Technical art questions and discussions

[Andail]

This is the collective thread for all your questions and discussions regarding
graphics
* programs
* perspective issues
* resolution/colour depth
* animation
* 3D
* techniques
* material, tools
etc
music
* programs
* Harmonies, chords, notes
* MIDI
* MP3 vs OGG
* recording
* instruments
etc
writing
* script writing
* grammar
* language
* style/genres
etc

So if you want to chat about any of these areas, but don't have anything to show, this is the thread for you.

[Jade]

Hi...
I was taking a look in the tutorial thread to find a good site that show how to make a good walking animation for my character......my problem is that i cant find one that teach how to make the front, back, and diagonal view...

Any help would be appreciated! 

[skw]

Good idea with this thread, Andail.

Ok, I also have a problem, this time I need some perspective issues. I can't explain it by words (due to my poor English*), so I've drawn a schematic picture with a simple room on it and the one reference point. That window and the cube no. 1 were easy to draw, but when I had started drawing next cube with -probably- another perspective point, the trouble appeared.

So let's face it...



The cube no. 1 is parallel to no. 2, the same for the edges. The "top view" box illustrates the relations between both cubes and room's walls. The question is following: how to draw the cube no. 2?

Hope it's clear to you.


*One of the reasons, why I've decided to sing-in and join this community is to improving my English skills, so... If you have a time and alacrity, please correct my utterances (as quotes, or post-edits), where it's necessary. I wish you do that with every post, that I will write, but it's probably impossible.

Anyway, I don't want impose this upon you, so I count only on your good will. C ya!

[Ubel]

You asked for it Skurwy:

One of the reasons, why I've decided to sing-in and join this community is to improving my English skills

Here's the first correction. It's "sign in".

Also your problem is kinda tricky for me. I'm not very good at perspectives or boxes or cube number 22's.

[skw]

Also your problem is kinda tricky for me.

Dammit! To put it simple:



I need to draw that as a 3d room with a correct perspective.


Tip for Jade: Hey, we already 've a "Tutorials" thread on Critics Longue board. I'm sure you'll find something interesing there.

[veryweirdguy]

I'm gonna try & explain this simply, but in the best way I can. Please ask if you don't understand anything. I came up with this:



I've used a technique called "crating". Basically, you draw a box in your original perspective (that is, on the same planes) and fit your new shape into it. The red box is the construction lines, in which I have put a normal cube. You'll notice that I have put little blue lines in on the top surface a little from each corner - these are my starting points for the second box, the slanted box.

From there you can join these four points to create the top surface of the slanted box, which I have done in black. Then you can take vertical lines down from these top corners until they reach the corresponding bottom edges on the red construction box.

That should give you the simple wireframe for the shape you want (which I have in black)

That picture looks a little confusing I'll admit, so I removed all the construction lines and gave it a (VERY) simple renderng to give you an idea of what I think the shape should look like:



This is just how I would do it, there may be other ways.

Hope that helps

[skw]

Thanx veryweird, I didn't have any bigger troubles with understanding it. Certainly this 's the good direction, but it didn't resolve my problem at all... [...]

EDIT: Damn, I suck...

http://www2.evansville.edu/studiochalkboard/draw.html.

Sorry!

[Andail]

Oh, I haven't been paying attention to my own thread!

A quick answer to Skurwy (without having really read through his post thoroughly) would be that in a central perspective system, with only one perspective point, you cannot recreate cubes and squares perfectly. There is simply not such way. You can make two of the sides incline properly, but there's no telling how deep you should draw them.

I have planned to make a comprehensive tutorial on perspective for a long time, and I might come back in some weeks with some first steps. Perspective is a fun area, but darn difficult sometimes!

[skw]

Okay, thanks! ...and sorry for this whole confusion.

I have planned to make a comprehensive tutorial on perspective for a long time, and I might come back in some weeks with some first steps. Perspective is a fun area, but darn difficult sometimes!

It would be great to see some comprehensive perspective tutorials for beginners / intermediates. Well, hope you make it someday!

[Ubel]

I just started practicing isometric pixel art. I drew this brick wall for practice:

1x2x

Now, I sense there's something wrong with the shading but I can't spot what exactly. Any advices for the shading would help me with my future works.

[Babar]

the top part of the wall seems wider than the lower part. Probably because the lower has 3 - lines with the top black and the lower highlit, but the top part has 4 (or 5) distinguishable black -'s

[Ubel]

I'd appreciate if you could explain that with pictures or make a paintover of some sort, Babar, because I don't really understand what you mean.

[Stickieee]

So if you want to chat about any of these areas, but don't have anything to show, this is the thread for you.

In another attempt of integrating into this AGS-cult, I just a few minutes ago thought: "Let me pour some of my plot writing excellence into these projects of yours" and started to go through the critics lounge. I tried to find a story that I could read and enjoy and give some ideas about. But I couldn't find anything but vague ideas of how the intro cutscene would look like and what'd be the protagonists goal.

