[finished for now] temple

[ErekT]

Game art stuff. Full on ortographic. I can hopefully counter the flatness with some parallaxing but if anyone have suggestions on how to add more depth then that would be great What I'm worried about right now though are the pillars. Not happy about those at all. I can always add another color or two but I'd prefer not to. Any ideas on how to improve the shading on them?

[IrresponsibleFreelancer]

To me the fires in the baskets dont look quite full enough and the way they are animated they seem to be effected by some unseen wind (which could make sense) Also the lighting on the statue where it flickers should also be used on the pillars and on the floor around the flames in order for it to make sense.  Although its not quite what you are looking for i think the pillars look great as is but if you wanna change them then i find that they dont seem to match the buddha/ monk type guy sitting there and also the square loop detailing also doesnt seem to match.  From the ref that i looked at this kind of people liked to do a lot of ornate work as in designs and detail of mythical creatures or soldiers or whatnot on the different architectural necessities.   

[Joe]

Hey Erek. I had a simple idea. Since the foreground is already crowded it would be best to push the pillars into the background.



It's tempting to throw highlights around, but they also betray any sense of depth, since logically anything with highlights that strong is close by. I experimented with removing the highlights on the ceiling for this same reason, but I think keeping them will help reinforce the pillar depth. Also try placing a cast shadow from the sconce, right in the middle there it would obscure its own light on the floor.

Assuming the torches are evenly placed, there wouldn't be highlights on the right side of the statue, I think that light is too strong. I would have more left-facing highlights to reinforce that the torch and statue are foreground.

[ErekT]

Ooh that's a very nice solution You're right, highlights can be extra tempting when you don't have lots of colours to go on. The statue is supposed to be lit from both sides, like so:

To me the fires in the baskets dont look quite full enough and the way they are animated they seem to be effected by some unseen wind (which could make sense) Also the lighting on the statue where it flickers should also be used on the pillars and on the floor around the flames in order for it to make sense.

Yep the thought was that it's high up so it gets windy. I'll make another calmer flame for indoors probably. Maybe some clouds drifting along to enforce the idea of being high up?

Thanks for the help guys

EDIT:

Although its not quite what you are looking for i think the pillars look great as is but if you wanna change them then i find that they dont seem to match the buddha/ monk type guy sitting there and also the square loop detailing also doesnt seem to match.  From the ref that i looked at this kind of people liked to do a lot of ornate work as in designs and detail of mythical creatures or soldiers or whatnot on the different architectural necessities.

I missed that! Do you mean buddhist temples don't use that kind of ornamentation or something else?

[Johasu]

I don't know that it will help you any but I felt like the light shifting would be more extreme at the furthest range of the lights reach where it just barely touches the shadows.
For example the ceiling highlights and the decorations where you have some lighting cast up there.

I played around with it on the left side to explain what I mean.
Was done quickly.
I noticed you have a couple ghosty pixels of your sky color in the architecture up there too you might hunt for. 

[ErekT]

Very nice It looks more realistic to do something like that that's for sure. I'm worried it might draw too much attention to itself tho. I'll experiment and post again when I got the time.

[ErekT]

Yess... I like what you did with the ornament flickering so I did a subdued version of that to keep things from getting too busy. Removed the floor light as well. I might tweak some more later but I think I'm happy with the way things looks now.

Thanks for the help

[Gil]

I can get behind this latest version. Reminds me of Prince of Persia in a good way

[Johasu]

Very nice.
Cleaner than my sloppy version and it has a subtle ambiance to it that helps the mood rather than taking attention away from it.