Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: cels on March 21, 2015, 10:20:04 pm

Title: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on March 21, 2015, 10:20:04 pm
Alright, I'm in over my head again. Can someone help me understand how sunlight works?

(http://i.imgur.com/hX6u6RN.png)

This is a fairly small piece, so I'm open to go crazy with special effects. But I'm thinking I should probably do the light rays in layers, and I want to get the castle right before I move on to anything closer.

I guess the shadow from the castle doesn't really make sense, right? I'm out of my league here and I can't really find any good reference pics to understand how light works in a scene like this.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: CelioHogane on March 21, 2015, 11:12:02 pm
I don't see any problems with the lights and shadows, maybe add details to the tree? is a little wierd that the forest in the background is detailed and the red tree is not XD
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Friend on March 21, 2015, 11:59:12 pm
wow.. it already seems like your best work so far.  It's just so visually appealing. 

One suggestion- add depth by using a traditional method of foreground (red tree) /background (castle, then mts.) depth.  You could desaturate the background, diminish detail in the castle and mountains layer, or play with values and hues.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Ai on March 22, 2015, 12:26:58 am
Alright, I'm in over my head again. Can someone help me understand how sunlight works?

(http://i.imgur.com/hX6u6RN.png)

This is a fairly small piece, so I'm open to go crazy with special effects. But I'm thinking I should probably do the light rays in layers, and I want to get the castle right before I move on to anything closer.

I guess the shadow from the castle doesn't really make sense, right? I'm out of my league here and I can't really find any good reference pics to understand how light works in a scene like this.
I would say there are two important elements here
* Basic relation to the lightsource, ie. basic value structure. I'd say you captured this fine.
* Reflected light. Large objects reflect more of the sky color, especially on upward-facing surfaces, and indirectly on surfaces that are at ~70-90 degrees to large upward-facing surfaces.

I think you might be going for crepuscular rays (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays#) there. The current depiction makes sense in an iconic way; if you want to be a little more realistic, be aware that they normally appear to fan out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays) rather than being at a constant angle.
OTOH, it's far enough into the day that I'm not sure that crepuscular rays would show up noticeably.

Anyway, here's an edit. Not super confident of the locations I picked for the edits on the mountains -- should have used a ref -- , but I'm pretty confident in the building edits.

(http://i.imgur.com/RCrK3hn.png)

Also I pointed out a few locations that have pixels that don't really make sense to me.

EDIT: Friend's reply reminds me that the castle roof should probably be bluer+more desaturated. The roof of the small tower would probably be less affected, which might be enough to allow you to easily keep that mostly-imaginary line you are drawing between the red tree and the orange roof.

Also I noticed the second shadow of the red tree, which is strange. I think you might need to adjust it -- most of that shadow would fall on the side of the hill which we can't see. (placing a shadow here also draws the mountain and tree together in space (->more similar in value) , which I find odd from a logical perspective)

The large triangular shadow from the castle seems to exhibit the same problem now I look at it, including drawing the large cloud and the castle together in space. My own sense of space says that the shadow would fall on the lower, smaller cloud, but not on the larger one. (and it would perhaps follow the contours of the cloud somewhat, but not doing so can be excused as a stylistic choice as long as the overall volume has enough resemblance)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: surt on March 22, 2015, 02:06:58 am
The rays would only make sense if there were some higher clouds (or some other obstruction) for them to shine through, in which case those those clouds would be casting shadow on the rest of the image.
The shadows casting visibly through the atmosphere wouldn't make sense unless the atmosphere was highly scattering such as fog, rain, smoke, dust.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Mr. Fahrenheit on March 22, 2015, 03:41:55 am
I'd say the mountains contrast should be lowered a fair bit. Generally when doing atmospheric perspective the closer you are to the viewpoint the more contrast, and usually darker the thing is, because the further away the closer to the sky color things should get.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on March 22, 2015, 10:41:06 am
I have a feeling I'm going to have to experiment a lot and make a lot of changes for this piece.

(http://i.imgur.com/vO5M8Ov.png)

@Celio: Thanks! I will definitely be adding more detail to the tree in the foreground :)

@Friend: Thanks, I will keep that in mind. :)

@Ai: Thanks, that's some great advice. I did not edit the mountains and castle highlights this time, but I'll get them in the next edit. Good point about reflected light in the shadows. There's a lot of details I need to get back to, like the shadow on the ground and the weird pixel placement you pointed out. I just need to get the main elements right first, I think. I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean about the shadow of the castle falling on the smaller cloud though.

