Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

[Xisthruos]

I'm working on a greyish metropolis called 'Serene City.' This is probably the most detailed tileset I've ever done. My basic goals are to give the impression of a vast, endlessly sprawling city, while only rendering environments that are necessary to the plot/level flow of the game. It's still a lot of work.

This blog post has more detail about what environments I intend to produce.

I'm currently working on the Curio District, which is mapped out, but lacks detail. Here's a shot from the editor in 1/4 scale:



1/22/15 Update: New look of Curio District: (More colorful, distinctive atmosphere. Now it's more accurate to say that this is a historical district rather than a slum. I can always make desolate slums later. Alleyways and streets still lack trash cans, hydrants, lights, etc.)



Originally, I was only going to render the first two buildings (Curio Shop on lower left, Psychic Shop right next to it) and do alleyways, sewers, and abandoned apartment buildings as separate districts, but here I think found a more aesthetically pleasing way to combine them into one.

Rundown of what's what:

Lower left -
Curio Shop (Eldritch Pawn)

To the right of Curio Shop -
Psychic House (Psychic Readings, Taxes, & Confectioneries)

Next building to the right -
A run down apartment complex.

Vertical parallel Roads/Lines cutting off Apartment -
This is where I intend to place some subway tracks which periodically shoot out a bullet train. It's kind of a gamble, but if I can pull it off, it'll look like the tracks are suspended over the district.

Top Left -
Un-enterable building that serves as a natural barrier. It overlooks an alleyway littered with refuse.

Center Top -
Small run down plaza/park made of stone.

Right Top building -
Another natural barrier building, but has an entrance to a seedy bar to the far right.

Right side of District -
The checkered area will be all water. There's a little canal-like spot made of stone in the center (think venice) where the player can easily enter the sewers. And finally, there's a tiny bit of street visible at the bottom of the screen, which turns into a bridge as you go right. (I want to avoid drawing cars as much as possible, so this is purely decorative.)


What I have finished:

Curio Shop: (I neglected the roof vents in this screenshot, but no big deal.)


Psychic Shop: (Ended up being incredibly colorful. I wonder if I'll have to adjust the color scheme once the rest of the district is finished?)


Apartments & Railway: (Couldn't resist adding glowy neon effects. The railway turned out so-so, I think. The player can walk under it. It should probably look more like a railway if you see a bullet train skating by.)


Building Wall: (It's only purpose is to act as a barrier. For some reason, I thought of the film Suspiria when I decided to add the neon gradient.



Park: (mysterious park hidden in the alleyway. I originally conceived a crumbling grey fountain, but quickly changed my mind and made it glowy neon instead.)




Canal & Ancient Apartment Building: (Okay, this one's incomplete. The apartment might look something like the top of Tudor City in New York when it's done. It also might be a totally different color by then. I also need more ornamentation in the purple canal area, and I really need to start working on the water soon.)


I'm almost done, but I know well enough by now to say whether I'll be done soon. Surprises can happen unexpectedly...


If you're reading this, please make some kind of post. Any feedback is extremely helpful, even if you just want to wish me good luck!

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Spiteful Dead 2?

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Glad you could show up, Draygone!

Spiteful Dead 2?

That's an interesting question. The answer is 'sort of.' There are some major similarities in tone, and a little bit of continuity, but Zombiquest is made under the presumption that most potential players won't have heard of/played the Spiteful Dead. Having done so isn't essential to understanding the plot line, but it might enhance your appreciation a little.

I originally started this project as completely separate from the Spiteful Dead, so the main cast of characters and storyline are both unique from SD. But eventually I started absorbing ideas from an abandoned concept of Spiteful Dead 2--because there were things I really liked about it, even if I was never going to make it.

A small number of Spiteful Dead characters show up, with their own connections to this new story arc. Sophie, the little girl from SD, is now an adult with a more distinct personality. She shows up from the first chapter onward as a supporting character.

Robert shows up in his own chapter during the Serene City levels (shown above) but this doesn't happen until mid-way through the game, and given the logistics of how much time this is taking me to produce, those levels won't be available for a long time. (My self-imposed deadline is until February, when I'll start working on a completely different part of the game. Should be able to finish Curio District, even if I miss my deadline, though.)

Here are some face portraits of the newer, older, grumpier Robert:

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Keep up the good work, Xisthruos! I've been reading your dev blog for the last couple weeks as well.

Are you working towards a playable demo at this point or just focusing on creating all the mise en scène?

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Update: Psychic Shop Finished


Thanks, Ryu! I always appreciate your continued interest!

Are you working towards a playable demo at this point or just focusing on creating all the mise en scène?

My plan since late last fall has been to work on Serene City environments until completion, or when February comes around. It's not looking like I can finish everything by February, even if I just focus on the most important environments. So, when February comes along, I'm going to shift my focus to something else. (Although I'm going to finish Curio District exterior even if that takes longer than the deadline.) My primary reason for working on Serene City was to see what my concepts would evolve into, and get a stronger idea of what walking through the city would feel like. I think I've gotten that far already.

