GR#047 - Citadel - 3 Point Perspective

[Dwimori]

Well I started drawing and ended up with the following. As I moved along I decided it was going to be the tall walls of Troy, totally untoughed, with a fire's glow inside at dawn. I know the colours don't exactly scream dawn, and might not fit with the theme at the moment, but right now I'm more trying to put together a style for the piece. As for the wall that actually has bricks as of now, it's soupposed to look ancient and semi-crude but magnificent (therefore huge bricks) and very advanced for its time, like I've always imagined Troy. Not sure if I pulled it off or if it just looks like an inconsistant and crude piece of (future) art. Now every time I try to add definition to this wall its ends up looking like a wall of bulging stones than masonry. Should I add more definition or attach a simplistic palette and style to this one? Possibly more contrast? I have artist's block  



Please also point out any mess ups in it. And now I realize I should have been doing it on a neutral BG... next version it will be

PS. Wasn't sure if I should post a new topic, what with my old one still being on the first page, and me not quite happy with it, but this is a new piece, so... you tell me...?

[Tourist]

I look at that and it doesn't convey ancient Greek architecture (caveat, I know nothing about ancient architecture).  It looks faux medieval to me.  A quick search from Wikipedia brought me here:
http://www.cerhas.uc.edu/troy/

Take a look at the flash videos for Troy VI and Troy VII for a better idea of what the walls might have looked like.  To emphasize the Trojan War instead of any old city, it should also have a giant wooden horse head peeking up.  Inside the walls, so not entirely visible, but enough so that the viewer can recognize it.  Maybe lit by the flames in a dramatic fashion.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Dwimori]

I wasn't aware they had pinpoint the site, but yeah, its more of an impression of troy than the real thing. Couldn't look at the videos, near my 500 mb limit, but I'll change the colour of the lower half of the wall and make the bricks smaller, like in the panoramas. I'll also make the Windows more square, but I kinda like the mammoth sized crennelations. It's stylized anyway, and Trojan weren't entirely Greek... Or so I'm using as excuses . If I wanted to really show Troy It'd have more towers. And yeah, I'll put the head of the Trojan horse riding up, but It'll probably end up super-stylized this way. Oh well, that's the direction it's going already    EDIT, cuz for some reason it added an extra smiley

[st0ven]

threw together a quick perspective reference for you to analyze and compare your current lines. Im assuming a 3 point perspective piece given the viewing angle youve already established (plus they look really neat for structural stuff). Notice that the perspective lines in red angle the opposite way that you currently have illustrated. As it currently stands, your structure's perspective is indicating a topdown viewpoint, while your ground indicates an upward, worm's eye view.

the way i see it, if you pull back the walls to go a good bit 'deeper' into the horizon, you can get a much more expansive illusion of distance.  if you want that 'towering over you' angle shot, you could pull down the origin points defining the grey lines so that the foremost tower looks quite tall as if you were an ant. but to be honest i think the angle youre inferring now should do just fine. (note you could also just make the towers vertically taller).

I think what youre having a hangup on is how to push the details of the illustration, not how to render it. Studying existing architecture that fits in the style of what youre trying to convey and adapting that into your work should help steer it to where you want to take it. Just remember though that the details should fall into sync with the perspective or else the entire illusion is lost.


i just started randomly scribbling some color into it and did some sad gestural attempts at other stuff behind the wall to help give it some depth. notice the color will taper off to a cooler atmospheric blue and that should help sell the depth (i neglected to do this for the ground as well, but the same theory should apply.)

anyway dont be afraid to be a bit messy with your initial work, sometimes that can lead to unexpected positive 'groups' of pixels that work really well and feel more natural than if you were to have planned it all out with the line tool.

i hope that youve found some value of this.

EDIT: - ive taken note that you were hoping to go the whole burnt to hell under ominous atmosphere route - in which case i may have to inform you you may wish to reconsider your current hue choices to convey that, and also makes my color scribble of a perfect blue sky day at the beach largely irrelevant, haha.

[Dwimori]

Have been having some computer issues so I haven't been on in a while, but wow st0ven, I'll definitely be analyzing those pics. Without being able to see your amazing edit I continued working, but IO think I'll take a step back and work on something like what you've shown. Here's my continued work, but after seeing what you've done I don't like it in the least:

maybe it won't be troy, because what you've done is beatiful without the fire or a giant horse head. Thank you so much for that edit, once again its amazing, I'll definitely get back to work on this piece after seeing that.

My shaded wall also looks like metal...

[Dwimori]

Made a Frankenstein of my latest version and the one before that, then began editing along the lines of st0ven's edit. Looking alot better but I'm not sure if it's time to start detailing or if I should block in more things.

[adamisgr8]

I think some dithering in the sky would help the picture a lot.

Nice progress though!

[Dwimori]

Did a bit of colour tweak on the sky and tried multiple things to make good looking bricks but they all seem like a step backwards. So far this is the best I've got...

Anybody got any tips for good looking bricks? Never done large scale architectural pixels before, and everything I try ends up sucking.

And on another note, I saw the weekly challenge on pixeljoint and decided I'd make an account if I can get this done in time to submit:

I like the basic shape, especially the upper body and arms, though I'm fully open to crits on anatomy, but every time I try to shade him he ends up looking swollen instead of muscular. Any help?

BTW, the bricks are just a placeholder for showing what size I'm aiming for, definitely not a finished product.

[Jad]

draw some whole darker bricks and some lighter bricks in believable places, instead of drawing outlines around them

or draw some bricks vaguely, with broken-up outlines, giving the idea of texture without being too lego-like.