@surt: That's what I was going for, but I guess the colours were unrealistic and didn't give the impression that there were more clouds above. I've tried to fix this.

@Mr. Fahrenheit: You're right, I think I still have a bit too much contrast on the mountains. Will fix that next time.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Ai on March 22, 2015, 12:23:37 pm

@Friend: Thanks, I will keep that in mind. :)

@Ai: I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean about the shadow of the castle falling on the smaller cloud though.
Reviewing it, I realize that that's not supposed to be a shadow from the castle, it's an extension of the rays. So I'll retract that crit and just comment that it looks like it's supposed to be a shadow.

Quote
@surt: That's what I was going for, but I guess the colours were unrealistic and didn't give the impression that there were more clouds above. I've tried to fix this.
IMO that is much more believable. The red tree is looking very red now though, probably need to blue/grey up the shadows to account for the increased light diffusion (it's supposed to feel foggy, right?)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on March 22, 2015, 09:07:40 pm
It is supposed to feel foggy, yeah. I mean, I need a fair bit of clouds and moisture in the air to get the crepuscular rays. But I don't want it to feel overwhelmingly gloomy and dark.

I hope this is a step in the right direction. I think I can do something nice here, if I can just make it look realistic and avoid any dumb mistakes.

I still don't know how to get the colours right. Right now, maybe I need more contrast. This looks a bit... bland. And I'm not able to make the crepuscular rays feel three-dimensional. They just look flat, like a cheap video game background.

(http://i.imgur.com/BC1L8BN.png)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: JoeCreates on March 23, 2015, 11:31:35 am
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28458706/minicastleeditsingle.png)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28458706/minicastleedit.gif)

Beautiful scene. :D

I feel like you can still lower the contrast in the background (and even add a little detail), as well as having a touch more contrast in the foreground. You might also be able to get a little more depth by putting the mountains on two layers. There were a few colors that didn't work for me as they were too close to adjacent colors, such as just below the trees. I think some AA between some of the more contrasting adjacent colors also helps a bit.

The new tree looks fantastic. I tried some slightly different colors on the trunk.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Friend on March 23, 2015, 02:41:17 pm
I toyed with a few ideas from my post above  *shrug*  changes in cloud detail kudos  to joecreates  :lol:

(http://i.imgur.com/BC1L8BN.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/lrGvXAp.png)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Gil on March 23, 2015, 08:40:57 pm
Friend's edit is going in the right direction. Direct sunlight is VERY bright and it tends to overpower the lit parts, even bleeding into shadowy parts.

My somewhat crappy try to introduce over saturation and bleeding:
(http://i.imgur.com/aoRJQwy.png)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: DatMuffinMan on March 23, 2015, 08:57:21 pm
I don't really have the time for an edit (maybe later, sorry cels :( ), but hopefully this makes sense:

Your sketches always have this outline feel to them, even though there are none, and I think it's because you only pay attention to clusters inside of an outline. I may be wrong, but to me it really seems that you outline a shape, floodfill inside of it, and then add clusters/detail as needed. For the buildings, it works great, because the lines are straight anyway so it's not as noticeable. But for the trees and clouds (foreground + middleground), the shapes just look unnatural.

a3um's edit to your previous piece on PJ sorta showed this point as well - whereas your houses in the BG focused on having each outline drawn correctly, he focused more on the overall atmosphere of the bundled wet rooftops.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Friend on March 23, 2015, 11:11:46 pm
gil, that how you did the light was what I was trying to achieve.  Your edit is so..illuminating  :crazy:

I dunno, I love gil's edit, but now the castle competes too much with the tree.  I still think the background elements have too much saturation, so I played around some more with colors.


(http://i.imgur.com/rDFDVYL.png)

a second edit for fun...your pieces are fun as heck to play with. 

