How to make this giant tree look more convincing?

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MrProg

Guest
Alright so I just started a new level were the platformers and entire level is made out of giant trees. Now I'm no artist but I wouldn't say I'm too terrible either.

I was just looking for some tips on how I can make this look a bit more convincing. As you can see the "inside" part of the tree doesn't really hold up too well.



(The image looks kinda poo here but you can click on it to get the original size)
 
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gamedev4life

Guest
main thing missing here is lighting. lighting give things depth. theres no depth here at all. also, the background is empty.

you say its an "entire level is made out of giant trees" which sounds epic! so use lighting in an epic way to give the player that sense of aw. i did this real quick on photoshop. message me if you want to the actual photoshop file. i also do online coaching for $15 an hour in interested heheh. hope this helps and keep us updated!
 
M

MrProg

Guest
@gamedev4life I like the lighting idea! It does indeed make everything pop a bit, I'll try to work on something that replicates a similar effect.
 
F

fxokz

Guest
make the tree textures XXL i guess. right now it sort of looks like a small big tree because of the way you tiled it. I guess it can work the way you are doing it now aswell. it all comes down to preference. For the most part gamedev5life has the main points figured out.
 

Genetix

Member
Wow the lighting and background details really improved that a ton! I'd also add some trimming to the top ceiling area above the player instead of having it just looks like a flat line.
 
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gamedev4life

Guest
Wow the lighting and background details really improved that a ton! I'd also add some trimming to the top ceiling area above the player instead of having it just looks like a flat line.
thanks! and yea lighting makes all the difference. there are other things too as you mentioned like the ceiling being flat and bare. but lighting, imo, seems to offer the biggest bang for the buck for game art
 
M

MrProg

Guest
make the tree textures XXL i guess. right now it sort of looks like a small big tree because of the way you tiled it. I guess it can work the way you are doing it now aswell. it all comes down to preference. For the most part gamedev5life has the main points figured out.
Ah I see what you mean, the lines should be spread out and larger. That does make sense so I'll try it out both ways and see which one looks better in the end.

Wow the lighting and background details really improved that a ton! I'd also add some trimming to the top ceiling area above the player instead of having it just looks like a flat line.
True, maybe adding some sort of ridge that makes it less of a flat line and more natural look.

I'm going to try all these suggestions out over the next couple days and will hopefully be able to post some results. Thank you so far!
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Yeah, I'm seconding lighting in general... relatively easy to do with additive/subtract blend mode and some mask textures, too.
 
M

MrProg

Guest
Alright so I came back to say that I'm not quite sure how to approach this lighting implementation on the programming side. Meaning without doing all the sprite manually. I looked into the different blend modes and such but I'm a bit confused on how to apply them.
 
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Jacob T Wharton

Guest
There are lots of ways you could do lighting, but arguably the easiest way would be to "fake" it, by drawing a sprite in the shape of the shadows with an alpha gradient.

If you want dynamic lighting you may have to look into ray casting algorithms and employ the use of surfaces.
 
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