I don't know. Just two suggestions

[Dwimori]

I had actually worked out something similiar Jad, but the things you said confirmed my unsure train of thought and encouraged me to post my progress. Havin a little difficulty when trying to get it scaled down for distance, but I'll figure it out.

Is it lookin' better or is it still too lego?

As for the muscly chieftan, just realized it said full body sprite, so... might redo it as a sprite or just continue as is not for weekly challenge. Or both.

[FRAWG]

Well the problem I see with your current version of this is that the bricks and all look nice, but I still see sharp edges on the tops and at corners, and for me it just makes it look too "perfect" for a structure like this.

But I do really like where this is going and I hope it gets finished.

[trough]

When Roman ruins were new, they probably did have sharp, perfect-looking corners. Is this picture supposed to be of aged ruins, or how they looked when it was first built?

Maybe I'm just not understanding which edges FRAWG was talking about.

[yaomon17]

Well they probably didn't have the technology to make perfectly shaped bricks.

[trough]

Ancient Romans were very technologically advanced, I don't doubt that they could carve a stone into a perfect rectangular prism. You wouldn't think that from looking at their buildings now, because they are so weatherbeaten.

edit: sorry, I guess I'm derailing the thread. Looks fantastic Dwimori! I like the new brick shading.

[StaticSails]

You can always toy around with the squareness with some AA. Make a square just squarish. I'd be happy with that.

[Jad]

Well that definitely is an improvement! Maybe you could dissolve the outlines even more, I dunno. Just personal preference.

If you feel happy with the rendering of the rock wall, go ahead and work on the other stuff.

[Dwimori]

Fun fact: late Romans used concrete, so thinking that they couldn't produce near perfect bricks is more far fetched than thinking they could. Also, there was a culture, I think an Andean culture, that used stone to chip stone, and had no mortar, but created perfect fitting blocks for their buildings. Each one was done on the spot, not premade. Not sure what culture it was though. Could have been the Inca for all I know, its been a long time since I brushed up on south American history.

And back on track, the wall isn't meant to look perfectly new, but not old either. When I look it seems like its got just the little bit of weather I'm aiming for, but if you guys don't think so I'd happily work it some more. As of now I haven't quite shit a roadblock, more like thick, sticky mud. I'll keep going till I get a significant enough change to post.

[Jad]

I don't mind the perfectness of the bricks at all, it's just the way pixels become so .. physical. when a contrast between two surfaces is expressed as the collission between two color spaces the border between then is essentially 0 pixels, which I really like. when you put an outline anywhere suddenly the distance between two elements (in this case, bricks) is now 1 pixel. As zoomed out as this is that's like 20-30 cms of space between each brick. The effect is lessened by the low contrast of the brick color, though.

But by reducing the contrast and definition in some spots you get an unfocused effect that works well with syncronizing the brain in interpreting this the same way that it does a real brick wall viewed from afar. I think.

I just generally like breaking up outlines on big textured surfaces as to let the brain read more of the big shapes and read small details only where they matter. ' U ' ... at least that's my theory of it

[Decroded]

I don't mind the perfectness of the bricks at all, it's just the way pixels become so .. physical. when a contrast between two surfaces is expressed as the collission between two color spaces the border between then is essentially 0 pixels, which I really like. when you put an outline anywhere suddenly the distance between two elements (in this case, bricks) is now 1 pixel. As zoomed out as this is that's like 20-30 cms of space between each brick. The effect is lessened by the low contrast of the brick color, though.

But by reducing the contrast and definition in some spots you get an unfocused effect that works well with syncronizing the brain in interpreting this the same way that it does a real brick wall viewed from afar. I think.

I just generally like breaking up outlines on big textured surfaces as to let the brain read more of the big shapes and read small details only where they matter. ' U ' ... at least that's my theory of it

I'm a still total noob but I think I was thinking something similar the other day.
I haven't had the chance to do an experiment but I was thinking that if for example a photo was taken of a black diagnol line on a white surface, and then scaled down to low resolution so the line becomes thinner than one pixel, then would the pixels of the line start to turn lighter grey instead of black because there must be both black and white in the sample?
In this case the black line would be the "outline" of the bricks (presumably some kind of shadow) which would probably not be so obvious from that distance if it was done with a camera (artistic license aside) - more likely it would blend in to be barely noticable in most spots.
Is that sort of what you mean Jad?

[Dwimori]

I take back what I said before, I didn't hit thick mud, I did hit a roadblock. I keep trying to break up the brick outlines and make the pattern scale down properly but both end up looking really... false. I don't mean to inconvenience anybody, but if you've got some down time could you do an edit to show what you mean by breaking up the outlines. When I try, I make the wall look flat.

And I really wanna get this one done.

[StaticSails]

Took five seconds to crudely destroy the lines between same shades of bricks. I don't think it looks flat.

[Decroded]

Took five seconds to crudely destroy the lines between same shades of bricks. I don't think it looks flat.

Yeah thats the idea. It makes it look like some bricks stick out/in more than others etc.

I'm not sure but I think you'll find that erosion aside, there still would have been some randomness to the bricks such as http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Troy1.jpg
Also good to mix up the shape geometry of the wall with some structural shapes such as in that image.
You wouldn't want vines all over every wall but there might be one bit where there is a garden inside and some vines have grown over.
Things like that can obviously help break it up a bit too although I don't know if that would have been allowed on the outer wall for security purposes...