[WIP} Alien Environment

[Schwee]

Bleh.   I can't say I enjoy doing environments but maybe thats because I don't feel like I really understand what I am doing.   I plan on adding way more of the 'trees' among other things but I want to have the ground/terrain looking solid before I focus more on other stuff.   You can see I haven't filled portions of the ground w shading yet because I am not sure if I like what I have so far.  Any advice is much appreciated.

[TuchmanPigeon]

Nice work! you have good ideas going.

The biggest issue I see is that the "trees" dont blend well with the background.
Few tips to fix that is:
1. Try to find a coherent color pallet, meaning if its a very orangish world, make the highlights more orange as well while leaving the shadows fairly cold colored.
You can try these colors as an example for the trees:


2. Again with lighting, choose were the sunlight comes from and stick with it, it looks like the two trees get sunlight from two opposite directions, try to flip the light direction on one of the trees, or even flip the whole tree all together.

I would like to see your progress.

[Schwee]

Here is a version with your palette.  I think I want them to pop a little more than this but you definitely bring up a fantastic point about blending in the palette and especially thinking of light sources in more than just white.  I never push my hue shifting close to that.

So heres an example with your orange highlight and then fading into my original palette.  What do you think?

[TuchmanPigeon]

Far better!
Definitely take your second version over mine.

[MysteryMeat]

Kinda flat background! Try adding some ravines in the earth, or perhaps some mountains. The alien tree things are excellent but you need more than that to really sell a new world!

Another idea could be alien buildings, for variety and implied society if you're going that way!

In fact, given the shape of the trees already you could easily get away with draping fabric coverings over them to imply ramshackle huts built inside them. Or, even better, wrap buildings up and around them. Love merging industrial and organic themes like that!

[Tycho Magnetic Anomaly]

Hi, I must say I really really love the alien world feel you have captured here, the colors are spot on for your theme choice, great atmosphere. Well done.

I also love the additions from Schwee.

I would agree with MysteryMeat in that your middle ground is too flat/void of detail. I fiddled with it a tiny bit but I really strongly think if you allow yourself a few more colors you could really go wild with this.

I stuck to your colors, so getting the depth of middle ground was tricky and perhaps might not look right, with even 2 or 3 new colors introduced you could really improve things,  or even more colors! I love color! heh

Just another thing I notice, which I see people often do, is, generally speaking, (not always) terrain/features on landscapes going far into the distance tend to get lighter not darker. Intuitively you might think the other way around though. Mostly dude to atmosphere, slight haze.



Don't give up on this yet I would say... Keep up the good work.

[Schwee]

Another update.  I have reversed the direction of the right tree so the light is the same as the other.  I also added another color into the ground add tried to add more texture.  I still feel like something isn't working here.  It looks very messy and I can't really read what type of ground it is.  (Going for a Mars look.)  I also updated the coloring for the back ground.  I do like the planets that were added but I am going to leave them out until the end.  I still plan on making more trees and so there will be less space for the sky.

Also @MysteryMeat  I appreciate your ideas and dig the creativity but unfortunately for this project, this planet isn't inhabited by intelligent life.  But I will definitely keep the idea in mind in case I decide to utilize shelter for the player, or something along those lines.r.