Lover's Rift Pinewood

[+ Lyla 41]

So, despite that roughly 85-90% of the people seem to absolutely adore the mapping, a few have brought up some concerns. I am posting this to see if these concerns are legit to a lot of people AND advice on how to fix it. One I've gotten is that the town just seems empty and my thoughts are this personally - sort of, yes, but I also haven't gotten the sprites to fill in the town and make it feel more alive. Not to mention, in game, everyone will be moving around and stuff ... second thought is, it's a small town. So I feel that adding a bunch more flowers or grass or whatever would be silly since the town likely polices overgrowth of all those things (though there's obviously some growth). So to be honest ... I'm not entirely sure how to solve the issue, if it's even one worth fretting about once people are added.
 
Another (and so far only one) person pointed out the path looking spray-painted. It can define the most inner parts of it a bit more, but I have seen dirt paths in real life that are spotty like that. So I'm unsure how to feel about this. He also mentioned the cars looking flat - but not being a spriter myself and he being the only one thus far to comment ... I really have no idea how to fix that. Honestly, I don't really think they look out of place at all, but that's just me.
 
One last thing that was noted was something about the houses ... but besides maybe adding HVAC units to the roofs / sides ... and maybe if I can find a stack? Not sure what else there is to be done. I can't be adding flower gardens to every single house because that's not how the real world is, haha. Anyways, onwards to the screenshots!

Edited May 4, 2015 by Lydyn

[+ Myst88 87]

Your right in that urban areas wouldn't have a lot of overgrowth, but there would still be areas where there will be quite 'neglected'. I think a few more flowers dotted around would fill the map up without making it look silly.

As for the house maybe add a few more windows? Just looking at it I can imagine going in and there's hardly any natural light, it makes it seem like the house will be very dark inside. Outside the houses, I agree adding flower gardens to every house would be silly. (Not everyone has the time or skill to make their gardens all pretty) But maybe a few gardens could be a bit varied? For example some gardens would have rubbish out front. Some may have kids toys scattered.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Mirage88

[+ Lyla 41]

I know something I'm trying to do is make the house inside match and the outside ... in that sense, the house is actually dark and doesn't have many windows. You can call it old, but I've seen a few houses like that. Older ones... so it's an older remodeled home in this case. I supposed I can change the history and the entire inside of the house to justify another window or two, haha ... but it somehow seems like an extreme measure?  Maybe not.  As for the growth, you might be right in that case. A few more wouldn't hurt.

[When Bugs Roam Ur House 656]

Not sure how you'll feel about my own opinion, but personally... and 100% truth honestly... I agree with all the statements that other people have made about the maps. (Sorry)

 

The last one is pretty fair, but i think you should/ could add more to the first two maps. I think the first one especialy, again, just being honest. Things like trees, more bushes, more flowers, water, dead wood, (more) dirt patches, different-coloured patches of grass, etc.

 

There's a lot someone can learn from real-life photographs and references.

 

The house in the first picture also, would imo look better smaller and with more windows. This is because the width of the house, compared to its height and the proportions of the people, is quite large. When we look at a real house, for example, there might be 2-4 windows at the front. They're often also about 2-4 meters apart.

When we look at the front door of a house, it's usually larger the bigger a house is. The spacing above the door also usually increases the larger a house is. Larger houses also usually have more details and architectural features, since the owners are rich: Things such as large windows, a deck, stairs, having the second story carved out into additional shapes, etc. The lawn could also imo be longer/ larger. : )

 

EDIT:

 

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Baker-Haigh-Nimocks-House-Heritage-Square-Fayetteville-NC.JPG

http://www.hagerstownmd.org/images/pages/N309/Hager%20House%20photo.jpg

http://people.ucsc.edu/~avizcar1/OldHouse.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/73/8e/a4/738ea42d409380d8ab4de6ffa882c51a.jpg

[+ Lyla 41]

Well, the house seems large because it is scaled 1:1 with the inside, which isn't always as large as you might imagine it might be. With a living room, an open bathroom, there was just enough room to squeeze in a full kitchen ... so unless I downsize the inside as well and make it more akin to a one-person apartment vs. a two-person home ... kind of hard to scale it down like you might think. I suppose I could've gone with a three-high wall instead ... though that would make it look more empty than it already is. So all in all, this seems to becoming an issue of ... "redo all maps," haha. Which is sad, because if I did choose to do that, a whole month has gone down the drain.

