AuthorTopic: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.16  (Read 46498 times)

Offline Dr D

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.11

Reply #50 on: March 20, 2009, 07:04:02 am
Well first, I think you're overdoing it with the stalagmites/stalatites. Just a few here and there should be enough. They also take up too much space separately, and touch, which makes things seem very cluttered. I suggest you make them smaller all around. The shading could be worked upon, I don't suggest either of the ways you are currently doing it. Perhaps something sort-of in-between. I would shade them only slightly as a cone, but to defeat that whole gradient look, add some ridges and hard edges to make it seem natural and fitting.

If you're going with the hard-edge type thing for your tiles, then I recommend you just cut the shoreline off, make it go all the way down. Otherwise, make some transition tiles, a few curved corner pieces, and plenty of detail to make things transition naturally, and seamlessly. You'd need to do this all around as that's how you have it pretty much everywhere right now. It's a lot of work, but if you do it correctly it will be worth it.

Something about the perspective seems off to me, as well. Inside the cave, the floor looks kind of tilted, yet at the top the grass seems flat. At least that's how I've seen it up until now.

Offline Ai

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.11

Reply #51 on: March 20, 2009, 07:24:58 am
STOP!
Before you go any further, calibrate your monitor!
For LCD screens:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

Earlier in this thread, I suspected that your monitor calibration was messed up and that was contributing to your color problems, and your latest picture (with the nearly invisible green in the rock/dirt tiles) has cemented this idea in my mind.  In particular, I suspect the Contrast on your monitor is far lower than it ought to be, and the Brightness might also be misadjusted. If you have an LCD monitor, the above link should help.

Calibrating your monitor correctly will make it far more likely that we'll see roughly the same colors you saw when you were picking them.
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.11

Reply #52 on: March 21, 2009, 04:27:41 am
Hello there!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have a monitor that applies to that. See, I'm using a laptop. I don't think I have any settings that control some instances like that. The most I have is color count, screen resolution, and that's it. Oh, I also have a brightness adjust function. It's all the way up as well. I don't know if there's another way to check for laptops. I'll try some looking to see if I can't come up with anything. Do you have any info about calibrating laptops?

Thanks again.

@Dr D: I only noticed the grass perspective when you pointed it out. It does seem a bit odd and I'll try and fix it. I should've figured that stalagmites should only hang from the ceiling, if there is a ceiling to hang from. And I'll probably use the sloping style since I want to increase the detail level a bit more. Thanks :)

Offline Ai

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.11

Reply #53 on: March 21, 2009, 10:27:50 am
Hello there!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have a monitor that applies to that. See, I'm using a laptop. I don't think I have any settings that control some instances like that. The most I have is color count, screen resolution, and that's it. Oh, I also have a brightness adjust function. It's all the way up as well. I don't know if there's another way to check for laptops. I'll try some looking to see if I can't come up with anything. Do you have any info about calibrating laptops?
Urgh, no. Chances are there is very little you can do -- laptop screens have notoriously poor color reproduction. :( Basically the only thing you can do that you haven't already said you did is make sure that  the laptop screen is exactly flat-on relative to the angle you typically look at it from.



If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.12

Reply #54 on: March 23, 2009, 11:16:52 pm
Latest


I'm trying to not clog the forums with repeats. But anyways, raise your hand if you love drawing grass tiles!...*crickets*. Okay, heh, um, here's what I've done so far. I tried to rework the grass to try and give it a perspective and to make it stand out a bit more. I don't like how my shore line is turning out so I may just redo that entirely.

As for the cave entrance. I noticed that some games tend to forget that a hole does not mean a complete end of terrain. So I tried to add another side with some grass for detail. I tried a little shading on the stalagmite and I don't like it. I'll probably have to look for some on here somewhere.

Some minor bits are the sun and laser kitty. I tried to keep the sun a bright color but had trouble keeping it visible. On laser, I did a rework on his legs and other areas.

Your thoughts?
CnC please.

Offline Ben2theEdge

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.12

Reply #55 on: March 24, 2009, 01:42:42 pm
I recommend that you think of drawing grass in clumps instead of individual blades. The reason is that real grass doesn't grow one blade at a time:


If you look up close at grass of course you see lots of blades, but try stepping back from the monitor a foot or two and you'll start to see clusters and lumps of grass instead of just individual blades, even when all the grass is about the same length.
->

You can apply the same methodology to the dirt. Don't try to draw a bunch of individual "pieces" of dirt and stick them together, instead step away and look at the whole thing. The whole is not always just the sum of its parts.


Here's a quick edit to illustrate... keep in mind that I only spent a few minutes on this so it isn't perfect!
« Last Edit: March 24, 2009, 01:48:24 pm by Ben2theEdge »
I mild from suffer dislexia.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.13

Reply #56 on: March 24, 2009, 08:12:42 pm
Hope this isn't over or under doing it.



I played around with the contrast of the cat a little. The shore line is still wip though I kinda like where its going. I notice there's a cutoff point there that I need to fix. I hope you don't mind but I swiped your palette. Hopefully I've achieved the correct look. Other then the changed grass tile that's bout it that's new. At least I like the new grass now.

CnC please.
Thanks.

Offline Ai

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.13

Reply #57 on: March 24, 2009, 11:26:32 pm
That's a great improvement, the new grass is great, has a lot of style.
You could experiment more with different rock shapes -- remember the rocks are 3d, not 2d, so you can express quite a lot more aspects of rockiness than you do currently, similar to the amount of difference between your old grass and new grass.

Here's a little edit with some suggestions for the grass growing at the edge of the cave.

There is a little exaggeration going on here but I think it's somewhat more realistically lit.
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.14

Reply #58 on: March 26, 2009, 07:25:13 am
Hey there! Thanks for the edit. I'll have to rework that a bit. In the meantime, I'm pausing that to work on a forest level a bit.

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/rob/new/forestcat.png

I always hate doing trees. But I like how these turned out. Even though I have no leaves, or a root system yet, I kinda like 'em. I don't know if I lost the light source or not, but it looks okay. Um, main things.

light source on trees
changed dirt tile coloration for new level
added third cloud variation
would like help with leaves, tree texture, wondering if I should change/add to the grass texture for this level, and the branches, those are bothering me still

Sorry for jumbled, late, tired.

CnC please
Thanks
« Last Edit: March 27, 2009, 02:43:02 am by xhunterko »

Offline NaCl

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.14

Reply #59 on: March 26, 2009, 07:46:32 am
Do you like wildly saturated things? Are you doing it intentionally? You made a baby step with turning down the saturation on the trees, but you still have the sky at a retina burning 98 saturation. If you are doing this intentionally (for whatever reason) then I'll get off it but christ man, just turn it down. It's not hard and it will improve the look of your thing.