[Finished] Platformer bg: Waterfall.

[Sohei]

I've been working on this for two days and kind of on the verge of despair now. Palette is the problem, I've tried various variants, but still can't make a decent colour/contrast scheme. I can't figure the problem myself. Maybe there is a lot of dark tone, maybe the lighting is off... Arghhh, my head hurt.
Any advice/help on this?



New

[coffee]

Hi Sohei!

Very nice artwork! The only thing that's bothering me is the, too sharp contrast between the treetops and the dark areas beneth it. Same goes for the cliffs.
Why don't you add some extra darker leaves, trunks, cliffs in the darkest areas to soften it up a bit and not making it look flat.

The colours overall looks pretty good, especially on the cliffs. The only colours I would change is probably the green ones. Depending on the mood you want.
The area seem quite tropical, so why not try to make the green a bit more Blueish to fit with the sky and clouds and see where it goes from there.

One last thing is the bottom tiles, don't know if this is for a game or so, but I would deffinatly redraw them entierly. If you got a colour/contrast problem, its down below

Edit:

Did an edit just quickly and partly to show what I mean:

[Sohei]

Thank you, coffee! You've brought my mind out of stagger. I have a new tide of inspiration and enthusiasm to continue.

[coffee]

Looks a lot better!

You got rid of the flatness and it looks a lot more alive and deep!

Keep going Really want to see it all animated!

GL

[Elk]

The waterfall seems a little fast to be that distant

Pretty nice BG though!

[Sohei]

I've finished animating the waterfalls.



Slower version

[Ryumaru]

I think this is really solid work. I know that speed is easily manipulatable in game and such but it would be nice to see it slowed down to get a better idea of how it would look. I hope you'll be doing equally interesting and good work in the foreground as you have done here in the background.

[Rydin]

Very beautiful colors!

I tried to carve this guy out a little more.

Might help you, might not.

[coffee]

Looks neat! Love the birds, but it is still a bit too repeatable even if its slowed down, why not make some kind of stop in the circle. Perhaps make one of the birds fly up and stop and the other dive down, just to give it a playful feeling.

I would also make the waterfalls a bit less sparkling and more thick. Why not add a semi-transparent cloud above the falls.
On the furthest left waterfall, the foam all over it is really good, but it's a bit too flashy. If you stand very far away from a waterfall you can't see individual particles, but just a foam mostly.
Try making the animation more floating, think smoke, there is too much weight atm for such a light particle. Like I said, the furthest waterfall to the left got more like the style I think would fit.

Also the highest waterfalls should have the biggest splashes but the difference is a bit too weak. If you want to add just a little more feeling to it, try taking the wind in account. I would make the largest waterfall on the right produce a semi-transparent foam going with the wind to the right, doesn't have to be a massive ammount of frames, but just an extra touch. That would also
take away the sharpness between the water and the rocks.

[Hideon]

Woah buddy, I love this. Slowed down looks better but maybe it needs more frames, it looks a bit cutted.
I wonder exactly why, but that blue shadow on the grass of the floor is a bit odd to me.

[kriss]

really amazing waterfall.. sorry i can't tell anything ! maybe i can make an objection about rock color:

this is seams much better



So i'm thinking it will be more realist to avoid a straight line for the very hig waterfall because the water come with lot of speed, like this :



Could you try to make a test with more contrast ?

[PypeBros]

great composition. The waterfall flows better at slower pace, imho. I suppose the relatively low contrast comes from the fact this is purely a non-interactive layer of your platformer.

[Sohei]

Rydin, this was really helpfull. Thank you, It helped!

coffee, I understood the part about splashes, did try to make them bigger and to remove some individual pixels. I'm not shure about the wind, Don't know how to add it properly. Here's a try.


Hideon, I thought it was alright. Can you illustrate your idea?

Update:


I've made lot's of small enhancements for the sake of the great justice. Added a little AA, tweaked little details, polished waterfalls, changed splashes, moved a piece of forest further away.

[jinza]

you wouldn't happen to have a tutorial on this would you?

[mitDebo]

I second the tutorial notion. I think that looks super amazing, and anything that can give insight into how it was created would be greatly appreciated.

[PypeBros]

Highlight of two elements that could need more polish:


the rock outcrop over the line on your picture has an horizontal seam along this line, as if cut/pasted from somewhere else.
On the box (and at other places), it looks like rocks are actually rectangular shapes with nice rock texture painted on them, rather than being more sophisticated 3D objects casting shadow, etc. I'd love to provide an edit later on, but I'm not sure I'll have the level to improve it ...

[Sohei]

PypeBros, they're not pasted, everything has been done manualy. At first I was drawing them as boxes and then decided to change shapes and make more variable volume. Thanks for pointing out, I've applied changes for these parts. Other parts may also require changes, but I'm afraid to make it too detailed for a background. They are already too detailed in my opinion and I don't know how to make a gracefull downgrade. I also need to study rocks more, you are right. Thanks a lot for advices!

jinza, mitDebo, sorry guys, I've spent on this piece four days. I'm not ready to spend another four making a tutorial. -_- Really sorry.