 

As for more trees, and bushes, and dead wood - I can manage some of that, but also some of that comes from the point I lack those tiles and I'm not spriter. Also to mention that it's a lawn ... I don't suppose someone mowing they're lawn would allow flowers/weeds, unhealthy grass, or pieces of wood. I dunno ... I did use different shades of grass too, but healthy looking, so it might be harder to tell.

 

It is a bit harsh, but I'm not taking it personally (or trying not to, haha). It just makes me a bit depressed with advice like that, because that almost means goes right to the drawing board with my entire 100x100 town... including many of the inside maps. I'm also a bit boggled because I've had everyone on my stream with the exception of maybe one person say that adore them ... so it's a bit of a surprise and shocker.

 

Edit: Maybe that's the hurdle with modern maps in RPG Maker. We have to abide by the 32x32 grid rule, so things can't be as packed in as a real life house ...

Edited May 4, 2015 by Lydyn

[When Bugs Roam Ur House 656]

Sorry! I know i can be a blunt person sometimes (and i know i ended up saying a lot of stuff..). I really did mean to just help, and i know for myself, it really did end up helping me more (in drawing) when people were specific to me. You're welcome to make your own decisions from what i said.

 

Maybe there can be patches in the lawn that are slightly darker? You can have "perfectly" smooth skin, but you will always have areas that are slightly darker or lighter, because areas (such as your forehead) are closer to the sun. The sides of your face are similarly darker than the rest of your face because of this, but most people won't realize this.

 

 

I won't argue with any of your points because it really is your game, and you can do whatever you want. But those are just observations i've noticed, and it really was my complete honest feedback. I hope you consider the images i linked for you. : ) Good luck.

[+ Lyla 41]

That might be a good idea with the patches of grass. I'll try it and see what happens. I also wasn't trying to argue, but as much as I'd love to make this "look" realistic, there's only so much I can do before I'm at the limit of my skills. Short of artistically drawing a whole parallax (which I'm not an artist, like you), there is no real possible way to make - say - the first house you linked. It would be a 9-wide tiled house. Which means only 7 tiles of useable space with walls ... there's nothing I can fit in there, really, haha.

 

I think it comes down to the realization, it's a game, not real life. If I were to make it match real life, I'd need a hell of a lot of money to pay people to make it look that way. xD  However I did fix the window issue and added three more in there (of course, not including any windows the player cannot see due to perceptive). I even did a trick of throwing a chair and table behind one, so it's like you're looking inside the house.

 

At the end of the day, I think putting more growth and different patches of grass will do wonders and may be the realistic limits of my ability to make everything look "perfect." After all, there are tons of (including commercial ones) RPG Maker games that are really all that realistic either in these terms. Thank you though, definitely some beneficial advice. ^.^

[Yuugami 252]

This is just my personal take on it, but I myself am not a specialist on parallax mapping, and I can only offer ideas, which may already be mentioned from earlier posts - I skimmed them rather quickly, as I already drew my circles before actually reading the replies.

 

 

Excuse my shoddy circles. Anyways, for the above picture, on the far let, I circled where the path is leaving one area but barely touches the corner of the parking log. I'm guessing it's like that because of the lamppost right above the path, but it feels awkward to look at because it doesn't seem like the dirt path is actually trying to lead into the parking lot, although it's so close to it. Maybe adjust the path so it looks more obvious that you want the path to head into the parking lot, if that's your intention. If not, you're going to have to move the lamppost further down the trail, and adjust the curve of the trail upwards to fix that.

