AuthorTopic: Mountain River Scene/ Cave Scene Now[C+C PLZ]  (Read 5641 times)

Offline Johasu

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Mountain River Scene/ Cave Scene Now[C+C PLZ]

on: February 04, 2014, 05:18:39 am
   
I felt so encouraged by the progress I made on the river scene that I'm posting this cave scene that I did before the river. I was going for a dirt floor and cool stone walls.  I came up with this brown/blue color scheme.  I'm particularly frustrated with the closest wall segment, but happy to take comments and criticism on any and all factors of the piece.

[Current Version]
« Last Edit: February 08, 2014, 04:47:20 am by Johasu »
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Offline Mrwhitepantz

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Re: Mountain River Scene

Reply #1 on: February 04, 2014, 05:25:57 am
Wow man, that looks really good. The water is definitely the weak point here. I'm not very good at water myself, so I can't offer advice, but the rest looks good  ;D

Off-topic, how did your blacksmith piece work out? I know that was awhile ago, but I haven't really had a setup conducive to using a computer since I moved.

Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene

Reply #2 on: February 04, 2014, 03:14:32 pm
 ;)  Thanks.  I have been practicing a lot.  Safe to say, a couple hundred more hours of pixel art since that blacksmith piece a few months back.

[I was struggling with the perspective on the room I was putting him in.  I may go back to it at some point and finish it up.  If I ever update it I will revive the thread, maybe.]

I definitely feel the water needs something more to it.  I don't particularly like the solid blue fill, but each attempt makes it seem like just a mess of pixels.  Hoping to get some helpful input from the veterans around here on it.
I spent about 10 hours on this piece so far I think.(appx.)
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Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #3 on: February 05, 2014, 05:26:04 pm

Experimented with the water a bit.
Thinned the current lines around the shore and tried to go for a more natural ripple appearance.
Worked towards drawing the flow around the stream and the stones.
Also touched the nearest trees with a bit of highlighting, but Im not sure how I feel about that. :-\
Any thoughts?
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Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #4 on: February 05, 2014, 08:22:55 pm


I made an edit. Basically, as stuff recedes into the background it's color goes closer and closer to the sky color, due to atmospheric perspective. Besides that I tried reducing a lot of the noise you had going on, and tried to demonstrate that stuff farther away will have less detail and contrast, while stuff closer will have more contrast and be darker. For the rocks try doing larger rocks rather then gravel, because that will be extremely noisey. For the tree's just remember they are like cylinders/cones and should be shaded like that you did some bevel shading on them. Keep working at it man!

Offline Tapsu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #5 on: February 05, 2014, 08:41:09 pm

[...]I feel like I am struggling a bit on deciding if I can do a better job with the water.[...]
If you want to draw the color of water into the picture (like screaming: bloody hell, this is WATER!!!), perhaps you should leave it transparent?
But instead, I would rather move towards something like this:

In the background it should be mostly reflection due to angle between the water surface and the view direction (I guess I made it too dark, sorry), and in the foreground it should be mostly the inside/bottom of the stream which is quite dark and not blue, more like wet stone in the bottom is dark, and even more so. Because how reflective water is depends on angle.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2014, 10:03:12 pm by Tapsu »

Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #6 on: February 05, 2014, 10:15:13 pm

My original from top
Followed by the first edit with the touches to the water and the highlights in trees.

[NOW]I toned out some of the contrasts in the gravel to blend it some and make it less noisy.
The next one down blended the trees towards blue, lessened the detail contrast, and took out some of the definition to blend them back.
Then I took sky/mountain tones and used them to redefine my water.  References of rivers show a lot of open sky reflection so I felt like maybe this was the way to go.

I still want to work on the closer trees.  Open for more comments or critiques and thanks to those that have chimed in.  I appreciate the help bunches. ;)
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Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #7 on: February 05, 2014, 11:32:50 pm
I'm noticing that you are making the tree's further away darker, when in actuality, they should be getting lighter.

Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #8 on: February 05, 2014, 11:48:16 pm
~Woah~ :huh:
I really thought it was an effect of narrowing the contrast between the highlight and the shading of the two colors.  It brings the overall shade of the trees to a darker appearance.
I moved the hue towards blue (for the sky)  which is a darker color than the yellow green I was using as well which also made them appear darker.

Now that I double check I see that I did darken the colors some off hand without thinking about it.  I will modify it in my next edit.
I am playing with the water and gravel some more.

I really haven't felt like the trees are THAT far back to warrant a lot of color shift.  Not that I disagree or anything.  Thanks for pointing it out.
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Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #9 on: February 05, 2014, 11:57:22 pm
It never hurts to exaggerate  :)

Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #10 on: February 06, 2014, 06:03:59 pm

Worked on the water some.  Not sure about this yet.  Looking at references of mountain rivers and streams.
Played with the trees some and brought the background trees to a lighter color as suggested.  (Edit:  I'm still playing with that gravel.)
[Thoughts?]
« Last Edit: February 06, 2014, 06:08:11 pm by Johasu »
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Offline cels

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #11 on: February 06, 2014, 06:37:17 pm
I personally think Tapsu nailed the water in his edit above. Maybe it was a bit too dark, but certainly I would go in that direction. If you want some bright water, then that would suggest a lot of movement, ripples and waves. Having it so bright and yet so flat doesn't make sense, it makes it look like the water is filled with bubbles (i.e. carbonated). Again, I would try something closer to what Tapsu suggested.

Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #12 on: February 06, 2014, 08:12:09 pm
A few reference links I have been glancing at.
]http://www.danheller.com/images/Canada/Banff/mountain-stream-big.jpg[url]
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/10000/nahled/mountain-stream-26081284383334cLVb.jpg[/url]
http://imgstocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Rocky-mountain-stream-got-dirt-nature-photo-contest.jpg

Not to argue, but most of the references I am using (general mountain river/stream scenes) show much brighter water.  The sunlight reflects from the open sky above and even in darker thinner expanses the water is still the brightest area of the photo.
Very shallow streams have a dark appearance like this when you can see the rocks directly below the water.  Evening scenes or heavily shaded areas tend towards darker waters as well.
I have attempted a few stabs at a much darker water like his and haven't been satisfied with the results as of yet.
Maybe I'm going too dark.  I don't know.  At any rate I haven't been able to nail down a good feel with darker colors the way his did.  (  :'(  )
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Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene[C+C PLZ]

Reply #13 on: February 07, 2014, 12:40:00 am

Worked on the water a bunch more.  Taking the reflection of the light to a new level and working with the shallows reading darker.
Cleaned up some stray pixels and such in the trees and that too.
Comments?
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Offline Johasu

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Re: Mountain River Scene/ Cave Scene Now[C+C PLZ]

Reply #14 on: February 08, 2014, 04:52:16 am

I did this cave before the mountain river.  I was going for a dirt floor and cool stone walls.  I came up with this brown/blue color scheme.  I'm particularly frustrated with the closest wall segment :yell:, but happy to take comments and criticism on any and all factors of the piece.

Is the color setup ok as it is or is the floor too far from the blue to feel acceptable to the imagination?
The way I did those crevices within and contours on the nearest wall feel way too contrasted to me.  Advice on how to fix it?  Is it simply a matter of adding a few more colors to lesson that sharp edginess between the colors?

Thanks ahead to anyone taking the time to throw advice or input.
Still taking advice on the river too if anyone sees anything that I can improve upon drastically.
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