forest mockup

[Indigo]

color critique/edit:


I dont have much time to go through and explain what I did, but heres a list of things I addressed.  Contrast issues, holes, depth issues, and the disconnected foreground and background.

although your were being really cool and adventurous with the orange leaves and such, it was simply poking holes in the image when laying it ontop of a green base color.  opposites on the color wheel.

my two cents
-Dan

[Arne]

Palette edit of the image above. Although what exact colors you use is a subject to preference, I think there's a few things one can keep in mind.

Shadow color can be used to bind an image together. I've heard artists talk about transparency in the shadows. Maybe what they mean is that you have a global shadow color, and it's transparent in most shadows (except where there's local reflected light). Here I just added a grey-purple in most dark colors.

The player won't be up in the leaf section (love the leaf btw) a lot, so values can be pushed a bit more there. The tree trunks however could be pushed back.

Sometimes if you want an object to be saturated, but at the same time you don't want it to be obnoxious, you can add the saturation in the edge between light and shadow.



Edit: As for the BG bushes, maybe some tree trunks overlapping the sky would be a good idea, its too much of a coincidence that the sky would only show alternating with the tree trunks like it does.

[Indigo]

i'm certainly in agreement with the latest edit

[Ben2theEdge]

If this tileset were a woman I would kiss it.

Only thing I don't like is the shade of blue for the very deep background. It doesn't communicate more forest or sky... just kind of a nebulous blue void. I think it could work if it were a different color like green or bright yellow or something... but since there's no blue anywhere else in the tileset it's kind of jarring.

[Opacus]

So, I'm a bit out of my league to try to edit this, but I did it anyway.

Maybe you should go for something with more depth like that?
It'll surtainly make it more lively.

furthermore, I adore it.

Edit: I suddenly noticed how sudden the transition from the rocks (on the top right) to the black is. Those 2 black tiles are tiled to obviously imo.

[vierbit]

Wow what an response, thanks guys.

And apperantly the blue backgroundtiles must be really bad.
About the oranges leafs, I somehow liked these
I experimented with bigger tiles rather than the 16x16 types I mostly use, so the rocks are 32x32 and... well, didnt work.

@Arne, yeah the the more decent tree trunks helps really. The global shadow idea is interesting, Im looking into it.
@Opacus, I had a simelar idea, but couldnt bring it to work properly with the rest of the tiles or maybe lazyness.

I already work on an bigger edit, so stay tuned.

[ndchristie]

opac - you've established a dark ground, so the changes you've made actually flattens the piece rather than adding depth.

indeed, this is the problem with all of the versions - we are told that light is over dark, and then are expected to believe that it is also far behind it

[The B.O.B.]

You guys, those edits are great in all, but are adding a new issue now: the leaves of the trees, especially starting from Indigo's edit, are pushing them to the foreground now. If the leaves of the trees are active bushes that once hit, give you some extra goodies, like health, 1 up, or mushroom(heh), then it's fine. However, 2 hues of the leaves of the trees in the background, are about as strong/vibrant as the green in the ground tiles. I was under the impression that further back is usually less detailed than things up close...don't know but I could be wrong. And Adar dar, I guess that's true, but I'm sure there have been several games that make this mistake as well, so maybe it's not as big an issue as it would seem. Here's a less than great edit from yours truly:



I took out the background tiles, but that isn't to say that it looks fine without any. This is just so you can focus on the trees and how they can blend into the background without having other distractions in the piece. The background tiles are ok, but maybe you should try experimenting with some different types of tiles, like distant trees, with minimal light coming through. That, or change the background tiles so they don't read so much as squares, that punch through the dark bushes...or a different palette, or some junk.

Btw, I still think this is some solid ShriT right here. Please keep it up...

[Indigo]

Bob:
I think its a good thing to have the leaves apearing somewhat more foreground.  Arne mentions this as well - its generally more above the character and helps unify the scene.  Unless the character is going to be over the leaves often, this wont be an issue whatsoever and can only help the scene have more depth (rather than two seperate layers, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.)

The player won't be up in the leaf section (love the leaf btw) a lot, so values can be pushed a bit more there. The tree trunks however could be pushed back.

Arne:
I notice that a some of your colors make a pretty big jump, which might benefit from being toned down a little - such as between the lightest and second-lightest brown on the trunks.  Same on the leaves.

[ndchristie]

I'm sure there have been several games that make this mistake as well, so maybe it's not as big an issue as it would seem.

meh, lots of games have shoddy mechanics, bad interfaces, gaudy character designs, and overgeneralized symbolic representations.  sure, there are examples of games which do things, but i think it's a great difference between good and bad which games chose to let which problems slide past.