City Background

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

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tepples
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Re: City Background

Post by tepples »

Walls on the clock tower, the non-window part of the control tower, and the brown building in the middle probably aren't going to be as shiny as your illustration's specular shading makes them out to be. They'll probably be somewhat flatter.
psycopathicteen
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Re: City Background

Post by psycopathicteen »

city background.png
city background.png (10.89 KiB) Viewed 3949 times
I changed the "corn" building, and also made the light brown building's windows smaller.
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pubby
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Re: City Background

Post by pubby »

It looks better, but I don't understand the curved shading you're applying to flat walls. The sun is not a spotlight; its light should hit flat sides uniformly.
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darryl.revok
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Re: City Background

Post by darryl.revok »

pubby wrote:It looks better, but I don't understand the curved shading you're applying to flat walls. The sun is not a spotlight; its light should hit flat sides uniformly.
Now that you say that, I think this shading is a lot of the reason for the "corny" appearance of Maize Tower. The "dekerneling" of the windows helped some, but it's still shaded as if it should be round.

Corn or no corn, I'd suggest a palette change for that building. It's color makes it the most dominant part of the image, and it doesn't merit that. The more interesting buildings would be the "space needle" or "big ben". However, you also have the billboard, which also uses reds and oranges, and I think that this is a good place to subtly use your most dominant colors. I'd prefer to see the orange building a more muted color like the rest of the skyline.

Edit:

Also, looking at the the picture a little more, I started to really wonder about the arch. First I thought, its color is a little strong, if you muted Maize Tower then this would be the strongest, and really, for the buildings, I think that should probably be the Space Needle. However, what really perplexes me about the arch is why, or, what is it? Is there intended to be something above it which is being supported? It's perpendicular to the bridge and doesn't support it. Why are there two archways and only one is passed under? It looks like a lot of work was put into it, especially when you consider that the foundation of the arch is likely underwater. This had to require the coordinated effort of a lot of people and the use of a lot of resources. I probably wouldn't think twice about it if it scrolled by in the background of a video game, but since I'm looking at it, it is an enigma.
psycopathicteen
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Re: City Background

Post by psycopathicteen »

I'm finally getting around to adding this into my game. However I don't know why I chose to do it using 8x8 when I could've done it the easy way by using 16x16 tiles.
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