the three views, especially his belt, which is all over the place. It helps to overlay lines that go straight across the three at strategic points (waist, nose, eyes, top of head, chin, etc) to make sure everything lines up.
#266
Er, I'm wondering immediately if you meant "PSYCHO?" or if phyco means something I'm not aware of.

That color orange is a bit difficult to read against the grey background, particularly given that the font itself is not the most comfortable to decipher. I would suggest changing the color to make it stand out a bit more.
#267
Just downloaded and played through this game and I had to come and post and say that I absolutely loved it.

First of all, the main character drawing is fantastic in terms of setting up the surreal mood and inspiring the empathy necessary to make someone want to play through the game to see what happens to him. Already your sense of the sublime is awakened when you see the opening screen full of fat identical characters that would be funny if there weren't a very fascist overtone to the whole thing.

I was a bit surprised by the main character's voice but I immediately thought it was perfect for the character and the tone of the game. The inconsistent, collage style of the artwork took some getting used to but I came out of it thinking that it all fit together very well, with a small few exceptions (pickle guy's sprite seemed a little bit out of place to me for some reason, as did the doctor's).

I thought the subject matter was very interesting, also. Questions about why so many people in the western world are obese and what should be done about it are cropping up more and more these days, and I think The Farm is quite an interesting and relevant extrapolation. Its social relevance is obscured somewhat by its surrealism, but I think they go together wonderfully in that you can take with you what you like from it.

The only gripes I had were that for some reason every time it changed scenes it kicked me out to the desktop with the game window minimized, and the interface, although interesting, seemed needlessly complex. I also would have preferred to be able to look at objects in my inventory.

All in all I think this game is a work of art and probably the most impressive AGS title I've played.Ã,  :)
#268
Critics' Lounge / Re: 3 robots for crit
Tue 25/04/2006 07:31:51
I really like that revision.

I do wonder, though, how intimidating he's meant to be. At the moment he's extremely cute, but not very scary at all, and I think part of it has to do with the fact that he's shaded to look so round. As someone said in another thread about backgrounds, round things aren't scary. If he's not meant to be scary then I think this one is really great. If he is... it's still great but... not scary. ;)
#269
I like it a lot so far and I'm eager to see what it will look like when the objects you're putting in are finished.

I'm not good with shading and so on but the one thing I would suggest is to make sure the desk isn't casting a shadow on the wall, since the light is coming from that side.
#270
MashPotato: I really like what you did with the legs, and I modified your breast technique a bit for my own purposes. A very helpful paintover, thanks!


I am now happy with my sprite and officially declare this thread dead. Thanks to those who posted with suggestions. :)
#271
Thanks, Yurina, that paintover was really helpful.

I don't pretend to know my head from a hole in the ground where shading is concerned but I'm trying to learn. It helps to see the shapes that I've conceived shaded properly.


In regard to the nurse's naughtiness--okay, so she's not quite so naughty in the fun way that her description would suggest, but it's catchy and she's bratty and self-concerned, which is naughty enough in its own way.  :=
#272
I'm happy with the overall design, and with her upper torso, but her limbs seem a bit off to me, and I had a lot of trouble with the shading. The female form is really difficult for me to draw, for some reason. Any help would be appreciated.


She's a naughty space nurse, if that helps any.Ã,  :=



x2

#273
I think he's shaping up nicely.

I will add, though, that he doesn't seem to have any hair on the lower half of his skull. Most people's head hair covers their entire scalp and extends partway down the back of their neck. It looks like his head is all shaved except for the top, which has grown long and covered most, but not all, of the back of his skull. If this is the haircut he's supposed to have then ignore me... otherwise, I'd suggest putting at least some fuzz down there on his head. :)
#274
You were right; it all looks great in windowed mode. Thanks! At least now I know that for others it looks the way I drew it.

