homunculus's two pixels

[homunculus]

[...]A dead tree would be battered by storms and weather , having lost twigs and branches not being able to regenerate.

never looked at it from that point of view.
actually i don't even know in which context a dead great tree would be used.
as for the winter version, afaik the giant sequoia that is the model for the current great tree is evergreen.
anyway, here is more decay on the great-tree2:

dead-great-tree2-decayed-grass.png (23.91 KiB) Viewed 5988 times

dead-great-tree2-decayed.png (10.36 KiB) Viewed 5988 times

[Scaeb]

[...]A dead tree would be battered by storms and weather , having lost twigs and branches not being able to regenerate.

never looked at it from that point of view.

Happy to have provided a revelation!

actually i don't even know in which context a dead great tree would be used.
as for the winter version, afaik the giant sequoia that is the model for the current great tree is evergreen.

That's the more a reason to have a dead, rather than merely leafless tree.
Actually, if you say you don't know in which context it would be used: I'm quite sure a more "dry" terrain type would be more probable, than the lushest of green grass. Maybe you should use the "dry grass" (1.9.5) or one of the "dirt" terrains for mockups as well?

anyway, here is more decay on the great-tree2:

dead-great-tree2-decayed-grass.png

dead-great-tree2-decayed.png

Even though the li'l branches would be less defined: I think using a ligth colour (like previously) could make sense: compared to the living trees brownish, dead trees tend to become more greyish. Even if those little branches would blend into the background, that wouldn't matter IMHO for a dead tree. It would just optically provide an even more battered vies (for my taste there are still too many little twigs in the last pic, but it's your work in the end, you have to decide, how you like it most.

[homunculus]

[...]Happy to have provided a revelation! [...]

it is fairly simple really.
i wanted the challenge of drawing a tree that has light source from inside the cone of the tree.
and that light source could be, say, an elvish tree house.
but there is also the concept that practice makes people understand things, and people see what they understand.
so, paying attention to the branches makes me notice how branches are built when i walk in the park, etc.
this is why i didn't think of decay and things while drawing the dead tree.

[...]Even though the li'l branches would be less defined: I think using a ligth colour (like previously) could make sense: compared to the living trees brownish, dead trees tend to become more greyish. Even if those little branches would blend into the background, that wouldn't matter IMHO for a dead tree. It would just optically provide an even more battered vies (for my taste there are still too many little twigs in the last pic, but it's your work in the end, you have to decide, how you like it most.

as for this being my work, i have an attitude that might be somewhat unusual.
i did not draw for myself for more than 5 years (i don't remember for how long), because there was no reason to (only thing i did was a few 32x32 icons for some gui).
so, drawing just the way i think does not make so much sense in my case.

there are two things that i would try to avoid:
1) the branches looking too much like some undefined cloud (which happened when the branches were too bright on grass background. maybe i just failed to do it correctly).
2) the dead tree looking too much like the tail of a homeless cat (which happened when i removed too many branches. actually i should try more varied removal of branches, etc.).

i removed most of the semi-transparent pixels in the cone part in the latest version, so if someone has a good idea how the branches might look brighter and is not afraid of the trouble, a quick mockup with
1) selection of transparent areas from the tree without background,
2) inversion of the selection,
3) quick paintover of the branches in the image with background
could illustrate the point.

as for me, i am bit out of ideas about how the dead tree could improve exactly.
i think i will put the dead tree aside for some time (to let it settle a bit) and try some layered flats for some semi-great trees that could have a light source inside the cone.

[Scaeb]

Someone made some _real_ dead great trees: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=33689

These look really dead, however, they lack the love for detail of your work, which I value so much. Do you think we can match them up? I'd love to see an offspring of these two pieces of art

[Eleazar]

Homunculus:
Sorry i overlooked this. Your dead tree looks very good, makes my old ones look kinda shabby.

I prefer some of the earlier ones, the high contrast pixel perfect branches of the latest are a little too stark.

I don't see your name in the credits. Are you willing to release this under a GPL license, and how do you want your name listed in the credits?

[Scaeb]

FYI: Dead tree contest

[homunculus]

oh, the weather got warmer and the beer season started here : )
actually the real reason was that, well, i got bit involved in some rather innovative interval flirting research, or something like that.

trying to get up to date with wesnoth graphics again.
as other people have started drawing trees, maybe i should post my latest best references for sequoias and dead sequoias in the hope that they might be helpful.
http://www.humboldt.edu/redwoods/photos/
and some examples from there:
http://www.humboldt.edu/redwoods/images ... -stand.jpg
http://www.humboldt.edu/redwoods/images ... -Ishii.jpg
http://www.humboldt.edu/redwoods/images ... -break.jpg
there are more, and they also have aerial photos at suitable angle, just the lighting is not really at wesnoth angle.
and indeed the dead trees are not quite as dark as i was doing them.

as for the tree house, i am becoming more and more doubtful about using anything like the great tree there, because a giant sequoia would be about as tall as this building
http://www.roerich.ee/photos/show.php?id=82&l=eng
so, if it is not an elvish palace with at least 10 floors, the great tree would look like some average full grown birch.
although, if the tree could be made to look more like terrain, then maybe a great tree would also work.

