[WIP]Office Art

[BadMoodTaylor]

Game art in an office setting.  Threw together in an image to see how it looks together.  Didn't spend much time on shadows as object's shadows may vary by location.

Appreciate any feedback but looking to see how the walls, tiles, and kitchen objects look.



Thanks

[eishiya]

The characters on the yellow tiles are difficult to make out. Avoid having so much contrast in overlappable backgrounds.

The colours also feel kind of dull and lifeless overall. That might fit the theme (offices rarely have any life in them), but it's also unpleasant to look at for prolonged amounts of time. Try using slightly more saturated colours, and try to hue-shift towards a specific hue to unify them a little bit, especially the colours that are meant to be darker versions of other colours.

[BadMoodTaylor]

The characters on the yellow tiles are difficult to make out. Avoid having so much contrast in overlappable backgrounds.

By contrast are you referring to the two different colors of tile? or the shading/lighting of those tiles?

I actually started making that tile intending to the classic black and white tile for kitchens but didn't think I could make that work.

The colours also feel kind of dull and lifeless overall. That might fit the theme (offices rarely have any life in them), but it's also unpleasant to look at for prolonged amounts of time. Try using slightly more saturated colours, and try to hue-shift towards a specific hue to unify them a little bit, especially the colours that are meant to be darker versions of other colours.

Which pieces specifically or if all which would you change first?  Floors and walls?

Hue shift towards specific hue:
A specific hue for each color? each piece? or one specific hue for everything?
Then how is that done mathematically? Do you just move a certain number towards that hue's number?  Or if across the color wheel do you jump a larger number?


Thanks

[BadMoodTaylor]

Try using slightly more saturated colours...

This was a very quick edit:



Is that the direction you were recommending?

[eishiya]

I was referring to the tile colours, sorry for not being clearer. The shading contrast is fine, the specific colours are just boring because you don't seem to be hue-shifting the shadows. That said, tiles are flat, they probably shouldn't have shading on the edge of each tile.

I meant hue-shift everything towards a certain hue, to various degrees. It's common in pixel art to shift all the shadows and highlights more than the midtones, so that things can retain their colour identity, but the image feels more unified overall. This is part of why you often see palettes that have many different midtones but only a few bright and dark colours.

I think those saturated colours look nicer, but they're too contrasty. This isn't something you can fix with automated adjustments, you'll need to go in and tweak colours separately.
Even "B&W" tiles can work if you're careful with your colour choices. It's common for such tiles to be depicted so that the black is actually a light blue or grey. A good example of this is the opening scene of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where the B&W kitchen tiles go from being B&W to being two very similar colours depending on the need of each particular shot. Of course, to make that work, other very dark colours in the background have to be light. Fortunately, this is actually beneficial since it makes the entire background low-contrast.

[BadMoodTaylor]

Thank you for the tips and I think I understand now which areas you were specifically referencing.

Just to be clear though, this comment is referencing only the tiles on the right in the kitchen?

I think those saturated colours look nicer, but they're too contrasty...

That quick edit I did isn't intended to be permanent but I do like how it looks except for the kitchen tiles which seem to be more distracting now.  But the walls and tiles on the left, and maybe some of the kitchen objects, I like with the adjustment.

Here are my two floor tiles: (original, not the adjusted)

[BadMoodTaylor]

Does the new tile on the right make it worse on the eyes?

[MysteryMeat]

A bit in terms of eyeglare, but not to a point where it's a problem I think. Visually it's an improvement I'd say, looks like classic ceramic kitchen tile now.

[BadMoodTaylor]

A bit in terms of eyeglare, but not to a point where it's a problem I think. Visually it's an improvement I'd say, looks like classic ceramic kitchen tile now.

Thanks!

Tried to reduce the eyeglare a bit and changed the counter's colors:



...not sure what color to make the wall—tried different shades of green, brown, beige, yellow...

[MysteryMeat]

You uj, actually made the eyeglare worse.go back to that previous green, it contrasted better so things weren't as hard to pick out at a glance.