IoA Story Images

[Ranger M]

And the first of my IoA storyboards is done (yay ), this is Matt and Tom next to a underground door in on an old underground riverbed, and I wont say more beacuse that would ruin the story. I had finished this last night, but then I fell asleep before I got around to posting this (and then slept in for most of the morning), why? Because I hadn't slept for around 30-40 hours because I'd been doing this. Why was I doing this instead of doing those bandit animations? A combination of the forums being down, and therefore being unable to get the newest sprites from Jetryl, my internet connection going down (same result), and it was strangely theraputic to get something large done after loosing everything on my old hard drive.

Anyway, comments and critique welcome, there are a few errors that I'm awayre of (funky shading on the pillers, etc) and I need peoples opinion on the back wall (the bit around the door), because I think it looks a little odd, but I'm not sure weather or not its worth re-doing or not (by re doing I don't mean the shading I mean so that it looks completely different).

BTW, the reason that the floor is made of mud is that it was a river bed, the runes that aren't working are broken, and the arrow and line in the mud were drawn by Matt or Tom because they were bored (orinigionally it was because the floor looked very empty, but I like it so I'd prefer to keep it).

[wayfarer]

That one looks really good.

Though I know this sounds like kicking little dogs but.

The viewer is on the left and sees the scene from slightly above (third person) mustn't he see the upper edge of the opened door. The angle is slightly off. The uper part of the door looks closed while the bottom indicates the opposite.

It seems you switched from a viewer in the air to one down the bottom.


Quick sketch.
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/7366/ixv1.png

[Ranger M]

That one looks really good.

Though I know this sounds like kicking little dogs but.

The viewer is on the left and sees the scene from slightly above (third person) mustn't he see the upper edge of the opened door. The angle is slightly off. The uper part of the door looks closed while the bottom indicates the opposite.

It seems you switched from a viewer in the air to one down the bottom.


Quick sketch.
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/7366/ixv1.png

Actually, the veiwer is in the very center of the image, at the red dot (although of course, alot further back), I'm guessing that you didn't scroll right to view it from the middle of the picture, so I've cropped it for clarity too.

[Jetrel]

Nice. Has a good atmosphere to it. Good composition.


The following are not suggestions for improving this drawing; I would suggest branding this one as finished. These are more long-term suggestions for improvement in overall technique.

The first major thing I'd suggest looking into is more accurate colors, and more articulate shaping, and especially shading, on things like the stone and mud. Right now, the stone is basically either in flat sections or tubes, with what amounts to a 2d equivalent of the 3d process of slapping a "texture" onto something; slapping a painted pattern onto something.

This does not full shading make; you've got the general light direction down, and you've highlighted the sides that face the light (more or less), but the next step is to realize that many of the faces that are not angled towards the light, directly, will be reflecting _some_ amount of light.

The viewer is on the left and sees the scene from slightly above (third person) mustn't he see the upper edge of the opened door. The angle is slightly off. The uper part of the door looks closed while the bottom indicates the opposite.

Said upper illuminated edge - he probably shouldn't show a _plane_ there, but a hairline edge would be alright, and in fact would be good.

I can't really lay down a verdict on the horizon line; it's dependent on a number of different things. I can say, though, that if it is the way that ranger M describes it, then the upper left side of the door should be higher than the right, rather than vice versa. I think that might be what's screwing with people.

[Ranger M]

The first major thing I'd suggest looking into is more accurate colors, and more articulate shaping, and especially shading, on things like the stone and mud. Right now, the stone is basically either in flat sections or tubes, with what amounts to a 2d equivalent of the 3d process of slapping a "texture" onto something; slapping a painted pattern onto something.

This does not full shading make; you've got the general light direction down, and you've highlighted the sides that face the light (more or less), but the next step is to realize that many of the faces that are not angled towards the light, directly, will be reflecting _some_ amount of light.

I have done this to some extent, although probably not as much as I could (the best example of where I have is on the cloaked figure on the right, the three folds get gradually darker, and then the fourth fold, because it isn't going to reflect any light, gets alot darker), however you are right in that I haven't done it on the stone much, if at all. Could you point out one or two places where I could have used it (just a red circle around the area and a sentance saying how, not why, should do, it would just be helpful to know where I'm going wrong, I'm not going to try fixing it)

The viewer is on the left and sees the scene from slightly above (third person) mustn't he see the upper edge of the opened door. The angle is slightly off. The uper part of the door looks closed while the bottom indicates the opposite.

Said upper illuminated edge - he probably shouldn't show a _plane_ there, but a hairline edge would be alright, and in fact would be good.

I can't really lay down a verdict on the horizon line; it's dependent on a number of different things. I can say, though, that if it is the way that ranger M describes it, then the upper left side of the door should be higher than the right, rather than vice versa. I think that might be what's screwing with people.

I think I see what is confusing wayfarer, the upper edge does seem closed because the amount of the stone face facing downwards visible just above it doesn't decrease, it stays constant. This is because that stone is broken (see the top) so the bit on the left is slanting down, if the door was closed then there would be a gradually increaseing gap above the door.

