AuthorTopic: RPG Pieces  (Read 15615 times)

Offline trough

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #20 on: March 14, 2011, 07:02:17 pm
It looked so good in the beginning, it had great atmosphere! But changing the horizon was a leap in the wrong direction. The trees should not fade to green as they get further away, but more of a blue, like you had originally. I think the black silhouette makes it look really flat, and the green version just looks strange. Don't get me wrong, I love it, I just liked the original a lot more.

Quote from: EvilEye
EvilEye's got a great edit there. Focus more on the foreground and the lighting.

Offline TheInquisitor

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #21 on: March 14, 2011, 10:00:26 pm


Here's an even later version. This isn't a major edit and I thought it'd look more significant than it has done. The trees are now more blue in the horizon and also lighter. Looking at it though the change doesn't seem significant enough, so I think I'll make it brighter still.
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Offline JinnDEvil

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #22 on: March 14, 2011, 10:25:28 pm

new

I think you need to define a bit more everything. leaves, clouds, roots, ground...

Here's a quick edit:





Other than that. Great! ^^
« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 10:27:46 pm by JinnDEvil »

Offline TheInquisitor

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #23 on: March 27, 2011, 10:26:36 am
Been slow going with this lately. I've put it mostly to one side and instead focused on the accompanying tileset. Here's the tileset in the works:



If it needs brightening up then that's easily sorted. There is transparency used on the water. It was just easier doing it that way as it's not a mockup.


As for the background I've made some progress but not a lot. I've been following Jinn's instructions for it. One problem I'm seeing and struggling to overcome though is actually making the texture of the pine trees look right. On this new version they're looking like blobby shapes to me. Can anyone shed light on how to solve this issue?

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Offline ptoing

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #24 on: March 27, 2011, 11:47:28 am
Very nice rendering and technique in general, but I think you have to pay more attention to the material nature of things.
The grass in the top tileset looks more like some goopy slime, because of the way it is separated from the dirt bits. I would not say draw every strand of grass, but it would look a lot more like grass if you had some strands showing here and there (like you have at that tombstone looking thing)

Also the edge of the river/lake looks VERY artificial with a nice trim a single stone wide. I would say vary the sizes of the stones a bit more, make it reach into the grass more in places and so on.

The bushes or high grass (I assume that's what they are) look weird and do not work for me. It looks as if someone took it from somewhere else and just put it there.
I think that in general is my main crit with this. Most things do not seem like they are organically connected. The trees, the way the grass borders on the dirt, the bushy things, they all look like setpieces places there to form the whole, not like they organically grew there, if that makes any sense.
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Offline Perihelion

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #25 on: March 27, 2011, 05:20:20 pm
Your tileset looks like a day scene to me as it is because it's so bright and green. Nighttime should be fairly monochrome or bluish. I did a quick rough palette edit to give you an idea of what I'd do instead:



Not a great edit, as I went overboard on the blue and the rocks should be darker and etc., but you get the idea--something more in this direction, at least. You don't have to make it quite that dark, but the main points of note are the blue highlights and the dark water (it reflects the sky, so it should be dark).

Really nice work, though!
« Last Edit: March 27, 2011, 05:25:31 pm by Perihelion »

Offline Gamer36

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #26 on: March 27, 2011, 06:29:33 pm
What EvilEye and I were trying to get at is that your current lighting can easily imply it's daylight, even with the sky. Look, here I did a quick swap of the sky with a crappy "daytime" color scheme and nothing looks wrong with it.

I think that's fairly problematic.

Have you tried having the trees fade to a black silhouette? I think it fits more with a night scene, even with the moon, especially since the moon is behind the trees it doesn't make much sense that they're so lit.


EvilEye's blue highlights also help to imply the cool light of the moon, giving more to imply night light when warmer highlights imply sunlight.
I think having it like that is good because if this is going to be a game, then you can easily swap the back-backround without changing the lighting, it looks fine anyways. The ground shading needs work, of course thats a last-minute fix (Or is it?). For the tileset, it looks fine, but I do wonder how big the tiles are?
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Offline trough

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Re: Struggling with forest fade

Reply #27 on: March 27, 2011, 06:47:59 pm
I disagree, lighting is a very important difference between day and night. It would look weird and unnatural if you just swap the sky and leave everything else unchanged.

The trees on the right in your most recent update are looking pretty sweet!  ;D Although I do think both images are in need of some reduced saturation and added blue highlights. Right now your map image looks like a sunny day being viewed through a thick black veil.

Offline TheInquisitor

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Re: RPG Pieces

Reply #28 on: April 03, 2011, 11:25:15 pm
I've been finding myself getting more and more frustrated with these pieces. I've run into a bit of a brick wall on the battle background piece. Here's the latest version. I tried a new approach with the nearmost tree as I cannot seem to nail down the right texture. It still doesn't look right, infact it looks ridiciulous.



The nearmost tree looks like there's too much attention on individual lines. I think I've got to reduce the detail and draw as if I'm seeing a clump of pine needles instead. Unfortunately I just cannot nail down this "less is more" approach. The trees behind don't work either as they look like green corn on the cob. Can anyone shed any light on this or show me how they'd approach mastering this texture?

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I'm working on the start of another tileset now. This building is inspired (heavily) by Hundertwasser House. I just love the mosaic design of the place. It's inspiring stuff!

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Ptoing:
On the tileset, I'll be following through with some of your suggestions, Ptoing. However, for ones like the single track of stones for the water edge, I'll probably have to stick with that as the tile limitations (16x16) don't allow for much stretch. I could do tile overlapping I suppose, but for now its not a major thing. Your comment about the grass and the mud is fair though, so I'll look into changing that. How would you say the long grass is artificial and how do you think it can be salvaged?
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Offline big brother

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Re: RPG Pieces

Reply #29 on: April 05, 2011, 05:21:56 pm
Using dithering to describe the tips of the needles on the closest trees would work. That way the leaf mass will look bushier and you won't have to draw each needle like a separate strand. The distant trees wouldn't have dithering, but you could use a few shades to describe their shape with the moonlight falling on them.

Looking at some reference photos could help, too. The tiers of downwards-slanting needles look a bit invented.

The tileset is nice, especially the tile roof. It might be cool to make the paint chipped a bit, so you can give the plaster more texture.