I actually found this second edit to achieve a better composition.  In my opinion, an inherent dilemma in your piece is you have the two biggest pieces of interest close to both edges of the canvas....If both are competing for attention, it is almost head ache inducing to try to take in the image b/c your eyes try to gravitate towards both edges at the same time.  When the lightness is turned up and saturation down on the left side, I think it achieves a few things: grander scale, makes you feel higher up, makes the castle seem more like you are discovering it since it melts into the environment, and the eye is not inclined to go to both edges at the same time
(http://i.imgur.com/HNLMD1y.png)

it'd be nice if pixelation had a neutral forum color...
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on March 24, 2015, 01:13:03 am
(http://i.imgur.com/Ftnk3Yd.png)

WIP here (http://i.imgur.com/4FPgQZJ.png).


@JoeCreates: Thank you! That's a very helpful edit indeed! I've tried to get rid of some superfluous colours now, but I see you also changed the hues here and there, and I will take a closer look at that as I progress. Good call in regards to the layers and the AA. I've started adding a little bit more depth to the clouds and I'll add more in time. :)

@Friend: Thanks a lot for the edits! Unfortunately, you seem to be taking the piece in a direction where I'm not keen on going. It may partially be down to screen calibration - I feel like all the purple and teal makes it look very C64 - but it's also a matter of deciding how dense the clouds above would be and how strong the sunshine would be by contrast. I do want them to be strong, but I don't want it to go too far, to the point where it's reminiscent of Independence Day :)

I really liked the vibrancy you gave to the foreground though, and I have tried to incorporate that bit. I also think you've made the sunrays feel more three-dimensional, and I'll take a closer look at that.

@Gil: Direct sunlight is very strong, but it's also a sliding scale. It depends on a lot of factors, so I'm hoping to find a balance I'm comfortable with. I want the sunlight to break through the grey landscape and add colour, I don't want it to drown the castle in an explosion of light. It depends on how much of the sunlight the clouds are blocking out and then whether there's a clear opening for the sun to shine through, or just some parts of the clouds that are a bit thinner.

Compare this (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2014/10/15237269450_8b470360ee_k.jpg&w=1484) and this (https://gtphotographs.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sunray-hdr.jpg) with this (http://pher.ch/photos/landscapes/liguria/varazze/Varazze,%20Sun%20Rays.jpg), for example. I feel I have some freedom to play around with the colours, without going too far with the contrast. I don't want the sunlight to eat away all the colour from this piece.

(http://i.imgur.com/7FBUZ0L.png)
For example, I want the sunlight to really bring out the colour from the grass around the castle, and not turn it grey. Maybe my version needs a bit more blue, a bit less saturation. But I'm still thinking that the sunlight should bring out the colour in the grass.

I appreciate your help, I hope I don't sound very defensive. I'm just trying to make sense of all this, while not making changes I don't understand.

@DatMuffinMan: I actually don't have that sort of workflow at all. I almost always paint with a big brush to make blobs, which I later refine. Buildings are an exception, but everything in this picture was painted with a big brush first, and then refined. The tree, the hills, the clouds and the mountains. I think the last time I drew something by outlines was this (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/64153.htm) piece.

As for unnatural looking shapes, it's hard for me to comment or correct myself without getting a more detailed explanation. I definitely think I often make mistakes in drawing three-dimensional shapes. I'll keep working on it. I'm not done with the tree in this piece though, I just stopped working on it once I was confident I knew how to pixel it. I have a messy workflow.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Ai on March 24, 2015, 03:59:22 am
@Friend: Thanks a lot for the edits! Unfortunately, you seem to be taking the piece in a direction where I'm not keen on going. It may partially be down to screen calibration - I feel like all the purple and teal makes it look very C64 - but it's also a matter of deciding how dense the clouds above would be and how strong the sunshine would be by contrast. I do want them to be strong, but I don't want it to go too far, to the point where it's reminiscent of Independence Day :)
I think I get the idea of the teal (making intermediate colors more saturated than the 'top ranked' color creates a faded-but-with-haloing look) but it's too strong IMO, so I guess I agree with you there. It feels poster-y.

Quote
I really liked the vibrancy you gave to the foreground though, and I have tried to incorporate that bit. I also think you've made the sunrays feel more three-dimensional, and I'll take a closer look at that.
In terms of 3dness, I think you might actually get a better effect on the tree if you restrict the strong lighting to the top (and possibly left) rim. Putting plenty of it on the surface facing the viewer doesn't make too much sense to me (Crepuscular rays are shadows, right? cast from the opposite horizon, with light filtering through in some gaps? Then most of the light on the tree surface the viewer can see should be indirect light only, since those faces are pointing away from the light source.)

