Sci-fi corridor WIP

[Frogacuda]

Ok, I need some advice on shading the door to get a metallic look. If anyone knows any good examples of something like that, it's be helpful.

[CrematedPumpkin]

Don't know about metal, but I do know that all three of the sprites seem to be in a different style.

[Frogacuda]

Don't know about metal, but I do know that all three of the sprites seem to be in a different style.

Yeah, well they're 3 pretty drastically different subjects, aren't they?

Ok, lame attempt to actually shade the door:

[OBCT]

I haven't worked with sci-fi stuff very much, but try picking two or three shades for the door, and alternating between them diagonally or something like that.

[CrematedPumpkin]

Don't know about metal, but I do know that all three of the sprites seem to be in a different style.

Yeah, well they're 3 pretty drastically different subjects, aren't they?

Yes, but you can still have three subjects in the same style.

[Frogacuda]

To a limited extent. Like I could probably stand to tweak the proportion on the little soldier. But the robot is just a different style of thing.  But in any event I just tossed them in there for context. I might not even use them. The background tiles are what I'm concerned with. The door especially.

[Mercury Rising]

Its not the robot it's the guy with a shield and sword thats looks odd to be there.  The metal effect is difficult.  I tried a metal door on my sig once.  Not sure if this helps or not but here it is.

[robalan]

Okay, first of all, it is possible to have many very different subjects in the same style.  Case in point:

There's a rock, a person, a robot, an alien, and a store all in the same style.  I'm not saying that yours aren't in similar styles, but there are differences.  For example, the sword-wielding protagonist-looking character sticks out like a blue thumb.

And if you want examples of metal doors, google is your friend.  In fact google is always your friend.  I found these pictures in the first two rows of a google image search for "metal door" XD
http://clarsen.net/multimedia/1012_DSCF0156.JPG~640x640x85.jpg
http://www.schneiderlocksmith.com/images/product/metaldoor3b.gif
http://www.pixelpoppin.com/vapor/newSurface/surfactpictures/albanydoor.jpg

In case this was not the kind of help you were looking for, I will attempt to give some crits on your work.
-You probably can see this, but the hero guy needs more detail.  He is incredibly flat, while the robot and alien have very nice shading rounding out their forms.
-Why do you have so many colors on the walls?  The lights' cones could probably be drawn with less than half that many colors.  I didn't even see half of them until I zoomed way in.
-I like that you put some variety into the walls by knocking one of the lights out and breaking the wire.  However, you could get even more variety quite easily: try making one or two of the grates messed up somewhat, or even put stains on the wall or something.  You could also get some variety by putting cracks or something into the ceiling and floor.
-Speaking of the ceiling and floor, what's up with them?  The rest of the world appears to be made of metal, very high tech and stuff, yet the floor and ceiling seem to be made of adobe brick or something.  I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head for what to do there, but the adobe looks very out of place.

Now for the door.
-First of all, the light is not aimed at the door, it is coming from overhead.  Thus, the highlight should be more horizontal.  The middle reference pic I linked to shows a good example of horizontal highlighting.  Try doing something like that if you can.
-I do like the line dividing the halves of the door; you did a good job defining that.  However, since the light is in the middle of the door, you probably want to reverse the lighting on the bottom vertical part.

To sum it all up: overall, it looks nice, especially the sprites.  The background could stand to lose a couple of colors and perhaps have a bit more variety, but it is quite well done.  The door has nice lineart, but the highlight needs changing.  I look forward to updates!

[Kazuya Mochu]

I think metal e all abou reflexions.
 try and make a really shiny material with dark color

make some sort of dark overal color and then put some strong hilights.

I made this sometime ago
maybe it will help you



see the diference bettewn the wood and the marble. the marble would be closer to the metal.

take care, hope this helps

Kazuya

[Frogacuda]

I'm not saying that yours aren't in similar styles, but there are differences.  For example, the sword-wielding protagonist-looking character sticks out like a blue thumb.

He's a medieval sword weilding hero in the halls of a UFO. You want him to blend in?

In case this was not the kind of help you were looking for, I will attempt to give some crits on your work.
-You probably can see this, but the hero guy needs more detail.  He is incredibly flat, while the robot and alien have very nice shading rounding out their forms.

He's a semi-placeholder from an older project. He's 16 colors, and the others are much more. Again, I just threw them in there for scale and context. They're not what I wanted c&c on right now. I'll be making modifications to the hero after we make some major modifications to the engine and I go in to add more animation. For right now I'm just happy that he works, and has his basic animations done.

-Why do you have so many colors on the walls?  The lights' cones could probably be drawn with less than half that many colors.  I didn't even see half of them until I zoomed way in.

Basically because I wanted a soft lighting effect, and, in this case, I'm working without palette restrictions. In fact, I'm just sticking with traditional pixel art because I want that "look" more than any practical limitations. It's not "good habit", but I don't see why it hurts.

-I like that you put some variety into the walls by knocking one of the lights out and breaking the wire.  However, you could get even more variety quite easily: try making one or two of the grates messed up somewhat, or even put stains on the wall or something.  You could also get some variety by putting cracks or something into the ceiling and floor.

Oh yeah, of course. I'm working on these and other things to break up the monotony. I'll post in a bit.

-Speaking of the ceiling and floor, what's up with them?  The rest of the world appears to be made of metal, very high tech and stuff, yet the floor and ceiling seem to be made of adobe brick or something.  I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head for what to do there, but the adobe looks very out of place.

Interesting that you interpreted it this way. I'll make some changes to the palette. Basically, the floor was inspired by the general style Metroid Fusion used, and it was supposed to be a kind of plasticy look, but it was too bright, so I pulled the saturation way way down, until I thought it was less jarring to the eye. From a color perspective, I like it, but I didn't stop to think that it might confuse the kind of thing that it is.

Thanks for the comments. Edit coming soon.