Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Zizka on April 15, 2018, 04:30:24 pm
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First version:
(https://i.imgur.com/cwF0NHM.png)
Current version:
(https://i.imgur.com/5wEaB2L.png)
Hello!
So basically I'm looking for suggestions, ideas, criticism, anything really. I've run out of ideas and I can't those roof tiles to look good either.
Thank you!
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The sidewalk is too narrow to fit both the stairs and the balcony above it. If the ground storey is meant to stick out further than the upper one, then the window and door shouldn't be obscured by the balcony.
The orange roof contrasts strongly against the rest of the scene, which is blue. If it's not an important element, I recommend making it a less contrasting colour. Just reducing the saturation a bit could work. Perhaps making the rest of the scene less overwhelmingly blue would also help, not just with the contrast, but with making it feel less dull overall.
It looks strange to me that the upper story walkway isn't covered. The roof should overhang it. You can still keep most of it visible by having the ceilings be a bit high (which is normal anyway).
The scene feels very empty and artificial, there aren't any details that suggest that this is a "real" place. A few ideas:
- railings on the stairs.
- the tiles upstairs could fit the perspective better by being horizontal rectangles rather than squares.
- poles/columns holding up the balcony and connecting the upper railing to the balcony/roof above.
- windows for the rooms. Motel rooms typically have a window right next to the door.
- a border on the pavement
- more doors and windows downstairs. They don't have to be motel rooms (though downstairs motel rooms are the most popular ones!), they can be service rooms and the like.
- signage, especially downstairs. It doesn't need to be readable. For example, is the downstairs room the office? Label it, have a list of opening hours, have chotchkies and a price list in the window.
- segmentation in the pedestrian pavement, that stuff is usually poured in sections. When it's not, it's usually built out of setts or tiled, which are alternate detail ideas, but probably too fancy for a motel.
- cracks in the pavement, potholes, drains.
- lighting/shadows. The lamps are on, is it night time? Make those lamps be the main light source, perhaps with an orange fill light from street lamps out of frame. Is it day time? Have the balcony and other elements cast shadows.
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shorten the guardrail on the top balcony, as is it's too big and makes it look like train tracks!
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I think that by this perspective the hood of the car shouldn't be visible at all. The balcony would likely case some sort of shadow, and eishiya was faster than me suggesting poles/pillars for the balcony, currently the lack of connection to the ground does not help the viewer to read the perspective and distinguish between the vertical e horizontal planes.
Also, the sidewalk below the balcony should be twice as deep considering the depth of the stair + the depth of thr balcony. If you prefer to keep how wide is the sidewalk, then it should start deeper into the background and end just before the edge of the stair where it meets the ground.
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First of all, good job Zizka! :lol:
I think the big part is covered by most of the replies, but let me added some basic part also :)
-Many similar color (car, parking ground, 1st floor) & (door and 2nd floor)
-Try a better & simple car angle
Have fun!
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Gah! I didn't receive notifications so I went ahead and did this without having access to your feedback everyone. I'll read them right away and add them in the next version. Sorry about that. If you have extra comments about this version, please do go ahead so I can add also add them in the next version.
(https://i.imgur.com/wRGf2ly.png)
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the edge of the motel is far too sudden, it especially makes the staircase look like it is supported by nothing.
try adding some kind of dividing wallcap so that you can see there's an end to the building there
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While I certainly agree with you, I don't really understand how to do it. Could you provide an edit or another example to guide me please? :y:
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Have a wall jut out on the end, or maybe even have a corner room. At the very least, there should be a railing on that side. The pavement should probably also wrap around the side instead of just suddenly ending; there are things behind the motel that people surely want to reach - additional/employee parking, service rooms, dumpsters.
You can also make the transition more natural by breaking up the silhouette of the motel so it's not just a straight line. Have the roof stick out, make the pavement imperfect. Add a post or a jutting element on the corner, where the walls bear most of their weight. Have a sign sticking out the side. Have the dumpsters there. Think about what this place is, how it's built, and how it's used; there are so many possibilities for solving these kinds of problems.
When in doubt, look at real motels, real architecture. You have the Internet at your disposal, so you don't have to rely on vague memories and conceptualizations.
The motel has a realistic scale to it, but the trees look like RPG-style symbol trees, so they look out of place.
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I just had a long message where I quoted every single part of your messages and replied to it but I closed my window by accident.
Here's the new version anyway, you'll see most of what was mentioned has been addressed. I haven't gotten around to fixing what was mentioned in eishiya/Mystery Meat last messages though, that'll be next. I'm talking about the trees here and the motel wall problem.
The new version:
(https://i.imgur.com/5wEaB2L.png)
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Crude edit to give you some ideas. In my defense I did it from my phone :P
(https://i.imgur.com/TP9K7nS.png)
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Good critique by others! The first thing that stood out to me was the lack of shadows. The balcony would cast shadows down onto the sidewalk. Good edit too with regard to the sidewalk. Pushing out the roof shingles to stick out a little would also help with the straight edge. The roof shingles might cast a bit of a shadow too.
Your trees don't match the "realism" of your scene I think. I'd say you need a tree that is as tall or taller than your hotel. Your people are bigger than your trees! If you were trying to capture a Pokemon style, I think you went too big. I like this though!
(http://pokedream.com/games/fireleaf/walkthrough/daycare.png)
Street sidewalk being so small compared to the motel seems odd to me. I'd also say that the transition from motel to nature seems quite sudden. The context would matter though, is this in a small town (other establishments, neighbors nearby?), off the highway by itself or something else. I do agree that a motel would have a side or back for dumpsters.