Quote
(http://i.imgur.com/7FBUZ0L.png)
For example, I want the sunlight to really bring out the colour from the grass around the castle, and not turn it grey. Maybe my version needs a bit more blue, a bit less saturation. But I'm still thinking that the sunlight should bring out the colour in the grass.
Well, that's a matter of relative color imo -- if you want the highlighted areas to look clearly colored, knocking down the saturation on the darker shades will create saturation contrast that aids that impression. Increasing hue contrast (that is, the amount of distance along the hue spectrum between your darker colors and lighter colors) will also help.

Quote
@DatMuffinMan: I actually don't have that sort of workflow at all. I almost always paint with a big brush to make blobs, which I later refine. Buildings are an exception, but everything in this picture was painted with a big brush first, and then refined. The tree, the hills, the clouds and the mountains. I think the last time I drew something by outlines was this (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/64153.htm) piece.
I've tried both of those methods, and I think they're both a little problematic (too messy vs too fussy). I think what is more optimal is probably something that allows the definition of lines and volume at the 'same' time. For example, with Grafx2, if you could have contourfill assigned to one 'color' and continuous draw on another, and when you swap colors the tools swap accordingly, that would allow you to flip between them as needed, keep a balance between 'volume' structure and 'line' structure as you build the image.

Currently I have a kind of workflow that draws lines with one color and fills in with another. It's a little more work but allows me to deal with both aspects promptly.

WRT that tree, I dug up a few refs that express some things about the color that I think are not quite right currently
1 (http://i.imgur.com/JwAgERc.jpg),
2 (http://wpwide.com/red-leaves-autumn-trees-forest-fog-wide-hd-wallpaper/#)

Taken from a google images search "red tree in fog"

* lighting on trunk is.. probably too well defined. In an open area there will be more light, but it seems like most of the faces are opposite the lightsource -> get mostly indirect light.
* too much direct lighting with no apparent cause (like I mentioned above)

Maybe these search results (https://www.google.com.au/search?q=red+tree+in+fog+crepuscular&biw=1680&bih=1049&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VuIQVaCtCNDY8gWDj4EY&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ) are excessively misty, they do seem to match with the 'basically no direct lighting' idea though.

This search (https://www.google.com.au/search?q=red+tree+in+fog+crepuscular&biw=1680&bih=1049&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VuIQVaCtCNDY8gWDj4EY&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=red+tree+crepuscular&imgdii=_) has some interesting results in the first page that might be useful.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Gil on March 24, 2015, 04:44:06 am
Oh, I don't mind the defensiveness at all :)

What I try to do with edits is pick a conceived weak point and push it to the logical extreme. It's then up to the author to decide if he likes that direction and pick a comfortable in-between. It also helps with the dreaded "the edit is so close to what I wanted, I don't feel like continuing myself".

Trying to iteratively nudge stuff towards what you want can result in a really bad workflow and it's a common mistake, which is also something this style of editing helps combat.

So yeah, my edit is not meant as a "you should do it this way", but rather as a "if you do it this way, this is the extreme"
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on March 25, 2015, 11:52:15 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/CY3hy8w.png)

Made some further changes to the castle, to the forest, to the grass and the tree. Still haven't refined the mountains, the clouds or the overall palette.

I added some yellow grass, I don't know if it stands out too much. Someone once criticized me for thinking too naively about colour, colouring the sky blue and grass green without any deeper understanding of colour. I thought that was interesting, so I'm looking to challenge myself a little bit here. Maybe I should challenge myself more in that regard in the future.

@Ai: In regards to the tree, I think of the foliage as a semi-spherical object, being hit by a beam of light. And the light source is almost directly to the side of the viewer. If I only highlighted the edges of the foliage, this would suggest the light source is behind the tree. As the foliage is semi-spherical, it makes sense to have plenty of light on the front left side, as seen from the viewer, I think.

You ask if crepuscular rays are shadows. My understanding is that they're basically beams of light (light reflected off moisture and dust in the air) contrasted by space with less light. But I don't quite know how to show that correctly. For example, I was very unsure about the dark space below the tree's foliage, or the diagonal shadow I originally had from the castle. Because a shadow doesn't work the same was as light. A shadow isn't visible in the air. If there's a bright snow-covered mountain in the horizon, and a big building in front of it, the building shouldn't make the mountain look any darker. The shadow would only be visible on the ground. On the other hand, if there's a lot of dust and moisture, then all the air will be reflecting light, except where the building is blocking the sunlight. So in that sense, crepuscular rays are shadows. And I suppose, in that sense, it makes sense for the space beneath the tree to be darker. Maybe I should bring back the shadow from the castle, now that I think about it.