Now I just have to figure out how to make it look right for me when I'm testing it. :/
#275
Okay, here's an updated version. I added:

--light on the wall
--some personal items
--some grunge on the right side bunk
--a brighter indication of light
--different shading on various objects
--panels on the footlockers
--a computer terminal (it will be an object IG but it'll be there)
--new chair I hope is proportioned and angled better
--shading and texture on the door

Thanks to everybody who made suggestions! Please let me know if this is an improvement at all with the light/shading and the texture, as well as overall interest.



x2


#276
This has been driving me crazy for a while--I tweak the colors in my bg very carefully in photoshop, flatten it down and save it as a .pcx or a .bmp and when I import it into the editor it looks fine, although usually slightly darker than it looks in photoshop... then when I go to test the game, everything looks light and washed out, and minute color variations that weren't apparent in photoshop suddenly jump out and look awful.

I've tried 16-bit and 32-bit color, and I've tried pcx and bmp files, and none of the combinations seemed markedly different from one another. I also tried slashing the brightness of the pcx or bmp before importing it, and there was no real improvement when I opened the exe or used the test feature in the editor.

I'm thinking there must be a simple answer and I just haven't come across it in the FAQ or by searching this forum.Ã,  :-[

I hope.
#277
Critics' Lounge / Re: 3 robots for crit
Fri 21/04/2006 08:42:13
Those robots are really great. You managed to do a lot with very few pixels.

I also very much agree with Mad that they could benefit from being done with more contrasting colors.

I think depending on what your BGs are like and what else will be going on, that might be all they need. The detail is certainly there, considering how tiny they are, and since they're a little bit cartoony there's no need for really elaborate shading imo.
#278
Quote
Well the presence of Nazis opens many conspiracy/secret projects/occultist options, so you can expect some sub plots, of course.

I think one interesting possibility would be to make the group a mix of Nazis and "good German soldiers", to add tension and conflict within the group in addition to the obvious tension created by the creature that is hunting them.
#279
Critics' Lounge / Re: Fat Steve sprite wip
Fri 21/04/2006 06:49:17
I think he looks neat... though I can't help comparing him to the version from the Demo. I love the shape, and the general color scheme, but for me he tends to sort of fade back. This might be lack of detail or lack of contrast, I'm not sure. In my very humble opinion I think you might tweak him a bit to make sure he captures the player's attention and doesn't get lost in the background.

Believe it or not, I actually have the Fatman Demo on my harddrive. Just thought I'd let you know. ;)  About five years ago I discovered AGS and did the same thing you did, made some crappy demos and MAGS games nobody has ever heard of, and then got distracted. Apparently during that time I also downloaded your demo.  ;D
#280
MashPotato-- Thanks! I actually feel a bit better about it after some of the replies here. Even though there are problems (which I knew), there don't seem to be as many glaring, horrible defects as I thought there were.Ã,  ;)

I think of the types of rooms you mentioned, military quarters are probably the closest to the feel I was going for. It's a civilian operation but very plug-and-play as far as people are concerned; I was looking to avoid a warm, lived-in look. Probably most of their possessions stay in those footlockers under the beds, and as I hope is apparent, the beds themselves fold into the wall so that the room can be used for storage or something else if no one needs to sleep there.Ã,  HOwever, I am thinking of adding more personal items than I might otherwise, to add aesthetic interest.

And yes, that's supposed to be a desk. Suggestions as to how to make it look more desk-like (so it's not mistaken for a television) are welcome.

There's only one chair because it's a desk and meant to be used by one person at a time. ;)

In regard to the size/angle of the chair, as has been mentioned by many people here... my vanishing point is somewhere close to below the intercom on the far wall and I fussed a lot with the angle of the chair in relation to it. That's the best I could get it. I'd really love to see a paintover, or even just a collection of lines, showing how to angle/size the chair better.

Yurina: I do want to make the wall more interesting but I'm not sure how. The Spartan nature of the habitation prohibits me from putting in any really obvious decoration, but I'd like to texture it somehow... I'm just not sure how to do that. Maybe a knee-level panel that goes all the way around? Hrm. Suggestions?
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