Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

[Howard Day]

...and I cannot resist its call. This all started when a co-worker of mine sent me this link: http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x9ol42 - it's a pretty neat animation, with a really nice art style. I watched and instantly thought: "This would make an awesome side-scroller/platformer.."
I kinda forgot about it for a while, then started doodling on my new laptop - you know, just to try it out.
I came up with this: using 3DSMax 2009, and some camera tricks to come up with the orthographic, angled camera. It sparked my interest, and I continued to mess about, till I got this: Then I sent that over to the co-worker who originally sent the video. She liked it, but declared that it needed more "whimsy". I instantly agreed and started adding things to the scene in my mind - trees, planter boxes, skylights, flapping flags, more pipes, a lot more greenery, etc.
After an evening of work, it transformed into this:

And I'm really liking it! I'm sharing here to ask for more ideas, suggestions, whatever. I have no idea what this will transform into, or if I'll even get *part* of an actual game out of it. It might just turn into a gloriously long mock up.
I still have the foreground/background layers to do, and I have some awesome ideas on where to take them...but I'd love any suggestions from you guys.

[happymonster]

This is really nice! I love the bright white lighting on the roof surfaces. However this does mean that the grey ground looks very dull in comparison. What about making the normal ground area brighter and have more variation in brightness due to kerbs, tiled areas, platforms, etc.. I'm thinking of some kind of desert / arabic architectural style and highly lit surfaces with the modern future buildings you have here.

Does that make sense?

[Jakten]

Yeah I agree that the ground should be lighter, it looks like it is in shadows right now. Also maybe make some of the buildings at different distances? It looks weird to me that they are all in a straight line.. or maybe its just that there isn't much room for a player to move. This is looking fanatastic though, I really like the building with the 5 on it. Could you post some wireframes maybe? I'm interested to see how much of the details are textured.

[Howard Day]

happymonster: Okay, good call. I had kinda been neglecting the roof surface itself - all the detail I'm putting in in other places, the roof should have some too, right? Anyway, I'm away from my primary computer right now, so I only have what I stuck on the jump drive this morning. Here's a shot of that scene with a brighter roof...no real additional detail, but a brighter roof.
or even one with a color-adjusted roof:
Jakten: The buildings are pretty similar right now, but there will be additional layers in the background to help deepen the scene. Right now I'm imagining this being very similar to metalslug in the gameplay arena - strictly 2d, with no movement into or out of the plane of play - those wooden platforms are supposed to represent the gameplay path in some subtle way. Anyway, luckily I have the scene with the building you're interested in here with me - here's the wireframe:
http://www.hedfiles.net/wire1.png

Thanks for the feedback - I'll work on adding interesting floor decorations tonight.

[Manupix]

Wow, this looks great! And thanks for the video too.

The trees look too green and too leafy, I'd suggest to make them look more 'urban', with sparse greyish leaves.

The flags don't mean much to me, they distract from the futuristic feeling. No better idea yet though.

[Jad]

Greenery ... well. I don't think it's too lush. It's just too plastic.



It's harder than concrete and metal because it's partly transcluent and being backlit as it currently is the light would shine through and make it a very nice warm luminous green, while the tops of the leaves would have less saturation and more sky blue in them - all in all the green deep super saturated color you've got going on would .. never exist. Yup, that's right.

[Howard Day]

Jad, good call. So I've altered the texture on the leaves, as well as done a first run on more detail on the ground...

But there's still something bothering me - I realized that the camera angle was a bit too high - like happymonster said, it looked like the character would have more room to move around than a straight line...

I also played with the translucent material on the leaves a bit more, and I'm much happier with it now...I realize that they're very lush - but that's part of the whimsy.
I dunno - that looks pretty good. The only thing I see myself now changing is the horizontal angle of the camera - right now you'd be looking at the back of the oncoming enemies, and the front of your character. I think I might need to reverse that.
Thoughts?

[ptoing]

Looks quite nice. The flags look like orange bacon strips tho, dunno if that is good :/

I think the leaves are still a bit too noisy, perhaps you can tone that down somehow.

As far as perspective goes the bottom one looks good, but I would flip it so that the faces of the buildings you see are the left side and not the right.
This of course is assuming the player walks left to right.

[Howard Day]

Ptoing: Mmmmm, fly high the banner of bacon-y goodness! Let the kingdom of pork reign supreme! No, good call, I've swapped it out with something a little less abstract...
and one with the anti-aliasing turned on - should help kill some of the noise in the trees.
I also switch the viewpoint right to left. Much better I think. I also flipped the building. I may not do this on all the buildings I've made - I almost didn't on this one, but there was too much cool detail on the right side that got hidden.
 Also - here's a shot at an explosion I'm working on - might be a bit big for a small enemy death, but one of the larger ones should be perfect.


Thoughts?

[Conzeit]

I have to say this is looking pretty good 

I also have to say that I think you should tweak your lighting.As nice as that backlit sillouethy thing you got looks, leaving most of your foreground to be lit only by ambient light really doesnt say whimsy to me....