AuthorTopic: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape  (Read 3856 times)

Offline PixelCod

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[WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

on: August 22, 2018, 11:04:58 am
EDIT: Fixed the image not displaying


I've been working on this sketch of this island for the past few days now but every time I come back to work on it I can't help but feel that there is something 'off' about the island. Whether it's the perception of depth of the island or whether the grass feels too slanted towards the viewer or (most likely) a list of multiple issues.

For the most part I'm okay with how the clouds are coming along, everthing is rough at the moment but the general shapes and colour of the clouds is okay.

If anyone has any suggestions on improving the 'realism' of this piece or any other aspects I'd be very grateful  ;D
« Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 11:43:00 am by PixelCod »

Offline PixelCod

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Re: WIP Island and Sea landscape

Reply #1 on: August 22, 2018, 11:06:12 am
EDIT: Fixed and changed main post
The image hasn't worked!  :huh:
Trying to fix it now!
« Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 11:29:20 am by PixelCod »

Offline 0xDB

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #2 on: August 22, 2018, 01:39:44 pm
Hi there and welcome to Pixelation.

The primary problem with your island is (if the grass planes are supposed to be mostly parallel to the sea plane) a basic perspective issue.

All planes that parallel to the ground plane or sea plane in this case can only be seen from above for as long as they stay below the horizon or eye level. As soon as they rise above the eye level we can not see them from above anymore, only from below, so in this case we'd see mostly dirt or rock walls above the horizon and just small fringes of grass where the planes begin.

Offline PixelCod

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #3 on: August 23, 2018, 10:48:42 am
Hi there and welcome to Pixelation.
Thanks for the kind welcome!  :)
Old:

New:


I tried to push the grass platforms together more to make the perspective feel more correct although I still feel like the top of the island could be made even less visible than in my edit. I also cleaned up parts of the island a bit more and added a bit of texture to the rock faces. The village has been removed for the time being whilst changing the island drastically.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how to pick colours for objects that are far away from the 'view', a.k.a objects which colour's are being skewed by an atmosphere or mist?
Some good examples of what I'm trying to achieve are this, this and this
« Last Edit: August 23, 2018, 10:52:54 am by PixelCod »

Offline PixelCod

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Pixel Update

Reply #4 on: August 23, 2018, 01:56:41 pm
Did some more work on the island:

Last Version:

New Version:


Looking at the newer version I'm not super sure about the grass on the top of the island where it meets the rock face. Feels like it's banding too much... I'll go back anyway and add grass tufts and proper shadows to the edges at some point.

Offline 0xDB

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #5 on: August 23, 2018, 02:46:18 pm
I think you might like to push the perspective a lot more to make it absolutely clear which planes are above the eye level and even show some of the underside of that arch. Be bold. It might help to think of simple volumes like cubes, columns or discs(sections of columns) as they would appear above and below eye level and build up the island as a collection of those simple volumes.

Sloppy edit to illustrate:


I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how to pick colours for objects that are far away from the 'view', a.k.a objects which colour's are being skewed by an atmosphere or mist?
What you're looking for is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective . As a simplified rule of thumb, in an outside scene, colors will fade to the sky color and in an inside scene or under thick vegetation where you look into the forest, colors will fade into darkness.

Offline PixelCod

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #6 on: August 23, 2018, 03:43:39 pm
I think you might like to push the perspective a lot more to make it absolutely clear which planes are above the eye level and even show some of the underside of that arch.
I think you're right here, I'll give it a go in my next edit and try to emphasize the perspective better. Thanks for the tips :)

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how to pick colours for objects that are far away from the 'view', a.k.a objects which colour's are being skewed by an atmosphere or mist?
What you're looking for is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective . As a simplified rule of thumb, in an outside scene, colors will fade to the sky color and in an inside scene or under thick vegetation where you look into the forest, colors will fade into darkness.
Ahh brilliant, thanks for the reference! I've been wondering about what this phenomenon would be called for a while now so that I could try and find some resources on it online.

I'm thinking about making the canvas wider and getting in some smaller islands and rocks scattered across the sea where I'll be able to use this technique more effectively. I'm looking to improve my colour selection and realism in my pixelart in general so hopefully studying this helps.

Offline PixelCod

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #7 on: August 26, 2018, 01:18:40 pm
Last edit:

Newest edit:


In my last few edits, I feel like I lost some of the dynamic shapes of the sloping grass patches that I liked about the island in the first place as I tried to correct some perspective issues. I ended up making each grass platform look flat, boring and very similar. Here I have tried to improve the perspective of the island whilst bringing back some of the interesting steep slopes of grass.

Like 0xDB suggested, I tried to emphasize the perspective more by adjusting the tilt of the grass planes to make them feel like they're tilting around the horizon line (whilst still maintaining the sloping grass patches). I also expanded the canvas size by about 88x64 which let me add some more ground room to the island and move all the clouds up slightly to give everything some breathing room.
EDIT: I also moved the horizon line up a bit to make more room for the sea and whatever I decide to put in it

I'm much happier with how this piece is turning out now than I was before but lots can still be refined and improved as well as added to this scene. For example, I'm not sure if the brown dirt colour on the island looks... correct? It feels like the island would just cave in on itself if it were made from dirt alone. Perhaps I should make the cliff walls more 'stone-y'? I'm also interested in adding foliage like a small forest and maybe some wooden shacks to give more of a sense of scale to the island?

Let me know what you think, I'm very grateful for any comments :)
« Last Edit: August 26, 2018, 01:28:07 pm by PixelCod »

Offline eishiya

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #8 on: August 26, 2018, 01:53:38 pm
Extending the island downward looks good! However, raising the sea upward does not, as it gets rid of the lovely window you had that showed both the air and sea. It doesn't read as nicely being filled with water. I think if you keep the old water level but expand the canvas as you did, that would be the best solution. It would also put the water level at roughly 1/3 up the canvas, which looks nice.

Stone can be brown too, the brown doesn't have to be dirt. For example, many of the coastal arches off California have a brownish coloration.
The texture on the arch looks a bit rocky, so you don't have to worry about that. Of course, if you want to look even rockier, you could! I recommend looking up stone arches and coastal arches for ref, to get a feeling for the kinds of textures these kinds of locations have.

The grey stones at the base of the arch look out of place, since they don't have the same colour as the rest of the arch, and they seem to be leaning up and away from the arch, defying gravity.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2018, 04:45:25 pm by eishiya »

Offline PixelCod

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Re: [WIP] Island and Sea Landscape

Reply #9 on: August 26, 2018, 04:08:17 pm
However, raising the sea upward does not, as it gets rid of the lovely window you had that showed both the air and sea.
I had this same thought too, and I'll probably change the sea level again, I just felt that the right side of the island connected to the water too close to the horizon, making the sea feel less vast than I wanted it to. Maybe I could pull the center of the arch up slightly instead, to have something like in this quick edit?

Last edit:

New edit:

I might even get rid of that patch of grass in the center of the archway and just have the stone wall there instead so that it breaks up the patches of grass to the left and right of it a bit more...

I see what you mean about the rocks being out of place too, even more so in the latest version where it looks like they should fall and splash into the sea.

Thanks for all your advice, I'll make some changes to the dirt/stone/earth colours and hopefully fix those floating rocks too!