AuthorTopic: [wip] "Industrial Dawn" (C64 HiRes) + the new "Motoc" (C64 MCol)  (Read 15554 times)

Offline skw

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Hi!

First off, let me start from the background.  Just go through this post: "Moon Tarot", the latest Helm's project.  I've watched the video.  It was very inspirational to see Helm in action, and the music choice was really decent -- the right tune in the right place. . .  That speeded-up progress accompanied with some slow, gentle music in the background. . . just beautiful, so to say.  I did a little "research" on the artist (I'm a sucker for ambient/electronica/downtempo) and found out "Plume", the album with this cover:



I don't know how you see it, but for me it's just boiling with inspiration.  Now combine the mood of Helm's video and the cover art. . . ideas come up momentarily. . . and so we have this:



Intentionally, I was planning to keep it dark until finishing, and then *bang!* all of a sudden show it off in the gallery -- but plans aside.  It's C64 HiRes, ignore errors for the moment.  I'm still struggling with the construction, so it makes no sense at all to polish the piece before everything is set up right.

And yes, there's also my main problem, and the reason why I'm writing all this. . .  The plume, the smoke coming out of the stacks -- I just ran out of ideas. . . blank point, it seems I just can't set it up right.  Should I start polishing what I have now?  Any other ideas?  C&C?

By the way, if everything goes well, this one will be illustrated with a .sid tune -- a fellow demoscener is already working on the soundtrack! but *shh!* :)

Thank you!
« Last Edit: March 01, 2009, 09:54:21 pm by johnnyspade »
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Offline Helm

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I am glad I inspired you at all.

You have too many features in the picture, too many things are going on. If you want any part of the emotional elation that you'd get from Loscil's Plume record, I would suggest utilizing SPACE more. Put dead space around pivotal parts of the image, construct them in such a way that they are pleasing (I am sure other people will suggest formations, there are a few 'classical' ones with primary point in golden median, two minor points in assymetrical positions around it etc)

Get rid of the demoscene disease where every little part of the image must be textured. The cover of the record is more evocative than your image right now because it has a point of bright color versus whiteness, and a busy texture (smoke) versus an open space.

You can definitely make the smoke from the pipes work with the black tree in the front, but I'd personally lose the extra little things around the sky. Think more of that pure emotion you're feeling when you listen to Plume and how best to symbolize it (do you need a dead tree? Why? Do you need a cat and a dog? Why? Ask all these questions) and don't bother at all with that idea in the back of your mind that you must IMPRESS with DENSITY.

Sorry for mostly aesthetic critique, but you're very good at pixelling, I'm sure you'll adeptly render what you want at the end. Getting what you want in your head is I think more important right now.

Offline EvilEye

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Y'know, at first glance I thought the smoke was leaves on the tree.

Once I realized that was not the case the foreground looked kind of bare.

I say make the smoke into leaves and make some more smoke going the opposite direction  :y:
« Last Edit: February 25, 2009, 10:21:44 pm by EvilEye »

Offline Fidsah

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Personally, I think the tree/smoke play looks amazing. The dead tree with pollution as it's "foliage" seems to carry a powerful message as part of the piece.

I'd recommend playing on this more, and changing the smoke billows to appear a touch more like the leaves of the tree, but definitely keep the sickly smoke overtures.
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Offline Dr D

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That's a very interesting observation, even if he didn't intend for it to come out like that. I think he should go with it, but more importantly I agree with Helm, if you want to make your message stronger, lose surrounding details, and make what is to be focused on stick out the most.

Offline skw

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Thanks a lot!

Basically, the artwork here is the second attempt at the picture.  In the first one, the smoke was going upwards and to the sides, but I called that boring and started all over.  I did six, maybe seven quick pencil sketches beforehand, applying the rules of the golden ratio in different ways -- but planning to occupy only two focal points.  In Pro Motion, though, I couldn't set the gird to divide the piece right, and kind of trusted my own senses.  The lower left pivotal point is the grey smokestack, the other two are somewhere in the tree and its crown -- and I'm going to put a red leaf among the dead branches there. . .

Oh, wait, why not showing all this in a picture? :)



Also, in my sketches, there was that the-smoke-is-going-to-the-left variation (and a plain blue space to-"catch-some-breath" in the upper right rectangle), which EvilEye suggested; but the one I have now was, at least in my books, the best choice.  Sure, the tree/smoke play is intentional, it's also a bit of an attempt to trick/utilize the HiRes restrictions (only two colors in one 8x8 pixel block) -- just as is the natural/industrial landscape division, and the sneaking/sitting cat (they're both cats, Helm! :)).  There's dead and living nature, the emotion (I wanted to show the animals coexisting together, not just put a pussycat in here and another pussy in there, you know) and the cold machinery.

Well, I'll think of clearing some of the bits out.  I don't mind aesthetic critique -- I do appreciate it, as this is probably what saves the piece! :)

Thanks again!
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Offline Fidsah

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To begin with, my apologies for what's about to follow:



In this brutal and awful quick edit to your work, I've removed some of the foreground noise, pulled a few odd pixels off of the center cat, and roughly reshaped the smoke plumes to match more of how a tree's general shape might fit in to illustrate some potential directions you could go.

For the most part though, as I almost directly said earlier, this is a marvelous piece.
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Offline Helm

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This is a valuable edit, I'd take it a bit further personally, but it does show how much a bit of space helps.

Offline ter-o

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I think I would ditch the leaves complitely and show only the carcass of the tree which has died because of the fumes coming from the pipes. I think it would create stronger message and help with the "too busy" issues.
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Offline skw

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Finally, I've got hold of the "Plume" recording and now I can clearly understand your point, Helm.  The music in this CD is very inhuman and minimalistic, which is not the case with "First Narrows", the tune you can hear in the Helm's progress video and which was something of a "base" for my piece.  While listening to "Plume", I can easily imagine what type of pictures it would illustrate best -- and those would be of course much more minimalistic and involve rather industrial constructions and scapes than natural beings put against living environment.

Fidsah, it's a nice coincidence you're from Detroit.  You're probably aware of the Detroit techno movement in the late 80s.  From what I can gather (basing on a rudimentary knowledge and experience of the genre music), the mood of "First Narrows" is to "Plume", as Jeff Mills is to Ritchie Hawtin -- the former is much more of a DJ, the music contains much more noise, richer textures and---if I can put it in this way---colors, while the latter is very minimalistic, dead cold and almost mechanical -- and evokes mostly bleak grey colors (the "murrain" effect, as I call it).

Thanks a lot for your edit, as I've just realized what was wrong in there -- all of the four focal points were somehow occupied and that made the piece very, very busy.  In your edit, the problem is partially solved -- the open space really helps it.

Okay, no time for pixel-pushing today, but tomorrow I'll get something going!

PS:  Helm, if you have some time to spare, I'll gladly see your edit as well.

Regards!
« Last Edit: February 26, 2009, 05:53:09 pm by johnnyspade »
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