[WIP][C+C] NES Palette Background

[heyguy]

Hey all. I'm working on this background and I'd love to get some feedback on it. It's supposed to be a background of some sort of ancient militarized ruined city for a side scroller game(think a combination of star wars and mega man and metroid). The city was ready for war and war came.



Any advice or comments appreciated. I'm trying to use a NES color palette. Here's another part of the project. I want to use this for a scroller header on the games website too.

[heyguy]

Small update. I'm not sure how much detail I should push for the foreground layer. I like the implied details like the windows on the middle right building but it looks weird in other areas. Still need to experiment some more. A reference for me is the game Shatterhand, Batman, Megaman 6. I want the artwork to look like a late life NES game with bing sprites, colorful and using lots of blacks. I'll add some clouds later too. What does everyone think of shading of everything so far. I'd appreciate any criticisms on anything else too.



I wanted to make a city with weapons and ray guns on the top of nearly all buildings.

[MysteryMeat]

Couple ideas, both for the background and foreground. For the foreground I basically did larger, even-harsher-shaded versions of the midground turrets and some trees from a top-left angle to get it close to the camera without distracting too much and giving everything a sense of scale by having it set low in the picture.
For the background, I really just blacked out parts of the one tower's lights, it's supposed to be behind the bridge-pipe thing but because of the extra detail on it it wound up looking on the same plane a bit.
Also, what is that clip from and why are all these random old clips of incredibly-well-animated superman just suddenly popping up for me haha

[heyguy]

Thanks for the edit and feedback Mystery! Really like the changes to the background building and the addition of the trees. Will work on that stuff and I'm going to rework the shading on the domes and turrets in the background.

And you're seeing all these cool Superman clips cause you're lucky! The gif is from the old 1940s Superman cartoons. They're public domain and available on Youtube, if you're curious! Apparently, much of the animation is rotoscoped which is one of the reasons the cartoon looks so exceedingly impressive. Here are some more gifs from reddit. And a really interesting video essay about the classic cartoon! Oh, and the theme song is epic too!

https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/4t6g1f/respect_superman_fleischer_shorts/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDMQ3tXNKgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQgMqf8tV6Q

This one made me chuckle.

[heyguy]

Made some updates to the background. This is a difficult project for me. I'm not really satisfied with how it's coming out. I think I might have made that big foreground building a bit too big. The weapons on the two left background buildings looks weird to me too. I might redo some of the background to give it more of a 3D look to it. I think that might help a lot because it feels a little flat to me. And maybe make it a bit more "futuristic". What does everyone think?

I'd appreciate any critique! The background gun building on the left looks cool I think. The big background building needs a more interesting facade/window design. And a 3D look maybe. That bridge thing in the background is suppose to be futuristic air tram/train rail. This is still a heavy wip. Thanks for checking out my post!

[heyguy]

Some more updates. Just a few small changes but I'm liking this a lot more. The large background building still needs some reworking though I think. Any feedback would be helpful!

[MysteryMeat]

I think the big thing you need to do first is to remake the concept sketch I did there to post my foreground idea, it was a pretty shoddy doodle only meant to illustrate the concept and as such the thinner lines and clashing level of detail from my work there kind of drag the whole of it down.
Plus, it doesn't even tile particularly well, there's a big ol hunk of empty black space on the left! Lame.
Spoiler

I genuinely don't mind when people use my work on these kinds of edits either, but in this case it really is detracting from the end product!

EDIT: There's also a notable "cutoff" for the background buildings, it is very noticeable.

[heyguy]

Thanks for the update! I'll remove the foreground for now so it doesn't distract from the everything else. The overall project is definitely not done yet; I hadn't even gotten around to the foreground yet but I'll start working on that now.



Regarding the cutoff...should I draw the buildings all the way down to the bottom of the canvas? This is eventually going to be in a Metroid style side scroller game where each layer of "background" will parallax vertically and horizontally. The player will quickly enter a building, go underground and won't come out till the end of the game. I've added a example pic with some environment tiles. This is to demonstrate how a small chunk of "level" might look with the overall background (without foreground layer). Naturally though, all will really depend on level design. And this screenshot is too long and not shaped like a 16:9 camera viewport so keep that in mind. I do think drawing the buildings all the way down or lower would work best though looking at this screen.

[MysteryMeat]

Oh! Yeah, level parts handily cover the need fpr foreground! As for the cutoff, try some uneven continuing. Like, in one of the earlier pictures you had part of the left building go down further than the right side of the same building, that creates good visual interest AND can be used to imply foreground objects!

[heyguy]

I appreciate all the feedback Mystery! Here's another update to the project. Changed the cutoffs and gave some more variety to the building windows. Still not done yet bit I think I'm getting closer. Any feedback from other artists would be much appreciated as well!

I'm debating whether to light the left sides of the buildings or not. I'm also trying to give the black buildings a more wrecked or destroyed look. I still want a foreground layer and I'm still working on that too.

[MysteryMeat]

Looking good, man! I think if you add too much more you might run the risk of overcrowding the scene, but I do recommend keeping those foreground buildings on a separate layer for parallax scrolling!

[Runensucher]

I feel very uncomfortable with the clouds.
It just makes no sense. I lived in the city my whole live and I can't recognize to see clouds like this at night.

[heyguy]

Thanks a lot of the feedback guys!

@Runensucher Good point. I don't think I ever realized the kind of clouds the float above cities.  Thing is I'm not really sure what would be appropriate and achievable  with a limited NES palette. I've collected some reference and I'm working on another cloud layer. Something more like these clouds.

http://vceinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/clouds-over-city.png
images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/storm-clouds-over-new-york-city-i-clarence-holmes.jpg

The problem with making new clouds though is that it's going to take so much time and careful pixeling  I think I'm going to have trouble shading/pixeling and keeping the cloud and sky layer clearly different with just 3 colors. Things will parallax in game so maybe that will help. Also, I really don't know how to create these large "realistic clouds" in some sort of NES limited tiling fashion...where I can repeat the tiles over and over to create the image. I'm doing a lot of pixeling right now. Things will parallax in game so maybe that will help.

Just a early work in progress with the new changes. Would appreciate all feedback.

[skittlefuck]

would recommend throwing in a lot more smaller buildings, seems very sparse right now. If NES restrictions allow it, I think adding one more dark blue to the mix and using it to make the building fade into a darker colour as they go down would do a lot of good.

As for the clouds, I think keeping them as small and spread out as possible would be the best, it's looking too busy imo.

[heyguy]

Thanks skittle. I've added a few more smaller buildings. Simple placeholders for now. Not sure if I like the way they work currently. I added some reflection to the building windows too.  Still nowhere near finished with the clouds. Might just make them small like you said skittlefuck but I'm willing to experiment a little. Any more feedback welcomed. Thanks!

I really want to finish this soon so I can get back to making environment tiles!

[Runensucher]

This looks like a living city. The clouds now look more realistic, but there is still this noisy outline you better fix.
The last step is to fix the bottom of the buildings. Look at this: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tmnt/tmnt_files/tmnttff-snes-clonefight-nes.png
I hope it helps.

[heyguy]

Some more updates. This is tough work! And it's taking longer than I'd like it to. I do think I'm getting closer to finishing even though I keep adding to it! Removed the clouds for now. I really appreciate everyone's help!