AuthorTopic: Background perspective  (Read 4527 times)

Offline famti23

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Background perspective

on: October 29, 2013, 04:43:14 pm
So I'm having some trouble deciding on a cool way to display the background on this top down/birds eye view image. -- Please ignore some of the messy work and Non-PA elements..these wont exist when I'm finished making the image.






My dilemma is this: Should I go with a true top down view where you cannot see the horizon, or stick with the current perspective I have in my mockups already?

Here is an example of a top down perspective where you can't see the horizon.



My biggest concern is losing the majestic look of a beautiful sunset or night sky in the picture...another concern would be losing focus of whats going on in the center of the image with all of the little people.

I'm not sure on which route to take, please help!





 I realize the first images were a little cluttered, so here is the same image with less UI -- Maybe this will help who ever gives me advice.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 10:11:05 pm by PixelPiledriver »

Offline jams0988

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Re: Background perspective

Reply #1 on: October 29, 2013, 10:15:34 pm
The one with the correct perspective obviously looks more natural, but you're right when you say it's a shame to lose the horizon...
In the SNES game Secret of mana, on the "Lofty Mountains," they actually did both; on the way up the mountain, the perspective is correct, and you're looking down at the trees. On top of the mountain there's a cave. After you leave the cave, the view of the background starts higher up, and you can see off into the horizon and the sky. It obviously made no sense, but I was amazed at how how high up I actually was when I was a little kid. =)

I'm running into the same problem with my game right now, but if I had to choose one, I'd probably go with the horizon, even if it's technically wrong.
See if you can find any pictures of Secret of mana for reference. Link to the past also let you see the horizon when you were on top of the golden pyramid in the dark world. I thought that was a cool view, too. Then again, the view from Death Mountain was pretty awesome too, and it was in the correct perspective. Depends what you want to show, I guess. In the end, players will be much less bothered by an incorrect background perspective than your fellow artists will - and I don't think most artists would mind, either, as long as you gave them a good view. RPG perspective makes no sense anyway, right? =)

That said, I don't know if your background is working with your mountain. It worked in Secret of Mana, because the mountain was huge compared to its surroundings - all you could see was an ocean of flat green forest leading to the horizon. It was easy to pretend that the perspective worked with a background like that. Your mountain is surrounded by other mountains, though, which makes it obvious how wrong the perspective is: rather than looking like a 3/4th's perspective, it looks like we're looking straight on at the horizon now, with your mountain jutting out of the mountains in the background toward the screen. I don't think your background works, because it's too 3D.

Something flatter like in Secret of Mana or Link to the Past would work much better, I think. Is this actually how zoomed out your camera will be? Or will you be pulling it closer to the action in-game? The camera being zoomed in more helps hide the errors inherent in RPG perspective too, I think.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2013, 10:19:04 pm by jams0988 »

Offline Decroded

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Re: Background perspective

Reply #2 on: November 01, 2013, 04:53:00 am
A perspective blend might work.
I'm assuming there's no scrolling involved here so...most of the screen would be looking down to match the tiles, then a small part at top of screen (starting consistently higher than you have now) is squished into a perspective of the horizon.
Lets take that hill on the left with the house on it, you can could use those rings to rapidly blend in the perspective and probably get away with leaving it where it is.

Offline PypeBros

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Re: Background perspective

Reply #3 on: November 02, 2013, 11:57:00 am
the sun looks completely out of place (not to mention incompatible with your current shadow style)