When I make the switch to a different type of work in February, I can't say exactly what I'll switch over to (I've learned not to put precise expectations on what I can accomplish,) but it has been 2, going on 3 years since my last demo, and I'm a lot more interested now in producing something tangible that other people can interact with.

As slow as artwork is to produce, it takes an even greater amount of time to take a finished map design, chart a story & events, playtest and balance it, revise the writing, find & remove glitches, etc. It's even tougher to do this while trying to put together a story that maintains an interesting pace at all times. I often progress up to a certain point and then feel like I'm missing a major ingredient, and then spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that elusive thing was.

Still, like I've said, getting something tangible out there is looking more appealing to me, and if I have another portion of this project finished, behind me, loose threads totally committed to, it will probably make it easier to focus on chapters further ahead.

[1ce]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

f you're reading this, please make some kind of post. Any feedback is extremely helpful, even if you just want to wish me good luck!

Well good luck there Xisthruos!

I found that when I moved my goals to "make something tangible other people can play" I was much more successful at releasing the stuff I wanted to.

So are you just creating envoriments, or are you planning on making a new game?

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Thanks for the good luck wishings, 1ce! It really helps!

So are you just creating envoriments, or are you planning on making a new game?

Both. For now.

I'm leaning heavily toward wanting to create something that other people can play very soon, but I don't like to do things impulsively, so I think it's best to finish the Curio District environs that I've committed to first. (Just the outside map shown above, not the interiors.) The end of February is a reasonable deadline for this.

I've suddenly come to the realization that since I haven't talked about it, most people probably don't have a good idea exactly what this game is about, what my release plan is, or where these screens fit into the grand scheme of things.

Chapter 1 takes place in a desert, and introduces your main character. You can create a somewhat customizable party. This chapter was made once in 2010, and then remade in 2013. I haven't released it because I was unsatisfied with the ending.

Chapter 2 takes place in similar desert environments, and a cave. It introduces a number of new characters, and would feature more diverse and challenging battles. I worked on this from 2013 to 2014, but again, couldn't commit to an ending or final structure.

Chapter 3 takes place in Serene City. I'm working on this now, and I started working on it as soon as I postponed progress on Ch 2. This chapter would introduce an extra dimension to the storyline, and would end with Robert leaving the city and meeting the player's party in the desert. I have no precise details about the plotline right now--only basic structure. Environment work really helps me commit to ideas.

Chapter 4 would conclude the story arc, and would feature all the assembled characters fighting their way out of a number of intense situations, and bring a close to most of the loose story threads. I've done some work on this chapter as well, but it's in a state of flux.

Now, what would me producing a playable demo look like?

If I were to stop working on Serene City environments and make a demo, I would most likely start working on finishing Chapter 1, and releasing it by itself. Despite how finished Chapter 1 is, I think this would take a few months to do.

For me to get properly motivated to finish Chapter 1 and be done with it, I'm really going to have to think about how I want to conclude Chapter 1 so that I would be satisfied with it, preferably in some way that isn't unnecessarily elaborate. It's something I've been thinking about lately.

Anyway, that's probably more info than anyone really asked for. I post these thoughts for my own benefit just as much as for anyone else. Thanks, everyone for your input! I'll do what I can to keep people involved as I go forward, because nudging me to consider these issues really helps me think about where to best use my time!

I'm posting links to earlier Zombiquest builds in another thread for whoever is interested.

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Update: Posted all the junk I've been working on for the past week or so. It's in the original post.

I posted earlier than I said I would because I got a little worn out from drawing today. I'm going to twiddle my thumbs to recover.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Some great new material there, Xisthruos, with a lot of tlc put into it.

The images have a very particular and rare sense of carefully crafted exploration that I enjoyed in Spiteful Dead and the ZombiQuest demos.

I'm impressed with how much the neon seems to glow. It's obviously due to the contrast between the light, saturated colors and the dark, desaturated colors of the backgrounds, but still it's quite an effect.

------

Here's some hopefully constructive feedback as to why the rail may only look "so-so":

First, I should mention that the first time I looked at the Apartments & Railway screenshot I thought the rail was some kind of wall or tower that was abruptly cutting off the apartment building. When I read that it was a rail I then saw it as a rail laying flat on ground and was going to ask why the apartment building suddenly ended so abruptly. It wasn't until I read that the player can walk under the rail that I saw how it was overlapping the apartment building and the rest of the scene. (I think it reads more like it's intended to from the bird's eye view of the whole district, but the player might not necessarily have access to that view.)

By itself I think the rail actually looks pretty good, as a completely top view of a rail. The problem is that in the apartment screenshot it's sort of visually ambiguous whether the rail is supposed to be 1) running horizontally parallel to the ground, or vertically into the sky parallel to the buildings, and 2) on the ground, or above the apartment building and the rest of the scene.

Two things that might help:

1. I think you could try to draw the front sides of the rail's cross beams or--better yet--draw more structures (like architectural housings for the lights) with visible front sides on them.