Thanks for making me reflect on this.

In regards to workflow, I've seen plenty of good artists work with my method, which is why I moved away from using lines in the first place. But I also notice that different artists have different methods, regardless of their talent. E.g. some people draw people using the blobs which are later refined, other people draw skeleton-like lines that are later covered by muscles and tissue and then clothes.

In regards to reference images... well, it's really tricky to find images that show exactly what I'm looking for. And it's very easy to be misled by Google Images, because sometimes you simply can't find good examples of what you're looking for. If you look for a red moon, for example, you will generally find the most red moons out there, as people tend to upload pictures of nights when the moon was really, really red. They may also upload images that have been filtered or photoshopped to make the moon look extra red. The same goes for red trees, fog, rainbows, etc. You'll find a lot of extremes and a lot of photoshopped / filtered images. I may be wrong, but I think both of your refs are photoshopped.

Thanks for doing the searches for me. I try to use Google Images the same way when I'm looking for refs :)

(http://i.imgur.com/pM9ycU0.png)

@Gil: That's actually a very smart and constructive way of doing edits, now that I think about it. I've previously tried to shy away from extreme edits, as people may instantly reject them because they're too far away from their original vision. But as I've come back to your edit again and again, it's grown on me. And I think I'm moving toward a compromise I'm comfortable with.

Now the question is just if I've managed to find a good compromise or if I'm falling between two chairs. :)


Also not sure if I have enough contrast and the right balance. This is where it gets tricky for me.

(http://i.imgur.com/Zn50IkJ.png)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Ai on March 26, 2015, 12:53:14 am
The more highlighted version of the tree seems more sunrise-y to me. (and the bottom right version in your later image. It's hard to look at for long, but that's part of what makes it feel sunrise-y)

WRT light mixing, blender is a nice tool to get some ballpark estimates of what eg 'grass in blue lighting' works out to look like. Though admittedly you need a little experience to handle certain materials correctly (eg transparent plant leaves or skin need a familiarity with subsurface scattering settings)

My observation of the refs I collected was that the effect gets stronger as you approach the horizon, so far away objects show more obvious shadows. I may have to review that though.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: Friend on March 26, 2015, 02:26:16 am
I hope you dont mind a did another edit.  Like I said, your pieces are so fun to toy with because of your drawing style.

on your current edit I'm digging the high contrast, at least in the tree area. 
(also I just want to say you know better than I do, and I hope I dont come across like I know what I'm doing xD  I'm really just throwing ideas around and having fun at the same time.)

(http://i.imgur.com/GRTKiDK.png)
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: CelioHogane on March 26, 2015, 02:36:07 am
Actually Friend, i think you version makes the color of the leafs worse XD
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: yaomon17 on March 26, 2015, 03:36:41 am
I like the higher contrast trees. Really helps to separate the FG from the BG.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: PsylentKnight on March 26, 2015, 04:43:49 am
I like the higher contrast trees. Really helps to separate the FG from the BG.

I agree. I think the bottom right version looks fantastic.

Maybe you could have the road thats leaving the castle pass by the tree to help tie the piece together? Just a thought.
Title: Re: Tiny castle landscape
Post by: cels on April 02, 2015, 09:18:07 am
Just uploaded this on PJ and I'm no longer working on it. But I just wanted to say thanks a lot to everyone who helped. It makes a huge difference for my learning curve.

(http://www.pixeljoint.com/files/icons/full/redux03p.png)

@PsylentKnight: I'm doing a series of nine 300x100 landscapes, and I already had plans to do another piece like you describe. A road from the foreground to the background. So I like the way you think, but I'm not using it for this piece, otherwise they'll look too similar :)

@Friend: I'm really digging what you did with the light rays. Maybe not for this particular piece, because it makes the air look as thick as water. But it's definitely something to keep in mind for pictures with lots of particles or moisture in the air. I have another piece in mind specifically, so I will use your idea later. I'm glad you had fun, it's always very interesting to see other people provide a completely new take on one's own work.