AuthorTopic: [WIP] Balloons  (Read 4979 times)

Offline Dyble

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[WIP] Balloons

on: August 08, 2009, 09:19:08 pm
Well Here they are C & C please


There susposed to be Dark But not too dark  :-\

Offline D~Dawg

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #1 on: August 09, 2009, 01:59:03 am
AA the strings. That's the only thing I see wrong.

Offline Dr D

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #2 on: August 09, 2009, 02:33:29 am
Again, why do you feel the need to dither everything?

It really doesn't seem to be helping.

Offline Rox

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #3 on: August 09, 2009, 03:14:27 am
You really like dithering! I used to like it a lot, too. Problem is, it's not only unnecessary, it also adds texture when the colors are so contrasting. Balloons are supposed to be shiny, but the dithering makes them look rough and cloth-like. The strings also don't appear taut, which they should be if the balloons are pulling up on them. All the strings should be almost completely straight.

Offline HughSpectrum

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #4 on: August 09, 2009, 03:55:33 am
In my experience, dithering is done more out of necessity than norm.  Generally you want to use solid colors whenever possible.

Offline dreamisle

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #5 on: August 09, 2009, 07:34:18 pm
They're a good start. If you're hell-bent on dithering though, don't use black for everything. I would also try making the light direction more obvious. Currently it looks like the light is right in the middle of each balloon, so there's no real sense of where the light source is located. Here's an example of what I mean:


1: Original
2: Dithering with shades of yellow rather than black and moving light source up and to the right a bit.
3. Blending some of the colors.

Offline Dyble

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #6 on: August 09, 2009, 11:32:30 pm
Thanks For all the help and the example.

I think there better. When is it ok to dither? I think they need AA But I don't know how any help please? :crazy:

Offline Dr D

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #7 on: August 09, 2009, 11:58:45 pm
It does look better.

But, I don't think dreamisle meant for you to use his/her edit. In fact, I think it's pretty much frowned upon by everyone here. You should understand what he is trying to tell you and study the edit to make your own.

Your strings are far too overAA'ed, they're a blurry mess, and what you have doesn't even get rid of jagged lines. Since your background is transparent, I don't think it's a good idea to AA them at all, just leave them as thin 1-pixel thick lines.

I'd say it's okay to dither when you really need to, not when you just feel like it. In order to understand better when to use dithering you should read some of the tutorials on dithering out there and study some great pieces that use it effectively. Most of the time it's used subtly and discretely. It's often used to make a transition between 2 colors, when you don't have another color in between. Other times it's used for texturing. There are many more patterns than your standard checkerboard pattern, too.

Anyways, if your piece isn't good to begin with, I don't think dithering is going to make it much better at all.

Offline dreamisle

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #8 on: August 10, 2009, 12:08:59 am
Dyble, you missed the point entirely there.

Even ignoring the rip off of my example, all of the balloons have the same shading which doesn't happen when you have a cluster of balloons and a single light source - not to mention one balloon casting a slight shadow on another. You need to hop over to Google Image Search, look for a set of balloons, and mimic how those are shaded.

Also, you may want to consider not having them all exactly the same shape/size. Some balloons are under or over inflated or have defects making them different. Don't just copy and paste the same object over and over and recolor it!

(PS @ Dr D - He/His is correct - my name is Dave :))

Offline Dyble

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Re: [WIP] Balloons

Reply #9 on: August 10, 2009, 12:11:28 am
Sorry for stealing your example  :-[ Won't do it again, but is it frowned upon to take your basic shape edit it to make balloons looks diffrent and Change the shading completely?