GR#173 - Battlebackground - Gameart Scenery

[Johasu]

It is part of a game that I'm building a demo for actually.  The landscape scenes, as I am calling them, are frames of battle sequences similar to what was seen in the Shining Force games of old.  Sort of a pokemon-esque faceoff between players and enemies as you can see in my mockup.

The character sprite was an early mockup and I'm not quite practiced at metals and such yet so it's not very good.
The player will know that this takes place in a river-side cave setting and the landscape is a backdrop for the battle sequence that will take place over a few moments of actions playing out before it returns to an overhead tactical map (very much like Shining Force).
I guess my description isn't very good of the area.  I'm thinking sort of a wide open to the air cave area that the ape-men hide in.  Sort of a cave lean-to?  A couple similar examples.
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a0/26/64/a026641654f4b019fe8416bef8fb2c8b.jpg
http://nobodyhikesinla.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/img_0637.jpg

I tried to frame the action around the placement of the enemy sprite so the brighter areas and elements of the screen are laid out in such a way to push your view to the enemy.
The black bars at top and bottom will be where text boxes frame up the text, health, and whatnot.
The character is standing on a platform from another terrain area so it looks different.  (I don't have the platform for this floor done as the landscape isn't finished and it will reflect the final product.

Thanks for the input.  Do you have any ideas or suggestions for improvement?

[Manupix]

Ok, this makes much more sense =)

You could make it a sinkhole ('doline') if that's ok with the gameplay: the top down light would be easier on the sprites and compatible with the shadows you have. The wall would be poorly lit by grazing light, could have some hanging vines and stuff. Reference, more references, pixel reference (check the PJ search feature: use the old one, at the bottom of each page).

Edit, more pixel refs: 1, 2. 2 is a nice example of lateral cave light from a side entrance.

[Johasu]

Thanks for taking the time to find these references for me.  It is very appreciated.  Nature is so cool.
I'm going to be fairly busy today, but I will try to get an edit out by this evening/tonight.   


Tried to layer my boulders a little better and give them more depth.
I feel like the composition is probably where I want it, but I'm not sure I'm happy with the shading/lighting on the boulders and the ground.
15 colors used.  I don't want to flatten it out anymore on the palette because I want to keep the framing arranged the way it is with the lighting.

Any thoughts, ideas, opinions, criticisms, and/or scathing mockery of my poor ability to render stone are all greatly appreciated. 

_{merged: reason, double post}

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I made an edit reducing and messing with the colors. I reduced it to six and upped the contrast and gave it some hue shifting. I think it looks basically comparable. Obviously you could change some color placement in that so the gradient on the ground is smoother with the green color, but I didnt. Keep going man!

[Johasu]

I have so much to learn still.   
I really like how your ramp brings out the highlight and deepens the shadow.  I'm not sure how I feel about reducing the color that far. It feels so minimalist and apart from the style of the other pieces I have done in the set so far.
I did want to go in this direction and I played with it for a while here. 
1) Before edits
2) Deepened the shadows and a subtle shift to the highlight color to take it further back.
3) Same as 2 but I kept the floor highlight as the original because I felt like maybe it should be brighter.
4) Taking the hue shift to a deeper level with the green and blue.
5) Letting reducing colors and spreading the new colors everywhere. (little cleanup on a few strays too.)

Right now I'm not even sure what I like.
Any comments?  Thoughts?  What looks better?  I think I played with it too much at this point to criticize it with my own eyes.  Am I doing a horrible job of this?

[hobbler_toppler]

Hello. I am also in the process of learning to draw cave rocks, mountains, and cliffs. Although I'm no expert, I feel like the edit I made might help you out a little bit. (if my image hosting site works properly  )



I think what it all boils down to is being brave and willing to imply big chunky shapes with your shadows. In order to make the image pop out more (instead of all your rocks looking as though they're piled evenly on a flat plane like you said), I added some rocks to the front that serve as a second layer of rocks, and also made shadows of the higher rocks fall over the lower rocks. This helps to imply that many of the rocks are sticking out of the wall at differing intensities. I noticed that the bones on the floor were shaded as though a light source were coming from the top left, so I chose to use that light source on the cave rock wall as well. Using a more dynamic light source is always an easy way to give more depth to an image.

I also changed the colors a bit, as others in this thread have done. At first I chose a drastic hue-shifting approach from blue lights to green darks, but I felt like it was a bit excessive. Now the colors are still washed out, but the green begins to show in the shadows. The brightness of your shades before were very close to one another, making the image seem very muted.

I hope this helps, and of course I don't promise that my edit of your work is anything close to the best possible interpretation of it. Keep improving!

[Johasu]

Being a little adventurous here...
That last edit got me thinking about grey tones and I decided to play around a bit.

[Grimsane]

interesting I feel the colours of the moss and stone collide majorly, and don't go together,



some really quick edits, one very non-pixel, to illustrate some suggestions, if you wanted it to be a darker cave with light, dappling on the floor would probably more effective than that quick light shaft

but top left, suggestions for making it read with more depth by introducing another 2 brighter tones using a receding value technique, with that you can make rocks look like they sit on different planes merely by making them subtly lighter or darker

liking the mockup and goal of this, very megadrive/genesis shining force-esque

[Johasu]

Oh I have so much to learn!  Thanks for the compliment and the ideas.
I added another level to the highlights and scaled the floor colors.  A little clean up and tidy work.  Then I applied new highlighting and shadows to the foremost stones.
I tried to move more towards that yellow green color of grass you have but I feel like maybe my shades are too close together or are too dark.  I'm not sure yet.

[Johasu]

Updating with a mockup testing out the composition and playing with a font I made this morning. Im not sold on my numbers yet.
Open for criticism and critical assessment.