Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: brod on February 10, 2010, 12:33:43 am
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Alright so I'm working on a background for a Phoenix Wright-styled game of mine, and if you've played the game, you'll know that the backgrounds are one of the if not THE most important part of the entire game. And so, it's pretty important I get this as close to awesome as I possibly can. So, this is what I have so far for the "Detective's Agency:"
(http://i49.tinypic.com/2ic9nhe.jpg)
(http://i49.tinypic.com/1o4v1i.png)
(Door and Clock will be shaded later)
(The grey thing next to the table is a plastic bag)
In all honesty, I've never worked with backgrounds before and this is pretty much my first attempt at it. So I'd like as much crit as possible, and feel free to bash it as much as you want, I want to improve, so please don't beat around the bush.
And um, that's all. Thanks for reading and (hopefully) commenting.
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Well, here goes my nitpicking.
I think some intermediate shades or some dithering could help with the diffusing light. Also, that bar-shaped shadow under the table is slightly off. In this (http://www.trendir.com/archives/robern-m-series-mirrored-cabinet-night-light.jpg) image, if you look at the shadow to the left of the sink, it forms a straight line from the source of light to the edge of the table.
If you're aiming for realistic accuracy, I also think that the individual wooden planks are too wide (only two rows fit under the table? ::)) and the door frame is too wide.
The plank covering the hole is too short in relation to all of the other ones (if it wasn't taken from the same batch, maybe discolor it to emphasize the difference). I also find it odd how it fits perfectly into the hole sideways while being skewed.
Nice work so far.
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Alright so I'm working on a background for a Phoenix Wright-styled game of mine, and if you've played the game, you'll know that the backgrounds are one of the if not THE most important part of the entire game. And so, it's pretty important I get this as close to awesome as I possibly can. So, this is what I have so far for the "Detective's Agency:"
(http://i49.tinypic.com/2ic9nhe.jpg)
(http://i49.tinypic.com/1o4v1i.png)
(Door and Clock will be shaded later)
(The grey thing next to the table is a plastic bag)
In all honesty, I've never worked with backgrounds before and this is pretty much my first attempt at it. So I'd like as much crit as possible, and feel free to bash it as much as you want, I want to improve, so please don't beat around the bush.
And um, that's all. Thanks for reading and (hopefully) commenting.
Let me ask you this. If you had a huge gaping hole in your beautiful hardwood floor how would you repair it temporarily? Cause I sure as hell wouldn't use one wooden plank :D
Also as soon as something is damaged and or appears to differ from it's original design (ie a hole in the wall) it should unintentional create a story of how it happened however I'm not sure how a break that big happened into an otherwise clean and well kept room. The only way I can see it happening is if something fell through the roof of the room and then through the floor. I could see this happening in a dilapidated house though. If you do make it dilapidated you need to tone down your saturation level.
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There is a reason it's not repaired, but I see your point. But if there's something I have less experience with than making backgrounds, is making wood. How would I make it more old or more likely for a huge hole in the middle of the floor to be?
Thanks for all the info Cris, you're right about all of them and will get to work fixing them tomorrow.
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At first glance the image looks fine, and you could probably get away with what you have. But since you asked for lots of critique ....
The cabinet with drawers doesn't appear to be part of the same image. The rest of the picture is clean lines and solid colors, the cabinet is gray and smudgy. The top right edge of the cabinet looks out of alignment a little bit. The drawer that is slightly out looks out of alignment too. Did this come from another source?
The lamp is aligned with the long table axis, so the projected light should shine evenly on the table surface (if the table were infinite). But the brightest light on the wall to the right is projected back to the far corner of the room. I think it should be almost even with the lamp. That is, assuming the lamp casts an oval, and there will be some drift due the angle difference.
I think the 1-pixel wide lamp highlight on the floor boards (the ones closer to the hole) is on the wrong edge. It should show up on the edge on the far side of the seam from the light. Going left to right across the image, board - light edge - dark seam - board.
The plank over the hole in the floor has nails, but nothing underneath that it could be nailed to. I suggest extending the edges of the plank over the existing boards and make it nailed over the hole instead of fitting inside of the hole. Or else hint at some substructure underneath that is supporting the plank.
On the far side of the hole, where the thickness of the planks are visible, the plank edges should be brighter on our right (light from the desk lamp), or darker on the edge facing the door. Not a lot, just a subtle hint of 3dness.
The table legs should show two faces, the one facing us and the one facing the door. Even if it's only an extra pixel wide.
The perspective on the floorboards is good. You might consider anti-aliasing the lines, if you have the colors to spare. Not a big issue one way or the other.
You might add a 1 pixel gray line to the top of the baseboards running on the left and right walls. Baseboards have a very small thickness that would be visible when looking along them. I don't think you need it for the baseboard running along the back wall.
Real world rooms are usually more cluttered. A table often has a chair or two, tables are rarely empty, there could be a potted plant, or a calendar on the wall. You didn't include any context for the scene so maybe it makes sense for the room to be empty.
The plastic over the window looks good. The gray tape is a nice touch. The tape in the brightest light is a little washed out against the wall color, maybe have a corner of the tape peel back to offer a small shadow? I don't know if there are enough pixels there for that to work.
There's a minor conflict between the circle of light from the lamp and the plastic. The circle of light should cut across the plastic, but it doesn't. I think if you replaced the lightest gray in the upper left corner of the plastic sheet with the midtone gray (and left the darker color alone) it would look better.
There's something funny about the lamp shade. I think the problem is the end cap that's facing us (the darkest green face). The bottom edge of that face is not horizontal, which is different from the perspective suggested by the table edge (perfectly horizontal).
Lots of little nitpicks, but I think it's rather good overall.
Hope this helps,
Tourist
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(http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5513/drooble.png)
Hey, just AA'd some stuff. Got rid of a stray dark grey.
Played on some planks, a clock and upon a further look I wish I smoothed out the shadow on from the desk. You might want to put some wood texture in some of these planks. Maybe just something subtle, but something after all.
P.S. @Tourist, that better be a good post or else I'll be mad you made a post before me.
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I would *really* like to see a character. It's very hard to get a feel for the scene without some sort of anthropomorphic creature as a guide. There's a whole range of ways to render characters, and the character style dictates to a large degree what will and won't work as far as backgrounds go.
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Wow this is great, so much feedback! :y:;D
@blumunkee: Unfortunately that will be very difficult to do, mainly since It'll take me a long time to get a sprite even ready, but more so b/c characters won't actually walk around in the background, it will just be there for decoration. For example, here's a location (http://www.court-records.net/places/DS/phoenixoffice.png), and he's a character inside of that location (http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/6/1/2/2/7/a_med_eg_rev_phoenix_001.jpg) from the inspiring game.
@JonathanOfDrain: Oh I was planning on AA don't get me wrong, it's just that there is SO much left to do. Right now I'm pretty much waiting for a painting program with layers, so I don't have to ruin the image whenever I want to try to add another object.
@Tourist: Wow. Awesome.
The cabinet is just one of the few things I felt comfortable shading. It's not from a different source, it was custom made for this. Old pic with prespective lines (http://i47.tinypic.com/28mmhk2.png), old pic with drawer's perspective lines (http://i49.tinypic.com/2cr7m29.png)
I have no idea what you mean there, unfortunately >_<
Really? I guess I'll try and see how it will come out.
Oh of course, I keep forgetting about the center plank. You're totally right, I'll extend it now.
Again, not sure I understand what you mean
I guess I'll try to fit one pixel in, then.
Awesome, thanks.
Good idea.
Yeah I know, there are actually a lot of things yet to be added. I just need to get myself a painting program with layers so I don't have to constantly ruin the image drawing perspective lines.
Another good idea, I'll try that too.
OK, I'll do that now then.
Fixed, that was a silly error of mine.
I appreciate the in-depth post, thanks a lot, I'll try taking them all into account.
@Cris: I'm going to try to break up the wood now, and I'll edit the door while I'm at it.
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Add something mysterious to the game, darken the corners, make stuff more dramatic and unknown, yet interesting for the viewer
Generally, lower the saturation of the entire piece! except the warm toned once influenced by light (more moody and warmer than the current, the current one's color temperature is over 5000 celvin, should try to reduce that, to add ambience!
Also, don't make the hole in the floor so obvious and possibly change its location by a few boards, so it's not as centered.
As for details, add papers in the cases and stuff! Make stuff interesting and yeah...stuff!...stuff stuff stuff...stuff...stuffffffff
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I think you should have this drawn out on paper before you commit to something harder to edit like pixels. That way you could rapidly add and take away details without too much work.
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I did draw it on paper :-[
I'm just adding things one at a time, I'll add more stuff eventually once I get my pro motion copy.
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Quick 'n dirty, hope this clears up my crits:
(http://www.ixdrive.co.uk/img/16e670a6476c57578a3f582fa6f92e5d.png)
The light from the lamp should be centered around the lamp, and symmetric about the depth axis.
(http://www.ixdrive.co.uk/img/36ca024df370f4eecefec9f8b0da28b0.png)
Something like this, though my quick hack doesn't look much like wood. And I think I got my left/right incorrect in the initial crit of that one. The light from the lamp will strike the vertical face of the broken boards and make them slightly lighter on one side. Also corrected the highlight on the floorboards in this one.
Tourist
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The saturation seems a bit high, and you could definitely use some AA on the piece. You could use some texture here and there as well so that it doesn't look so flat.
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Pfft nobody listening to my post! I might make an edit soonish
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Quick 'n dirty, hope this clears up my crits:
(http://www.ixdrive.co.uk/img/16e670a6476c57578a3f582fa6f92e5d.png)
The light from the lamp should be centered around the lamp, and symmetric about the depth axis.
(http://www.ixdrive.co.uk/img/36ca024df370f4eecefec9f8b0da28b0.png)
Something like this, though my quick hack doesn't look much like wood. And I think I got my left/right incorrect in the initial crit of that one. The light from the lamp will strike the vertical face of the broken boards and make them slightly lighter on one side. Also corrected the highlight on the floorboards in this one.
Tourist
Oh wow that looks great! Only problem is, I've never really dealt with that sort of stuff. I learned about the perspective lines from my Art teacher, but she didn't tell me to do things like ellipses, I'll try to look up some tutorials.
@Elk no no I am listening! There's still a lot of stuff that needs to be added before I post an update since that's what you want, more stuff :P
Thanks for the tip on the light strength too, I had no idea about any of that kind of stuff.