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Alright so:
-I changed the width of the sidewalk next to the hotel (made it narrower).
-I added some shadow on the lower floor.
-I added some curbs to delimit the parking area better.
-I added sidewalk on the sides of the motel as well.
-I added a dumpster.
-I added shadows on the sidewalk. This is really new to me in the sense that I am winging it so it might off.
-I redid the fire hydrant.
-I kept some of the cone trees as I imagine they are younger varieties of the tree (and I also like the way they look).
-I tried adding a patch of dirt in the grass to add some variety in the flat grass.
-Added some flowers (they're hard to see at this point in time).
-Added some rocks.
-Added some bushes (which I'm quite happy with, although they might be on the big side).
I think those are all the edits of Vinik taken care of.
Here's the new version then:
(https://i.imgur.com/pEzXKwW.png)
Before I forget, the game is based on this grid:
(https://i.imgur.com/Lswejva.png)
So the character tokens need to be able to move consistently from one tile to another. This might explain why the size of certain things look off (like the side walks for example). Not to say that I won't fix those, it's just to explain the context. Passable tiles need to look clearly passable for the player and vice-versa.
Street sidewalk being so small compared to the motel seems odd to me.
Yeah, that's something I've noticed too. I want to fix this as well, it's on my list.
Your trees don't match the "realism" of your scene I think. I'd say you need a tree that is as tall or taller than your hotel.
True! The leaf texturing will be quite an undertaking at such a size but that's also on my list.
The context would matter though, is this in a small town (other establishments, neighbors nearby?),
I'm going for a rural motel. The kind that's an hour away from any cities where people can rest when tired of driving so they don't need to reach the next settlement.
Something like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/J9dAqdz.png)
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Man that is a huge improvement, the new elements really made the building a volume which is part of the scene. I take back some of my nitpicking on the geometry, as I realized your game is more of a charming illustrated interactive book than a game-space world with geometrically exact collisions and stuff. Your stair is still "incorrect", but it gets the idea across, looks nice and is also consistent with the way many classic rpgs deal with ramps between levels. My game is about 2.d jumping and platforming elements over a tradional rpg perspective, which led me to be too demanding regarding geometry when giving you critique, for which I apologise.
The shadows are enough for a bright day scene, but they could go a little darker.
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I, for one, am still bothered by the stairs because they read like a ladder, and Escher-esque illusions like that tend to distract and annoy me when I see them in games.
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I, for one, am still bothered by the stairs because they read like a ladder, and Escher-esque illusions like that tend to distract and annoy me when I see them in games.
Yeah, this. Try thinning the base of the stairs a bit to give some perspective, or make a gap between the hand-rails and the steps to imply cheap concrete-wrought iron construction.
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Alright, so I redid the upper balcony side. I also redid the stairs. I suddenly knew why I pushed this back for a few days. It was such a headache to do with all the layers and the rails that could only be inclined a certain way because of the rigidity of pixels and so on.
It looks ok to me now. What do you think?
Started adding an (empty) swimming pool and more variety in the vegetation.
(https://i.imgur.com/ydORQeu.png)
Thanks for commenting!
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Lol man, I hate to be the one tell you this but the stair (which I like how it looks) is still landing at the wrong place :P.
Look at balcony above, it is just as wide as the sidewalk. If the stair starts at the edge of the balcony and then gets down, it already starts beyond the sidewalk, so it would land on the street.
There are only two geometrically correct options:
1- you stretch the sidewalk (to the south) to be wide enough to accommodate the sidewalk and the stair.
2- the stair lands on the street/parking lot, which I suppose would break some safety rules ;)
Interestingly, you did it right on the pool ladder. Cool pool by the way.
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1- you stretch the sidewalk (to the south) to be wide enough to accommodate the sidewalk and the stair.
2- the stair lands on the street/parking lot, which I suppose would break some safety rules
I think it could land in the parking lot judging from this picture:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/DA8DTE/st-saint-petersburg-florida-largo-belleair-village-motel-budget-guest-DA8DTE.jpg (http://c8.alamy.com/comp/DA8DTE/st-saint-petersburg-florida-largo-belleair-village-motel-budget-guest-DA8DTE.jpg)
So I shifted things around a bit and I added a fountain and improved the swimming pool as well. Looks a bit on the big side. Maybe I could just fill in that spot with grass like in your mockup, Vinik.
It looks wonky with the slabs being pretty big compared to the sidewalk which is smaller and of a different palette though. I'm wondering if the parking space isn't really too mall now though as well. Probably should add some slabs on the right side as well now.
(https://i.imgur.com/h0NsrEH.png)
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Imo a fountain near a Motel looks weird,fountains are more for big houses plazas and big hotels and the balcony still looks like train tracks maybe is the blue that make it look like that
i recommend to add some garbage to that container :P and were is the hotel manager with with the keys ;)
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were is the hotel manager with with the keys
That would be inside, first floor, first door on the right (the one with the mat).
*I removed the fountain entirely and enlarged the parking lot instead. It makes a lot more sense that way.
*I added some garbage bags.
*Added a pickup truck in the parking lot.
*Started working on a realistic looking tree (still very WIP).
*Moved vegetation around.
*Added some street lights.
(https://i.imgur.com/mH33O3k.png)
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nice beautiful :) now add some birds one stepped in the motel sign or three on population sign :y: :)
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one of the trees on the left is clipped off a bit, and the big one near the sign looks really silly with it's little puff of foliage atop such a thick stump.