background [WIP]

[Mathcong]

Hiya,

made a background for a platformer im making, would love some feedback


trying some different colors:



with the tiles from the game:



it will be parallexing as well

[eishiya]

It's rather high-contrast, so while it looks good on its own, the foreground platforms and character easily get lost in it. It's best to have lower contrast in background layers so that the gameplay elements can stand out clearly.

[Mathcong]

Not sure if this is the right way to go about it, basicly just dropped it in photoshop and lowered contrast on some different layers:



this is the palette im using btw, since im not confident in color picking:

[yrizoud]

I think it's a pity to lose the "sunny day" feeling.
I'd rather play in a place like this :


Edit: This is not exactly done using the Contrast tools, the goal was to have a narrower range of colors, but average around light blue rather than grey.
In Photoshop you can prepare such a change by inserting a temporary layer filled with  #8CD6F1 (a light sky blue) between the foreground and the background layers, "normal" layer mode (not multiply/etc.) and then play around with the opacity of it, between 0 and 20%, until you have found the setting X% that you prefer. Then, in order to commit the change, you can remove this layer, and on each background layer, use the "Fill" effect, Normal mode, color #8CD6F1, x%.

[Mathcong]

oh wow, that does look alot nicer then my attempt.


thanks for the example, now i know what to work towards !

[yrizoud]

This reminds me how having backgrounds fade into *some ambient color* was a constant in many CAPCOM games of the golden age (SNES, and arcade cabinets). Here are two examples, the second one smoothly increases the effect over distance (far = strong), which mimics what happens in real-life optics:


You also see it in many Metal Slug stages, and more recently in Owlboy.
As any theory/tool, it's up to you to use it sensibly and in good taste...
Some games (or levels) systematically applied a strong coloring, and an overall low-contrast to the background, no matter how far to the viewer. This is also a tool, useful when you want to give a special mood and a strong identity to some level / place :

(King of Dragons, 1991)
Variety is good, the mood of this level:

is not the same as this level from the same game