Something like: "A guy in a medieval setting realises he has to save the kingdom from an evil dragon! In the end he manages to do this with great intelligence and everyone thinks he is a gret hero." Where's the story in that?

Don't people write down specific details? Describe the characters and the twists? Include the whole three-act structure? Or are people too afraid of publishing this sort of detailed information, because it would ruin their games or something? I'd love to read and criticise a good story, there's just no possibilities.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, if this is a good place for it, I *can* go on about a recent story I've come up with - and whose progress is very sluggy because I lack the ability of turning it into a game. Puzzle design has never been my forte, and when I try to envision it I just get stuck either not being able to imagine something or imagining too much, waaaay too much, and thinking about all the l337 thing that«s make the game the BETS GAEM EVAH, if you receive my meaning. So I suppose I could use some help in that regard.

I guess I might as well. Is this a good place for it, then? I was actually under the impression that "just the stories with nothing to show for them" didn't really belong anywhere in the forum...

[flamingdog]

Hi all...

I'm working (slowly) on my first five-room puzzle, which will act as the prelude (I hope) to a longer adventure in future. I've been busily working on a 'shooting script' (which defines room hotspots, inventory movements and character interactions between them), and a bit of concept art. I was thinking vaguely of ways to create the graphics, and was wondering what the community's thoughts on Blender 3D as a tool for creating environments and characters?

I don't know much about the program or 3D modelling in general, but I had the vague idea of using it to pre-render my backgrounds, and possibly my character animations.

Thoughts?

And:

Puzzle design has never been my forte, and when I try to envision it I just get stuck either not being able to imagine something or imagining too much, waaaay too much, and thinking about all the l337 thing that«s make the game the BETS GAEM EVAH, if you receive my meaning. So I suppose I could use some help in that regard.

I think puzzle design ought to arise as naturally as possible from the obstacles of your plot, otherwise you're just throwing problems at your character for the sake of it. I mean, in a sense, all plot design is coming up with obstacles for your characters to overcome. In my view, all you need to do to apply that to an adventure game is make your plot's existing problems solvable by the player's actions. Look at Fate of Atlantis, for instance. That's one of the very few adventure games I managed to complete without ever consulting a walkthrough/hint. To my mind, it was because the puzzles were natural to the plot, and the solutions were never overwrought, even on the wits path.

There's an article on Old Man Murray about a puzzle in one of the Gabriel Knight games that was stupidly overwrought (the cat hair/maple syrup puzzle). You need to beware of that too, I think. Link: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

[Ishmael]

Since the boring lot on #ags refused to answer me anything, I'm putting this here. I was working on graphics for my game's GUI, and started wondering what would suit as the icons for save and load instead of the usual old floppy discs or floppy disc and an open folder? One option is just buttons with the text on them, and that's what I'm using right now, while I'm trying to come up with something original.

[Theme]

If I do a character sprite from a side view
and then do a bg with the camera looking from the upper corner to center of a room
then I have to remake the character sprite? 

o/

[Venus]

If I do a character sprite from a side view
and then do a bg with the camera looking from the upper corner to center of a room
then I have to remake the character sprite? 

o/

I guess it depends. This is a screenie from a discworld game. Don't know which or where I got it as I've never played it, but just came across that screenie on the net, liked the graphics style and saved it one my hd to study it a bit more.
Screenie 1
Screenie 2
Screenie 3

I guess you are aiming for a perspective like that. As you can see, they just used the normal side-view and it really looks acceptable imho. Of course, if you look at it closer, you'll soon recognise that there is something not quite right about the character's perspective, but hey, they didn't even do an extra perspective for the character in this professional commercial game which had at least three screens featuring such a perspective. Why should you bother if not even people do who earn money with their games?  . I'd say just use the normal side-view.

[Meglet]

I'm having difficulty understanding bit depth.Ã,  I know games can be 8-bit and 16-bit and all the graphics I have made so far have been in the standard 256 pallette - not a lot of colors there.Ã,  I haven't really tried taking advantage of room-dependant colors yet with 8-bit, though the more I think about it the more I like that option.

The program I use, Paint Shop Pro 7, doesn't have 16-bit listed as a color depth option.Ã,  I've tried out a free trial of PSPX where it's an option, but if I open up a picture that I thought was more like 24-bit, it has '8-bit' checked and 16-bit is a higher color option.Ã,  If I go ahead and change it to 16-bit, I see no difference.Ã,  If I save the revised file as a .pcx, it warns me that the colors will be bumped to 24-bit.Ã,  If I save as a .bmp, it warns that the colors will be bumped to 8-bit, or 256.

I've been really impressed by the graphics done in 16-bit, but I don't think I'm accurately understanding how this system works and how to use it effectively.Ã,  Any help you can give is greatly appreciated.

[Gilbert]

When you use 16-bit mode for graphics just save your graphic files as 24-bit, and AGSedit will automatically downgrade them to 16-bit while importing, afterall, I think even if your graphics programme can save an image as 16-bit, AGSedit probably can't import it correctly anyway.