GR#200 - Factory - Background Lighting

[looaks]

This is a mockup for a level of my game:

I would love some feedback from you guys.
Thanks!

[astraldata]

The character, hanging lights, and pipe system looks nice, and the containers on the shelves look believable too.

Comparatively however, the barrels/oil-drums look too flat imo. Also, I really think the boxes and lockers could use some slight rotation or hints at perspective or at least shadowing on the walls to give it some sense of depth. Atm it looks much too flat compared to the depth of the character and the other aforementioned good stuff.

Keep at it though -- it has a lot of potential.

[Manupix]

This is very well pixelled and convincingly detailed. I think however you lost sight of the forest for the trees  :S

You don't leave much to the viewer's imagination, there's no patch of darkness where evil could lurk, not much visual exploring to do since you see everything quite clearly in a blink. This also means composition lacks in driving lines, as detail variation can help with that, along with shadows.
Classic examples: Adarias, Winged Doom.

The brick wall has a visible repetitive pattern. You don't need to draw every single brick anyway (that's part of the above issue) to make a convincing brick wall.

Stuff near or leaning on the walls should cast shadows, esp the pipes where they enter the wall. They need supports too.

Palette: color ramps vs organic palette! So far the wall, metal, pipes, drums and wood all have separate single-hue color ramps.

Is the light coded in the game? That would explain the 1200+ colors I'd like it to be harsher anyway.

Keep at it though -- it has a lot of potential.

[jahasaja]

I like it. It would be interesting to know what kind of game it is.

My biggest problem is lack of depth (As seen in my thread I am kind of crazy about depth). Because of the viewpoint it is hard to get a sense of the depth of the image.

One easy way of negating this problem to a degree would be to add shadow. Even darker areas where you cannot see the light source you could add some shadows.

I did a very quick and dirty edit, I just added shadow on one of the stairs, parts of the railing and the person.

[looaks]

@Everybody: Thanks for the constructive feedback! I'm working on this alone It really helps to listen other people opinions.
Regards the shadows I have still to decide to implement them via the engine or hand draw them. Both approach have their pros and cons. Still figuring out.

@astraldata: Somethings like the barrels and the wooden crates are thing I made very rapidly as filler I plan to implement them further.

@Manupix: The truth is I didn't spent much time in the composition this is not going to be an actual level of the game, I just put it together in order to use this (early) tileset. Almost everything on screen is 32x32 tile (except for the larger sprites).
I will work on the bricks, anyway in real life it is quite rare to an uninterrupted wall of several square meters I plan to add more variation on the brick as well as columns, niches, openings etc.  I will add supports for the pipes, it's a nice touch.
Thanks for the links! (for you to have a better view of the color counting I added the same scene without illumination)

@jahasaja My main concern is depth as well. At this stage the scene feel quite flat because i didn't decided yet how to implement the shadows yet. This can be a problem for the gameplay too since the lack of depth affects readability too (you should know at a glance if the player can pass through things or jump over them)

Here the unlit version of the scene more updates will follow, stay tuned!
Spoiler

[tim]

Hello looaks !
I really like the character. A bit less the environment. It feels really 2D, flat, and dull for a lot of reasons.
I tried some things very quickly, as usual it's not production quality, but food for thoughts. Tell me what you think.

1 • Add some "floor". It gives some perspective, a better sense of 3D, and a much more readable scene.



2 • Add more lighting. Make the room physically exists, with windows, lighting, exits, etc... Try to make zones & paths more unique using colored lighting & different lighting sources. It also helps with player orientation, it's much easier to remember a room this way.



Final shot :



Bonus comparison shot :


According to me, it has better atmosphere, is easier to read and easier to remember.
You don't need to make things as drastic & dramatic as I did. Subtlety recommended
Hope it can helps !

If you want to see how it is setup, the (messy) PSD is here : http://www.timsoret.com/out/wayofthepixel/factory.psd

[Delicious]

Wow... That's a pretty damm good edit. Definitely taking notes.

[RAV]

Tim sends pixels to Hollywood. What do ya know, there's flexibility to the art: a low contrast base palette for highly detailed realism without noise, can be made to look interesting depending on the final scene's dynamic lighting setup overlaying back in a sense of contrast. Though it is the path of parting ways with classic pixel art in the end result.

[looaks]

Wow! That's a good edit, I'm impressed. Thank you a lot!
I was reluctant to add a 3d profundity to the game because I had some artworks from a precedent incarnation of this project which were 'flat'. Maybe I'll spend extra try to convert the old stuff.
(I'm very cautious with my time schedule since I can't afford to waste time and I am very determined to finish this game)
As I stated before I'm yet to decide how to implement lights and shadows. Hand made them like in your edit give me more control over the composition but since I plan to have extensive level (exploration is part of the gameplay) It could be both too time consuming for a lone developer like me to implement and memory intensive. The other option is to code the lights and shadows in the engine which could solve the above problems but it make harder to implement cool effects like the colored dynamic highlights and complex shadows.
The approach I am considering is a mix of both worlds: hand made lights/shadows shapes with coded color/intensity/size.
Also, for my personal taste, I'd prefer to have hard contrast/clean lines but let's see how this goes

[tim]

Yes I think you should use some black & white textures as masks for your lights, and power/ color / scale them in your engine.
If you search for "IES" you will find a lot of real light profiles used in 3D usually. Good references actually, a lot more realistic & interesting
than the dull linear sphere lighting.