You drew front sides--not just top sides--on your buildings, stairs, ac units, the lights around the canal and park, etc. Yet the rail seems to have only one visible plane, and so the viewer's eye has to choose whether that one visible plane runs vertically into the sky parallel with the buildings or horizontally parallel to the ground.



If you drew the rail with visible front side surfaces, that new information and separation of the planes would greatly help make look like those front sides are running vertical parallel to the buildings (perpendicular to the ground), in contradistinction to the rest of the rail which is another plane that runs parallel to the ground.

Also, a bullet train on the rail would help here, too. ...Assuming that it's drawn with at least two planes visible and not just a top plane; otherwise it could look like it's climbing straight up! However, if two planes aren't drawn on the rail itself it could be a bit tricky to get the bullet train to look like it's not facing into the rail slightly.


2. Maybe try playing around with the shadow shapes. It looks like you have shadows placed on the right side underneath the rail, but the apartments on the left side could use the shadows to describe that the rail is in fact supposed to be above them, not below, alongside, or intersecting with them.

Typically 2d games rely on shadows to indicate that objects likes floors, roads, or rivers are below other objects, like buildings or trees. But your scene is more complex, with a rail not only above but overlapping other objects that run underneath it on both sides. It's kind of tricky thing to get just right.

Also, just in general when dealing with overlapping objects it's usually better if the object on top doesn't hide edges of the object underneath ("Avoiding Tangents: 9 Visual Blunders Every Artist Should Watch Out For"). If, for instance, the building underneath the rail happened to be longer and poked out past the right side of the rail, the rail would read as being on top more easily.

But even if you didn't change anything, the player would probably eventually figure everything out in-game by walking underneath the rail or getting a more complete picture of how the distinct is laid out through exploration. These are just my thoughts on why I think the rail looks good as a rail by itself, but might not be as instantly recognizable as a rail in the scene.

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Thank you for the post, Ryu. It's more than I could have hoped for.

I made some really quick adjustments to the track (not final or colorized):

From player perspective:


From bird's eye view:



-The track has been moved away from the building. (This makes the whole map larger.) I also moved it away from the yellow building at the top of the screen, so that it would look more like the tunnel is laying atop the grassy plateau.
-Crossbeams are visible on either side of the track (holding the track up, as well as 'feet' visible at ground level.)
-I removed some parts of the track so that you can see things underneath.
-I added a very quickly made bullet train. (will have multiple cars in the future.)

It sounds like my bullet train is more flat than you recommended, but I think it matches the track. (It won't avoid that 'climbing' thing you mentioned, but since the track is away from the building now, I don't think that's as much of an issue.)

There's more empty space around the track itself now, but I think this leaves open creative possibilities for the future, such as people/monsters hanging out underneath the tracks.


Side note:
It's gotten very late into January now, and since I said I'd start working towards a new demo in February, I'm starting to feel like I need to move away from working on this map. I start to tire of working on anything for three weeks straight. Additionally, I have an appointment to have wisdom teeth pulled next week... and I somehow became extremely ill just after my last post here on Wednesday. So, I don't think I'll be able to get much done for the rest of this month, and Serene City is going to remain in limbo while I move ahead to more pertinent parts of the game.

Ideally, I might be able to break up the rest of the Curio District into small pieces and complete them throughout the year, but I don't think I'll be able to finish by February. I lack the motivation to do much of anything right now.

I'll have some information on the Ch.1 demo during February (and placed in its own topic.) And if there are any further developments in Serene City, I'll post them here.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

That's a huge improvement already! I'd definitely see it first as a rail running parallel to the ground, even without the bullet train car.

I think the bullet train car looks good at this stage. You can see a lot of the front plane and it appears to match the track. The bullet train is less likely to read as climbing, because the rail reads better now, the front plane facing us at an angle and the top plane running parallel to the ground.

This is one of the weird and challenging aspects of making art for 2d games, in that most selectively obey and disobey rules of perspective. If this were visual reality, the only way that the lines of the rail could be parallel to the vertical lines of the building is if 1) the rail was running perfectly vertical into the sky just like the walls of the buildings (that is, perpendicular to the picture plane) or 2) the buildings were leaning. Otherwise, the lines of the rail would eventually converge at a distant vanishing point as they recede in space away from the eye of the viewer.



Many 2d games (including RPG Maker) don't abide by this rule of perspective for many reasons, and players have largely learned to accept the look. However, 2d game artists still need to use other methods (like the two visible side planes and the shadow things I mentioned) in order to make sure that vertically tiling graphics (like roads, rivers, rails, etc.) look like they're running flat across or parallel to the ground rather than shooting up vertically into space. Right now I think you're pulling it off with the rail.

Also, the tunnel laying atop the grassy plateau is a nice detail.

Hope everything works out with your wisdom teeth and health.

[Xisthruos]

Re: Environment Artwork: Serene City Curio District

Edit: Forget what I said. I'm not ruling out working on this environment again sometime soon. For the time being, though, I'll be shifting my focus to a smaller environment elsewhere in the game and posting some progress. I'll return to Serene City when the time is right.