@ Eleazar
well, as for not noticing this thread, no problem, i guess i would have sent you pm anyway if i had not become doubtful about the drawings myself.
in spite of lack of detail i fail to see anything wrong with the current mainline great trees when i see them in game.
as for licenses, i really don't care, gpl or whatever.
i don't mind if people use my things as base for their own modifications, etc.

edit:

some preview type of thing to give an idea of what i am thinking of.
no cast shadows and lights on ground nor on the house yet, and i am intending to replace the house later (no big change though).

willowhouse0.png (14.37 KiB) Viewed 5607 times

[Eleazar]

Dead great tree committed!

I mixed the versions to get branch-end definition without it being too hard and pixelated.

[homunculus]

: )

Finally I got my first tree house village to the point where it doesn't seem to be getting better.
I took a rather radical direction by drawing the tree to village scale without compromises, and the result is more or less as I imagined it.

The gray colored one should be close to a real willow that I saw the other day.
The two salad green ones are also different, one of them has narrower lines at the wicker walls.

The image is layered in such way that many things can be changed reasonably easily, so...
Narrower lines or thicker lines?
Gray or generic green leaves?
Any other C&C?

shot.png (72.04 KiB) Viewed 5528 times

[Zerovirus]

Okay, that is definitely very very cool. The ambient blue lighting is great! I'm not sure how to put it, but your design has a sense of robustness that the others thus far don't seem to show.

I would personally go for a midpoint between the two color-schemes you have there.

[melinath]

I love the way that the house nests into the tree, but the blue color bothers me a lot. It looks like a greenhouse - like the walls are made of glass - which strikes me as odd for a treehouse.

[em3]

Well, it is an elven treehouse. The walls could be made of or covered with some kind of fabric.

I really love the look of this houses, although they strike me as a bit unbalanced, with the tree to the far left... as if the whole thing was about to fall down. Maybe adding a second tree trunk under the house, to our right, to suggest that the house is cradled between two trees, would fix this. Then again this might be just my peanut opinion.

[homunculus]

I am glad you like something about it.

It is supposed to be (shyde) silk or (sylph) spider silk walls with very light wicker support.
The door should look like a curtain, which should clarify the material.
I should try to make the curtain shape more recognizable.

I have some plans to try a variation with two smaller lantern-houses in a tree that are red and purple, like an elvish brothel or something.
So that might break the blue=glass impression.
Drawing red light on green leaves might turn out to be unintuitive and therefore maybe too challenging for me.
It might be possible to extract the part of the image that determines the color of the house into a separate image, and if WML would allow it, then maybe the color of the house could be randomized.

About not enough solid support for the house.
The construction is supposed to be extremely lightweight, does it look too heavy?
Maybe I should try to make the edge of the roof look thinner.
Or maybe the tree itself seems to be falling over?
Maybe I should make the cone of the tree narrower.

[em3]

Sorry, I'm partially colorblind and didn't even noticed there was a roof in the first place (I thought it was a bubble made of fabric that is covered with leaves on the top).

Curtains are clear to me, but this could be my monitor settings speaking.

Well, it doesn't look very heavy, but if you imagine it to be filled with people (elves) or furniture you might start to wander if the center of mass of tree+house isn't too much to the right. This could be mitigated by adding some more branches on the left, as a counterweight. I can see that there are already some branches there, possibly for this purpose.

Although I think I'm the only one raising this point, so don't worry that much. The houses do look pretty as they are.

An elven brothel? Bringing back the sexy into Wesnoth using architecture?

[homunculus]

Well, some sketches.

houses0.png (35.76 KiB) Viewed 5367 times

1) The willow would probably look better with some more saturation in the greens, but I guess I will try to balance that when i have more trees.
The blueish light on the ground seems to smudge the terrain, that might need some random noise sort of thing.
As for the tree looking too much unbalanced, I actually wanted to create an impression of foreshortening on the lowest segment of the trunk, but failed. And then I shot myself in the foot by drawing the lower end of the ladder too high. I guess I will need to bring the house bit lower and add another stick to the ladder.
I have been inventing the wheel all the way, maybe someone has a suggestion how to achieve the foreshortening effect on the lower trunk.

2) It seems I could make this tree look recognizably like scots pine.
The branches have some escher geometry at the moment, and no branches at the top, and the whole thing is rather sketchy.
Thinking about making the houses smaller here, and mainly struggling with houses placement at the moment.
I guess no one can tell the intended material of the lighter colored roof (feather), so unless I get a good suggestion how to make it look like feather I guess I will have to go with straw (bit less saturated, though).

3) First flats for siberian cedar (similar to incense cedar) type of tree.
This comparison shows that the house and the tree are too small here, and certainly the tree could be considerably wider.
Is it leaning enough to resemble the Pisa Tower, or should I stress that more?

[...]Although I think I'm the only one raising this point, so don't worry that much.[...]

Let's put it this way: 33% of people who crit this willow tree house wrote that the house seems to be too much unbalanced.

Edit: A struggle with the scots pine yielded an intermediate result (redraw) that could be somewhat interesting for other people that might be drawing similar trees.
I mean, the picture in the spoiler below is just the one single brush used for all the front greens, with jitter 1.50 in GIMP, no further editing done (scaled to final size in the lower left).

Spoiler:

pine.png (46.61 KiB) Viewed 5301 times

[/i]