Oh, thanks eishiya! I am not a fan of dithering, but suggestions 1 and 3 sound like a plan.

By the "not doing hue shifting" I take that if there is only value contrast (instead of value AND hue contrast) any texturing should stand out a little less, that makes sense. As for the selective detail depending on shadows, that's a great idea. For other sets I was simply going up or down a step in the values depending on shadows, as here for example:


But having less information in larger unshaded areas sounds like a solution. In examples above, you can see the repetition make the textures tiresome. The second take works better I think, because the pattern is larger and not aligned with the props, but I cant make a game with a single floor pattern and that's the only one I am satisfied with so far lol

I think you have a content density and focus issue, and that is confusing you regarding UI. How large is a screen, what is the resolution? Are the rooms going to typically fill the whole screen, be larger than a screen (requiring scrolling), or be much smaller than a screen as shown in the sample? If rooms are going to be this floaty/small in a large screen, are they going to be anchored in the center? On the character? Will the character move? Can he drag the camera? I am betting is a fixed room setup, but the answers to these questions should guide you to knowing how much screen space you have to spare for UI, and how much overlaying it over the game content (and for how long) would be acceptable. Btw, I am digging a lot the whole aesthetic, and everything looks much improved from your earlier stuff, keep up with the nice work

Hello, welcome aboard

I believe the reason you felt easier to reach a result you liked with the 8 colors palette, is because it is in fact composed of a single color ramp (almost like a monochrome, but color shifted along the gradient).

So instead of the confusion of coloring stuff to match the hues of real life materials, while also adding ambience and artistic intent into the color choice (which seems to be overwhelming you), you are just defining the appearence of the scene based on the brightness level (value) of each element, which is a more fundamental way to communicate shape, ensure readability and balance things out.

I think it is a good start to exercise values, so the 8 colors palette is nice choice for that. For instance, notice you have much darker walls on this palette than in the other multi colored palettes. Why is that ? Did you picked that darker shade just because it was closer to the brow is imagined the wall to have? Or did you felt the wall should be that dark?

It might also be a consequence of drawing with one palette and then changing to another. When you start working with a certain set of colors, you are likely to color-block the scene with hues that make sense (green for grass, red for bricks) but are also value-blocking it for readability, that red is not only a hue, it is also a brightness level for that element. Since the values of another palette might completely different across the colors, simply recoloring the finished scene based of near hues might lead to undesirable contrast.

You should consider what each element is for while picking shades that go with it. For example, floors will usually have characters waking over them, and the level of contrast between the characters (or their outline if there is one) and the floor is what should guide you on how darker or brighter it should be to enhance readability.

As for the general color choice, you seem fully aware that no one can tell which coloring you should go for, since you are not asking a definite question regarding that. Regardless of the ambience you try to achieve, what you should watch is (again) to ensure enough contrast between meaningful elements, (walkable floors vs collision enabled walls), while avoiding too much dark details repeated over on large surfaces causing visual noise that makes it harder to read anything over that

Tuesday Evening Dralthi update - I did lower the # of colors on the bright end of the pipe ramp, and went with an even subtler brown shade to the shadows, added a ton of detail. Definitely getting closer to something that looks good!


Enjoy!

Definitely digging the brown shading/ambiance on those chrome parts. On the gameplay side of things, I understand you are being purist and remaking the cockpit with the original shape, but I wonder if a modern entry in the franchise wouldn't reduce the amount of screen area taken by cockpit to increase the view of the actual gameplay content in the center. But this is not critique, just rambling.

Amazing tutorial, thank you Howard

So, the basics are: Build a mesh, duplicate that mesh, push it out a bit, turn it inside out, and make it slightly darker than the original.

I have been using this as a way to have cheap outlines on meshes, interesting that it can be also be used in renderings with this level of quality.

I am not a fan of dithering in general, except when it implies texture, but here it does help selling the pixel-art-ish style of the renders.

Are all materials such as the green painted metal and the rest of the cockpit being rendered with gradient ramps as well? I was under the impression that the color ramps were caused by a LUT posterization on the whole screen, rather than a mapped gradients per material. I wonder if the rote would be too different to achieve something similar to your results in blender.