So Jetryls assesment is correct, a hairline edge would be best, not an actual pane.

[Redeth]

Neat. I especially like the footprints and the way the runes shine in the dark... eerie

[Ranger M]

Neat. I especially like the footprints and the way the runes shine in the dark... eerie

Thanks, that was the effect I was going for.

[Zhukov]

Speaking of the runes, the large ones could do with some serious anti-aliasing. I can see each pixel without looking hard. The small ones look cool though.

[Ranger M]

thats because it's been shrunk, the origional is twice that size.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The atmosphere created with the lighting is very good, I only have issues regarding its technical execution.

The first question about lighting always is "where is the light source?" In your image it is not completely unambiguous. There are two possible answers, and in both cases some details of the lighting need adjustements.

If we take the shadows on the ground as indicators of the light position, it should be above the point of convergence of the shadows on the ground. The red line shows the continuation of the figure's shadow, and the light source should be over the point where it intersects the shadow of the door. The green line is drawn from the tip of the shadows head to the tip of the actual head that casts the shadow, so the light source should be on this line. The blue spot marks the position of the light, on the green line and above the intersection of the lines on the ground.

If this is where you intended the light to be (if for example, the door was opened by someone carrying a torch), the half of the light-emitting object should be visible. Also, if the light is in the centre of the scene, the the attenuation of the light toward the perimetre of the scen should be more profound. For example, the standing character is much closer relatively to the light than the sitting one, so the directly illuminated surfaces on him should be brighter. Also, the closed half of the door should have a brighter spot on the centre.

The quality of the shadows is also dependent on the position of the light source. Shadow edges are almost always fuzzy, and the degree of fuzziness depends on the size of the light source, and the relation of the distances from the light source to the occluder, and from the occluder to the shadow. You can demostrate this by making a pencil stand on the table, shining a light on it and observing how the sharpness of the shadow changes between the tip and the base of the shadow. In your image the shadow of the standing character should be sharp near his feet and getting fuzzier as we move farther away. Same with the door.

The light source could also be far inside the other room. In that case the shadows of the door and the character should be about parallel, and the closed door-half should also cast a shadow, but they don't need to change much in fuzziness. The light that shines on the other half of the door and the wall would still be there, it would be indirect light relflecting from the inside of the open door-half. That light would be dimmer than the direct light, though, so you should increase the brightness of the directly lit areas to show this contrast. Also, if the shadow around the doorframe is created by light coming from a large surface, it should be very fuzzy.

In both cases I think the lighting on the left side of the image is too bright, there is not really much light coming to this area. Also, light coming here has been reflect from every part of the lit area, so it will be really soft (not much of shadow/light contrast). There seem to be a purplish tint to it, suggesting that the rune on the door is emitting enough light to actually light up the shadows, but in that case the rune should look brighter.

[Ranger M]

this diagram is probably a little more accurate, as you had teh head of the first guy corresponding with the head of the second guys shadow.

to address your point, there are multiple light sources within the room through the door (which is why the area of light is so wide, because this has the same effect as a close ligth source).

If you note the green lines you will see that whichever the predomninant light source is (the one causeing the shadow directly, which lights up the areas that would be in shadow if there was only one light source) it is a long was away (at the point where the two lines cross), the two angles should be closer too eachother (they're almost parralel right now), so I'll be doing an edit to fix that at some point.

The red line is the predominant light source for the , you'll notice that it doesn't follow the line of the shadow, this is because the light source is above the cloak, and the cloak goes inwards as it goes up towards the shoulder, and so so does the shadow. However again my approximation of this wasn't quite right, so I'll be editing that too (it should be quite easy, the shadows are on a seperate layer anyway.


With the brightness of the part behind the door, I agree, but those are the very darkest shades I can go to, without using black, while still being able to define a shape, any darker and it would be an insubstantial mess, which doesn't look good (trust me). That is the reason why I included the runes on the doors, to explain the brightness of that area.

[Sgt. Groovy]

to address your point, there are multiple light sources within the room through the door

In which case you would and up with multiple shadows for every lit object, either seen as distinct or blended together as one, very fuzzy shadow (visible mostly where the shadows overlap).

[Ranger M]

In which case you would and up with multiple shadows for every lit object, either seen as distinct or blended together as one, very fuzzy shadow (visible mostly where the shadows overlap).

that is why the edges are fuzzy instead of direct and cear cut(or at least they are at the size ths was done in before I re-sized it, they aren't as noticably fuzzy as they were before), but you make a good point, I'll try doing multiple shadows.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Actually, I would suggest against it, because the dramatic effect will work better with single, relatively sharp shadows with large contrast. The biggest problem is the large angle between the shadows of the standing character and the door, which clearly suggests a very close light source. Making the shadow of the door more parallel to the character's shadow will help. You don't need to make it completely parallel (that would make most of the ground dark), just enough to move the intersection point clearly to to the other side of the door.

[Sgt. Groovy]

that is why the edges are fuzzy instead of direct and cear cut

I wasn't talking about just fuzzy edges, but fuzzy shadows in the umbra/penumbra sense, like this: