AuthorTopic: Polluted Sky  (Read 10089 times)

Offline Mush

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Polluted Sky

on: January 17, 2011, 07:58:22 pm


It's a background for a game I'm making that takes place in an over-industrialized world. The sprite that you see is only placeholder - the actual sprite will be much larger. Before I start cleaning / rendering, do you guys see any major problems?

Offline Clovvach

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #1 on: January 17, 2011, 10:48:31 pm
That's amazing! The scientist's colors I think should be altered but that's a minor problem!
- Clovvach

Offline Mathias

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #2 on: January 18, 2011, 01:47:59 am
Hey, Mush.

--->CRITBARPHHHHHHHHHHHH::::::::
I like this, to the 2nd, possibly 3rd, power.
The sky is the focal point, it's very visually powerful . . . uhh as far as focus I mean. Compositionally it seems to "crush" everything else; overpowering. But it's a toxic world, so the sky rightfully has some priority there.
Your cloud texturing technique will really determine the sky's final worth. Clouds can be tough. Will they parallax/scroll? Gotta make 'em tile seamlessly then. Don't forget.
If sprite is placeholder, and wrong size, just arbitrarily scale him up a bit so he's a better representation of scale, etc.
Bg buildings are very rough and ill-conceived. Looks like Egyptian pyramids and random towers; nothing that sell the "industrial world" theme at all. They just . . . make you wonder; distraction.
Is sprite running along a bridge over water? Why are the areas under the bridge lighter. If the water is that disease-ridden then you may not see such a strong reflection of the bridge's arcs. I seem to associate clear clean water with high reflectivity. Imagine a non-glossy matte surface to the water.
Give the water foreground some floating trash, toxic barrels, debris, etc.
Use the illusion of volumetric fog/haze to illustrate toxic smoggy polluted air. Transparent foreground smog clouds floating by? Why not. Transparency isn't a crime.
The bridge is crazy-boring. Give it some life, some details. Make my eye not want to skip over the whole thing at once. My eye is pulled to the sky and those bg pyramids.
Go for a mechy techy over metallic, sorta steam-punk but not 1800's, style where there's metallic gadgetry where you wouldn't expect because technology, in this world you're depicting, is over-utilized, and it therefore everywhere. Visually, this gives your game some extra neato details, and let's admit, random techy machinery stuff is fun to draw.
/stomachdepletion

Offline Mush

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #3 on: January 19, 2011, 04:40:40 am
Thanks for the barf.

I started texturing the left side of the sky, redid the skyline (placement of buildings and stacks are not final), and removed the crappy bridge (I'm still trying to decide on the architecture).



Quick Edit:
« Last Edit: January 19, 2011, 05:09:19 am by Mush »

Offline Nmb910

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #4 on: January 21, 2011, 07:42:22 am
The new skyline looks great! The pollution coming from doesn't quite match the background though...

Offline Jad

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #5 on: January 25, 2011, 11:44:04 am
Connecting the smokestack with the sky like that sort of ruins the wide huge atmosphere you got going there. I suggest you somehow separate them.

The sky having an overbearing influence on the scene's composition is something I enjoy, sometimes some unbalance can totally hit the spot.
' _ '

Offline Mush

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #6 on: January 26, 2011, 03:21:27 am
Slowly but surely...



QUICK EDIT:


« Last Edit: January 26, 2011, 06:01:30 am by Mush »

Offline Mush

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #7 on: January 28, 2011, 03:55:48 am

Offline Mathias

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #8 on: January 28, 2011, 07:24:56 am
Sky is coming along. On one hand I don't like it's featureless monotony; it's so . . . even. But on the other hand, it'll lend itself well to parallaxing since it has no unique artifacts in it here and there that would betray it as being tiled. For instance, you don't want a light sphere depicting a sun choked out by the clouds in there because you'd see it scroll by 20 times during the level.
Why's that one factory building in the middle so prominent? Does it occupy a place in the plot somehow?
Also, your far bg buildings appear to be too far away to be so large; with so much atmospheric fog between us and them it must be quite a distance. With that 'scale clue' in mind, they look like massive skyscrapers but considering their function I doubt they're that tall. Then you look at the central building. It's way darker, therefore it's closer, yet it appears to be at the same scale as the buildings apparently way farther away. Explain that, jive turkey!

I suggest looking up reference pics of industrial buildings if you're not already. Yours are quite generic and bland like desert sand.

Why not add some columns of nasty smoggy smoke rising up randomly from among those far bg buildings? Come on, sell that pollution theme!
« Last Edit: January 28, 2011, 07:26:53 am by Mathias »

Offline Mush

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Re: Polluted Sky

Reply #9 on: January 28, 2011, 07:37:45 am
Thanks for the feedback. You're right about the buildings -- definitely something I'll hammer out before I finish. I think I'm going to increase the size of the 'industrial layer,' shade and detail it because it looks too silhouettey at the moment.