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General discussion (archive)A little visual advice, please(24 posts)(24 posts)
(24 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 11, 2012
Do these wall shadows look "off" to anyone, or are they ok? I can't tell if maybe I made them too large or not.
Attachments:
shadowcheck.jpg (215 Kb)
Posted January 11, 2012
You mean from the walls?

How high are the walls supposed to be and what time of day is it?

They're a bit boring, seeing as they stem from a light source directly north-west (45 degrees off the north axis).
Posted January 11, 2012
They look about people-height to me. Is that what they're supposed to be? :o
Posted January 11, 2012
Nah, Looks okay to me, you could shave them off by like 10-20% or something, and it may look better. But, I think it looks fine personally. :)
Posted January 11, 2012
Looks fine to me. I really don't see anything wrong with those shadows.

Digression: the wall textures could look a lot more appealing though :P Colour's a bit dull, same with grass. Might be easier on the eyes if there's more vibrancy and saturation in the tone, like Heroes of Might and Magic.
Posted January 11, 2012
I see nothing wrong with the shadows. They're very nice shadows. Possibly the best shadows I've ever seen on a test screenshot of an unknown top-down game that seems to focus its gameplay on small sticks, Lugers, and stone walls.

;D
Posted January 12, 2012
The only thing shadow length will tell you is how high the walls are. There are parts where they're wrong though. Notice how you have some diagonal lines on some corners, but have horizontal straight ones on others. Specifically the "entrance" at 10 o'clock has a diagonal shadow on the bottom side, but on the top side it's straight and horizontal and it should also have diagonal shadows there. Likewise on the bottom part of the "H" looking structure and on the mid-bottom entrance you have diagonal shadows on the right side but vertical straight shadows on the left.
Posted January 12, 2012
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KOCollins: Nah, Looks okay to me, you could shave them off by like 10-20% or something, and it may look better. But, I think it looks fine personally. :)
Same.
Posted January 12, 2012
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Runehamster: I see nothing wrong with the shadows. They're very nice shadows. Possibly the best shadows I've ever seen on a test screenshot of an unknown top-down game that seems to focus its gameplay on small sticks, Lugers, and stone walls.

;D
lol

It's a survival game set in an industrial swamp. So there's a focus on cobbling weapons together from things you find.


The wall textures really aren't finalized. They're basically a placeholder for now until I get around to them (been focusing on getting all the visual effects working). The color scheme IS supposed to be somewhat drab, though. After all, it's set in a swamp. There's going to be a lot more variety in the tileset for the background eventually, and there's going to be a lot more junk scattered around (almost all of which can be picked up and used in some way). Again, haven't gotten around to it yet...

Oh, one other thing... do you think it would look weird if there was a day/night cycle, but the walls shadows remained? I mean, I realize that the best thing would be to have them change based on where the sun would be. But that's exponentially harder to do. So if I could "get away" with having the same shadows no matter the time of day, that would probably be best.

I've just never attempted to do any sort of shadowing in my games, so I'm kinda outside of my comfort zone. Those were done using screenshots from Alien Breed as a reference :P.
Posted January 12, 2012
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jefequeso: Oh, one other thing... do you think it would look weird if there was a day/night cycle, but the walls shadows remained? I mean, I realize that the best thing would be to have them change based on where the sun would be. But that's exponentially harder to do. So if I could "get away" with having the same shadows no matter the time of day, that would probably be best.
I don't think anyone would notice. If everything LOOKS darker they'll just assume it's the moon or something.

Of course, now that you asked, I'LL ALWAYS NOTICE. @.@
Posted January 12, 2012
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El_Caz: The only thing shadow length will tell you is how high the walls are. There are parts where they're wrong though. Notice how you have some diagonal lines on some corners, but have horizontal straight ones on others. Specifically the "entrance" at 10 o'clock has a diagonal shadow on the bottom side, but on the top side it's straight and horizontal and it should also have diagonal shadows there. Likewise on the bottom part of the "H" looking structure and on the mid-bottom entrance you have diagonal shadows on the right side but vertical straight shadows on the left.
ahh, you're right of course. I'll need to fix those.
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jefequeso: Oh, one other thing... do you think it would look weird if there was a day/night cycle, but the walls shadows remained? I mean, I realize that the best thing would be to have them change based on where the sun would be. But that's exponentially harder to do. So if I could "get away" with having the same shadows no matter the time of day, that would probably be best.
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Runehamster: I don't think anyone would notice. If everything LOOKS darker they'll just assume it's the moon or something.

Of course, now that you asked, I'LL ALWAYS NOTICE. @.@
OH NOES!!!!
D:

Yeah, that's kinda what I assumed, but being a really REALLY non-visual person, I wanted to make sure.
Post edited January 12, 2012 by jefequeso
Posted January 12, 2012
They look fine, although a couple of the angled shadows are missing (as El_Caz mentions). Other than that, no problem.
Posted January 12, 2012
Thanks for the help, guys.
Posted January 12, 2012
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jefequeso: Oh, one other thing... do you think it would look weird if there was a day/night cycle, but the walls shadows remained? I mean, I realize that the best thing would be to have them change based on where the sun would be. But that's exponentially harder to do. So if I could "get away" with having the same shadows no matter the time of day, that would probably be best.
I think it might be noticeable, but not distracting or anything. The shadows add a lot of depth to the tiles, so any weirdness caused by the shadows would likely be made up for by that. I assume your doing this on gamemaker? I have messed around with it a little, but never really got familiar with it. I think there was a way to adjust the transparency on things. It may need the full version though. Anyway, if its an option you might consider making them fade in and out with the day night cycle.

If you have the money to spend on things, you can also check out World Creator 2.5 for making tilesets. Its 39.99 pounds, so it works out to around 60 USD. It seems to be best suited for isometric. Making your characters would be quite a bit more work that way. I figured I would point it out though, in case you don't know about it.
http://www.inet2inet.com/main/main.htm
Posted January 12, 2012
isn't this what pythagoras theorem is for?
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General discussion (archive)A little visual advice, please(24 posts)(24 posts)
(24 posts)