Skyscraper Top Chipset

[Zizka]

Alright, time for another update. I should probably make up a list of the things you guys have suggested to make sure I'm not missing anything.

[PypeBros]

one last thing disturbs me: you're using plain white or plain black for some scribbling. This is a bit perplexing, as one expects limitted contrast at that distance, and other artifacts, such as chalk not being uniform in brightness on irregular concrete walls.

I also note that you use some smooth shadows around (some) crates. When doing this, make sure it's coherent with your lightsource. Esp, it's unlikely that the shadow would be only a few pixel large on the sides, but stretches far away from the base on the right. It'd be better to only enclose the base, not the whole perspective object. An excessive shadow right below a crate may also give the (false) impression that the crate is "floating over the ground". Imho, you're very close to that boundary with your metallic 9-21 thing on the right of the private eye.

[Zizka]

Arf! You don't miss a thing do you? 

Alright for the boxes, I agree, thanks!

[Facet]

Hey, excellent progress thus far, I submit even more work for you, if you're willing :

A quick fix: raised the height of the wall to the side of the first floor; this is the Escher-like tiling error Dr. D mentioned; just think about the cross-section if something doesn't look quite right elsewhere.

I've doodled a couple ideas here for minimalistic rendering; basically removing or toning down some of the lines and just suggesting a texture on and around borders. I also united the upper and lower floor tones in order to separate them from that of the walls, tried out some light effects as Alex suggested in a post that had to removed and simply blacked out everything outside the confines of the building; my reasoning being that it's more aligned with what your avatar can see and that it helps focus attention on the important stuff anyway.

Lastly some ideas for the simplification of your sprite. Less colours, larger tonal areas. I also shifted him into a more realistic overhead view just for a point of comparison; it is harder to do things that way and I'm not suggesting you adopt it necessarily, but it's good to know the difference.

[Zizka]

Thank you for the feedback, Facet.

The reason why I haven't implemented the lighting just yet is that I'm a bit intimated by the idea of doing it. Not that I couldn't do it, I'm just racking my brain as to how to do it.

I think the best solution would probably be to add semi-transparent black layer on the map and delete that layer where the light zones are? Then I would have to use dithering to do the lights.

It doesn't seem that practical a way of doing it however. As for the rest, the walls are actually already fixed but I didn't to update with only this.

I'll change the ground as well but I don't think I'll touch the charset. It's not that yours isn't good, far from it. It's just that I don't feel like doing the walking animation all over again! 

[PypeBros]

I'll change the ground as well but I don't think I'll touch the charset. It's not that yours isn't good, far from it. It's just that I don't feel like doing the walking animation all over again! 

The you may want to adjust the proportions of the other objects (crates, esp.) to the perspective suggested by the character.

[tim]

I think you could bring a lot of atmosphere by just adding some lighting & shadowing.

Before :


After :


I feel it's more appropriate for a crime scene if you want to reach the "noir" look.

[PypeBros]

I think you could bring a lot of atmosphere by just adding some lighting & shadowing.

It truly does, but imho, it would have to be done in a different way to avoid realism clash (losing the credibility of the fictional world by injecting some photo-realistic aspect to some otherwise non-realistic rendering) (further edit-of-the-edit made comment obsolete).

[Zizka]

Wow. Just wow Tim. I'm speechless, it looks superb.

How did you proceed to create that effect please?

[jams0988]

It truly does, but imho, it would have to be done in a different way to avoid realism clash (losing the credibility of the fictional world by injecting some photo-realistic aspect to some otherwise non-realistic rendering).

Is all shading automatically photorealistic now? = \
How would you have done it? I think the newest version looks pretty great...