Drew's Improvement Process [Critique Very Welcome]

[Drew]

WIP for a US style school corridor:

Working on a painty-style.

[Drew]

Further WIP, any citique with suggestions would be welcome. I'm very much developing by experimentation with this, so I'm trying a lot of things then deleting out what I don't like.

I think the light source from the side windows is too high currently to plausible so I'm planning to lower that. Similarly the ceiling is a big empty space that I think needs some lights adding to break it up - and add realism

Any other thoughts?

[greyinthedark]

Hi there!

When you said that you were also struggling with backgrounds, I had to check out your thread. I love your sketchup interiors - very clean and well-composed! If I do interiors I use blender to get the angles right, which I imagine is similar. I like the more painterly approach on the most recent hallway shot, but here's my attempt at constructive help (partially based on things people were nice enough to point out to me in the past):

- I like that you came at it from a slight angle rather than dead-on. I don't find the ceiling all that intrusive because of all the detail you have below it.
- because the lines don't get thinner or fainter with distance, there's not as much of a feeling of depth. Some people get away from this in 3D renders by skipping the lines entirely, or selectively editing them.
- the light rays are beautiful, and I actually like the angle. However, since light rays like that are usually associated with strong natural light, it's rare to have them coming from both directions. If they're meant to be coming from the interior lighting of the classrooms, then I'd think that the angle would be higher if anything and the hallway might need to be darker.

All that said, if I could do backgrounds that were this clear and un-messy looking, I'd be thrilled.

[Drew]

Hi, thank you.

Yeah - definitely feel I'm struggling - I know when I don't like things but only have trial and error to fix them. Sketchup is my crutch because I'm okay at modelling and pretty bad with free-hand stuff. I like the paintery feel to a scene so I'm working at that - I really like the work of Kazuo Oga so maybe that's my inspiration.

I worry the bare ceiling will be more apparent once there are sprites in the scene. I might need to rough some in to see. But yes, if there is a decent amount of detail in the shot already I equally don't want it to feel crowded.

Mmm - never thought about the scale of the lines. I'm not sure I could forego them all-together but I do already do a paint-over on the lines to soften the black, so maybe I could try something specifically to lighten the distant lines.

I was thinking the light would be coming from the classroom windows so it would have to be at a relatively shallow angle to come through the door too.

I'd actually made some updates before I'd finished last night (below) but I'll have another think and try and work those points you'd mentioned in - I'd already removed the light from the RHS door leaving only the LHS source.

[Drew]

I'm not sure but I might be finished with this for now. Or more to the point I might set it down and do some other stuff then see how I feel about it.

Any thoughts/comments would be great.

[greyinthedark]

I like the changes that you made - I think that the light looks great, and I could definitely see this as a VN background.

The one thing that I meant to mention before is that your eyeline slash horizon might be a little low - since the eyes of a character should be at the same place no matter where they are placed in the scene depthwise, I usually find it it really helpful to use the horizon line and picture where that would put the eyes of the character sprite in the VN. I didn't really notice at first, but I think that your horizon/eyeline is near the middle, which would make sprites appear too high if placed in the normal place. That may also be why the ceiling felt too empty to you - it's taking up the prime focal point.

That's it from me on this one - looking forward to seeing what you do next.

[Drew]

I like the changes that you made - I think that the light looks great, and I could definitely see this as a VN background.

The one thing that I meant to mention before is that your eyeline slash horizon might be a little low - since the eyes of a character should be at the same place no matter where they are placed in the scene depthwise, I usually find it it really helpful to use the horizon line and picture where that would put the eyes of the character sprite in the VN. I didn't really notice at first, but I think that your horizon/eyeline is near the middle, which would make sprites appear too high if placed in the normal place. That may also be why the ceiling felt too empty to you - it's taking up the prime focal point.

That's it from me on this one - looking forward to seeing what you do next.

Ugh - got swallowed up with work. Cheers for the comments.

The horizon-line is deliberately low, maybe people can give their thoughts on this - the choice was based on a tutorial I read an age ago which recommended setting the 'camera' height for VN backgrounds at mid chest rather than eye level as it gave better results. Not sure if that's true?

[Drew]

Have been trying to get some free hand (no sketchup paintover) work to try to not get too dependant on it.

Not great but could be worse:

Rough field:

Didn't like it, lighting was all over the place and the detail was drowning everything - well that was my critique
Went for a paintover to try and give it some depth and fix the v wonky lighting:

As always, thoughts and pointers very welcome.

[Drew]

Forest WIP:

[guzy]

It's so nice see how you did improve since the first post

you BG's are very good, I specially liked the corridor

[Drew]

It's so nice see how you did improve since the first post

you BG's are very good, I specially liked the corridor

Thanks, yeah the fact I can look back and see how I've got better really helps. If I'm not happy with my stuff now I can at least see how far I've come.

Ha ha - well cheers - though very good might be a bit strong, but I'm not too unhappy with it.

WIP update from last night's practice:

[Drew]

Comparing them side by side now, I can see that when doing the two banks I've really messed up the angle of the slope without noticing - boo.

[Drew]

Think this practice piece is finished (for now):

[Drew]

Starting something new.

I might struggle with buildings and stone so let's try this...

Thumbnails -> fleshing out -> flip and fixing things.

[Drew]

Not happy with how things are going, experimented with various methods for the stones, two shown here - method 2 is my preferred result but is a bit... muddy.

My comments and mark-up:

Thinks the two biggest issues are contrast (the grey-scale looks off) and I'm struggling to detail/define the large uniform areas of space on the building.