GR#216 - Wheat Field - Scenery, Gameart

[jahasaja]

Hi all,

Working on a wheat fields with parallax scrolling. I am happy with the sense of depth it provides, however, I am really bad with texture so I need help with that and perhaps the colours.


here is the closest field: 

and here is how it looks in the game:

 

Thankful for any help

(Also thanks for all the comments on my "tree in the wind" thread. I had to take a break from that one but will reply in a week or so)

[Fizzick]

I don't have crits for you yet but I want to say that the game you're making looks pretty damn neato. What are you writing it in?

edit:
I do have crits actually. this kind of texture would be used for far-away fields, but up close the ground is very much just dirt and you would see more individual stems. The perspective is odd too because it curves at the top and then slopes straight down around the top-middle.

edit:
here are two refs for nearby wheat.
http://media-3.web.britannica.com/eb-media/13/65513-004-38169C10.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desktopwallpaperhd.net%2Fwallpapers%2F19%2F9%2Fwallpapers-wheat-fields-field-198393.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desktopwallpaperhd.net%2Fwallpapers-wheat-fields-field-198393.html&h=1200&w=1920&tbnid=WZI2G3qJgRqVGM%3A&zoom=1&docid=cPLoUq3utTuBdM&hl=en&ei=A84NVL-NIIu1yATQs4GoBg&tbm=isch&ved=0CF4QMyghMCE&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=1772&page=2&start=25&ndsp=34
Note the color of the round between rows and the look of shorter trimmed wheat.

http://www.hdwallsource.com/field-wallpaper-31069.html
here is a good reference for far away fields. notice how you can only see the rows when looking at them dead on, and they disappear when the field curves away.

if you're trying to emulate a growing field, then the ground would mostly be dirt with short speckled grass-like stalks only on the rows. in this case the rows would be as visible as you have drawn them, but would be more dark and brown.

[jahasaja]

Thanks for the nice word. I make it in Gamemaker. Mostly a hobby project but I plan to finish it. Not sure if it is fun enough to sell.. 

The perspective I am going for is something like this:



yeah I have tried to do the individual stems but they do not come out very well. So that is some of the problems I am having with the texture. However, There will be some other animated grass and dirt in the foreground though.

[Fizzick]

I think you may have to make seperate sprites for the foreground and background, as simple scaling looks odd. I will try to work on an edit soon.

[wanderly]

First, I should say that I'm no expert! These are just my thoughts - I figured if I asked for critique myself, I should at least try to offer some.



Here's a quick edit. If you post a .png, it'd be easier to do something more accurately.

Overall, I like it. It does give the impression of depth. The palette looks like it's a grey, rainy day to me, which is cool if that's what you're going for. In my edit, I circled some points in the background that appear to need refinement to smooth out the line, as the jagginess sticks out. I added a bit of your shading colors to one side of the rows, to try to create a sense of depth between them, and establish a lighting direction - I'm not totally sure it works as I've done it, but I think something like that could help. Also, the tree looks like it's just floating there, perhaps add a bit of shading in the grass around the trunk? I can't directly comment on the texture, like you'd asked, partly because the .jpg-iness affects the texture you have now. I also have tried to do something like you're doing now in the past and struggled with it, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

EDIT: I just realized that you did post a .gif of the front row, whoops! - I'll take another look at it soon.

2nd EDIT:


I added a highlight to give a stronger direction, enhanced the shading on the lee side, used a bit of dithering of the darker accent to try to shape it and give a bit of a rougher texture. I also flattened the angle of the rows, which garbled the edges of the outside two rows a bit. Definitely still a few of my mistakes still in there, but perhaps it can help you a bit. I agree, at this scale, it's hard to show stalks - I tried unsuccessfully. I also added some variation on the lee side shading to try to give a sense of the varying height of the stalks - I don't know how well it comes through though, perhaps it would look better with a bit more contrast.

Cheers! I enjoyed this little experiment.

[Manupix]

This doesn't look much like a wheat field. You don't see the rows stand out much in wheat fields (except after harvest), and no brown earth in between. Also the common mind image one has of them is ripe summer golden, not spring green.



Perspective is a bit wonky, although not the way Fizzick said. The slopes and curves are different on each 'level' in a random way. Either they should stay the same, or they should 'flatten out' in the fg as in your ref, because of stronger foreshortening in the back level. Those curves should also be cleaner.

Main problem is with colors though. That gif close-up has 19 colors, where 5 would be enough. If the blurry, noisy texture look is what you're after, pixel-art is not the right medium for this.

[jahasaja]

Thanks everybody for the input!

Sorry for all the colours it was suppose to be only 6 (photoshop and opacity  )

Here is a new version were I tried to make the texture better (I will look more closely at the perspective later. ). I tried to incorporate wanderly's edit's shadow.

   

Edit: here is a new screen shot. Kind of lost the rainy day feel. but perhaps more easy on the eye?


And sorry, perhaps, it is not a wheat field but a hay field. This is was what I was going for:

[Fizzick]

In the case of a hay field, I believe it is the mowing technology and not the way the grass is planted that produces the striped effect. Besides that, AFAIK there wouldn't be dedicated hay growing and harvesting in medieval britain. Sheep and livestock would pretty much roam on ordinary fields and eat the grass there.

[Mathias]

Ehhhh I say - why get all technical. Just do what looks cool and fits into the environment.

What you've got right now are crop rows. Looks like a massive spinach crop or something.

In the case of a hay field, I believe it is the mowing technology and not the way the grass is planted that produces the striped effect. Besides that, AFAIK there wouldn't be dedicated hay growing and harvesting in medieval britain. Sheep and livestock would pretty much roam on ordinary fields and eat the grass there.

Right right. The field behind my house gets mowed and bailed during the growing season, so I see this happen multiple times per year.
The lines/rows are caused by the tractor mower. Obviously, nobody was mowing grass, making hay, back when knights roamed the land.

I dig the windmills! I hope they animate.

[PsylentKnight]

Right right. The field behind my house gets mowed and bailed during the growing season, so I see this happen multiple times per year.
The lines/rows are caused by the tractor mower. Obviously, nobody was mowing grass, making hay, back when knights roamed the land.

I grew up on my dad's farm. If you wanna get really pedantic about it, its the hay rake, (not the mower) that arranges it into rows.
Mow -> Rake -> Bale

Anyway, yea. There's not a lot anyway can say about it until its something more befitting to the era. Maybe instead of rows of hay it can be rows of some other crop. It already reminds me of a vineyard as is...