Background Blitz: Animated Background - WINNERS in LAST POST!

[Miez]

Well, as I was woefully late with calling for votes, I think we should simply allow your entry Snarks...

[Ilyich]

Since it is now officially allowed, I'm going to vote for Snarky. Really great background with interesting sharp rendering, atmospheric colour palette and very convincing water animation - hats off!

Really like HanaIndiana's entry too - lots of cute little animated details, especially the tiny ducks.

[miguel]

My vote goes to Snarky as well. It is a great background indeed like Ilyich said. If the WIP was already gorgeous the end result is close to perfect.

[bicilotti]

I was undecided, but I can't stop staring at those water reflections: Snarky!

[selmiak]

Snarky, are you crazy? This is great. I change my vote to this nice piece of pixelart. Sorry Jwalt (and HanaIndiana, both your entries are great too but this is better)

[Snarky]

I vote for HanaIndiana. I wish all backgrounds were as bustling as that!

[jwalt]

Snarky made a beautiful background, but the fun-factor in HanaIndiana's won me over. HanaIndiana.

[dactylopus]

I can't not vote for Snarky, that's just very well done.

[Miez]

Ok, time to call this one. All entries were great this time; JWalt's was very zany and funny (I like the 'jokey' nature of the reveal), HanaIndiana's is a cutscene in itself - so many little animated elements, it must have been a nightmare to make. And Snarky's is just phenomenal; great color, composition and atmosphere and first class animation. My vote goes to JWalt - just because I believe you all deserve recommendations!

But after counting the votes we're left with:

FIRST PLACE (6 votes): SNARKY


SECOND PLACE (2 votes): HANAINDIANA


THIRD PLACE (1 vote): JWALT

Congratulations winners! Up to Snarky to host the next one, I guess!

[Snarky]

Thanks everybody, you're much too kind. There are all kinds of things wrong with the piece as it stands, but I'm glad you like it: it was a lot of work, and it came out tolerably close to what I initially had in mind. (I've captured snapshots from earliest sketches on, so I might post a process animation, which should make it clear that endless fiddling is the only way I know how to compensate for my limited skill to produce something halfway decent.)

Thanks also to Miez for a great topic and to the other contestants for creating such a varied range of cool entries.

I have a few different ideas for the next blitz, so as soon as I decide which one to go with I'll announce it.

[Andail]

Nice one, Snarky!
Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

[arj0n]

Snarky, that's awesome!

[dactylopus]

Don't be modest, that's a great piece you made Snarky!  Very well done.

Congratulations to you, and to the other contestants.  This was a really cool theme, and I was happy to see all of the entries.

[Snarky]

Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

Of course, it's not real pixel art, as you can probably tell from the earlier version. I paint in Photoshop at 3:1 scale and then resize it down with "nearest neighbor". It may not be the most efficient way to work, but I could never get a grip on the pencil tool, and this lets me paint the only way I know how while producing acceptable (though a bit noisy) texture and nice crisp edges.

@dactylopus: No, I mean, I'm proud of it and pretty happy with it overall, but there are a hundred things I'd like to fix, particularly the roots of the main tree (all out of perspective and balance), and the leaves of that tree and the one on the right (which look too much like just blobs of static noise; I'd like to give them some better volume). There's also the one branch on the tree that uses a completely different color scheme, and the highlights on the leaves didn't come out at all (I realize now that I have to think of them as metallic)... and so many other things.

[selmiak]

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

I lol'd 

Of course, it's not real pixel art, as you can probably tell from the earlier version. I paint in Photoshop at 3:1 scale and then resize it down with "nearest neighbor". It may not be the most efficient way to work, but I could never get a grip on the pencil tool, and this lets me paint the only way I know how while producing acceptable (though a bit noisy) texture and nice crisp edges.

I think you also used some tool (probably some easy online tool) to create the reflection animation. The result is pretty cool indeed!

[Snarky]

Oh yeah, that's absolutely not done by hand. I use Sqirlz (and then a bunch of Photoshop tweaks), based on a copy of the bg where the positions of all the objects have been adjusted to approximate the reflected POV, in order to reduce some of the most obvious artifacts, e.g. so you don't see the ground reflected in the water. (However, it's not in general possible to create accurate spatial reflections of a 3D scene from a 2D picture, so some errors remain.)

It is a bit fiddly to work with, so if anyone knows a better tool, I for one would be interested.

[Andail]

Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

It was meant as a sincere compliment! Maybe I haven't paying attention lately, but I haven't seen this kind of art from you before. Of course, it's not technically pixel art, but it's at least down to a level of detail where every pixel has its function and place.

If you put this on the critics lounge, I'd only have a couple of suggestions.

[Snarky]

Yeah, no worries.
Apart from any progress in skill (which I personally consider modest at best), I think this looks different because (1) I'm scaling with NN instead of with bicubic or drawing with PS brushes at the native 320x200 resolution, and (2) for once I actually had time to finish it up to a respectable degree of polish before the contest was declared over.

I'd like to hear what you have to suggest, so I posted it over here:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50391