 

The other four circles I made on this picture is just patches of empty space. Overgrowth is definitely a public and realistic concern, but you said it yourself - smaller maps would've been more ideal to make everything more compact and full, but working with what you have, it isn't so far of a stretch to have things such as benches or tables in those areas. This is my two cents, but I don't think it's too far off to include a picnic/bbq area, or public chess tables. That location doesn't seem to terrible to have such items in place.

 

 

I remember seeing "lack of windows" in the replies when I skimmed them, so I think you should know that much - that said, I love how you made the floor visible through the window, it's super cool and I'm actually stunned at how amazing the end result is. The circle on the far right is mainly a texture issue - since it's crossing the street, I find it really strange to use the tiles of similar colors for your crossing and your sidewalks. Maybe in some streets, you'd have bricks interlacing in distinct patterns to indicate street crossings, but the color makes me almost think you're using the same tiles for your sidewalk and your crossing.

 

The middle circle is more of me being nitpick, but that seems more of an area where a streetlight would be, not a lamppost. 

 

 

The circled area strikes me as strange as to why the sidewalk would end there just because a fence is in the way. I see only two solutions to this: Either straighten out the fence, or move the entire sidewalk/park area one unit down, so that you can use the resulting space for a sidewalk that moves along the purported fence line (maybe use the empty space for grass, a lot of places like this tend to have grass separating the sidewalk from the street). The messy fork I drew there is maybe a suggestion for a path to lead into the different areas of the park, although I think it's better to just use the lines as a general area to look filling in with stuff - the locations of your trashcans honestly strikes me as being more suitable for constructing a path through the park.

 

That said, I will say this again - the pieces you've done with your mapping put me to shame, and I really think you can make a lot of these changes work without ditching what you already have. Yes, certain pieces feel off or areas of the map are empty, but the different colored patches of grass could work, or maybe add more items like benches to give more reason for people to be there; rather than starting over, just start filling in the spaces. =)

 

Also, a common technique people used in writing is an observation journal; sitting around, writing what you see for a period of time. You can possibly achieve something similar just by looking at a picture of a park, and based on your imagination, use elements from that to fill in your especially empty areas in the park without making it seem like no one is maintaining the grass.

[Tsarmina 2,612]

All these responses offer really good advice imo. =^-^= I have another tip that I thought might help you with realism/texture!

 

When I'm parallaxing surfaces of any kind, I like to overlay a low-opacity filter/texture of some sort on it. For example, for grass, I Render a Clouds filter in photoshop and set it to overlay and turn the opacity down to somewhere in the 10s percentage. For streets or interior/wood floorings, I like to take a spackled brush and just go crazy with it everywhere, and then lower the opacity and find a layer effect that I like. (It usually ends up being Multiply or Linear Burn or something.)

 

And shadows! It's great to add shadows or darker patches even where you don't think there would be a largely physical explanation for it (for example, a bench will cast an obvious shadow, but the asphalt at a street corner being darker than the asphalt hanging out at the side of a road seems like it would be okie to me!)

 

For example, if you think about it, you'll notice that the pieces of floor at the corners of the building actually have a very faint darker shade. The difference in immersion can be real! For example, contrast these:

 

   vs   

 

The second one definitely looks better right? Even looking past the light effects, if you look at the second map you'll see that the floor has some subtle and very random orange and brown mixed in. I picked this up from Izu tbh XD called grunge texture! Everywhere that has people or animals or life of any kind isn't going to be pristine, no matter how clean the people keep it. Dirt has its ways of finding everyone and everywhere @_@

 

Also, I challenge you to put in some more light effects! ^^ All your screenshots clearly show where your light source is coming from, and I wouldn't mind actually seeing some streaks of light as an overlay~ 

 

Granted, this is a bit much. But outside light sources are fun! If you ever want to ask how to go about making some you can ask me! (Or someone more experienced, lol.)

 

 

I know it isn't easy to add in some of these things, but I promise you, they make a huge difference! ^^ Good luck!

[+ Lyla 41]

... thanks for all the advice guys ... I want to install these changes, but ... I feel like I might need to take a break first. Realizing all this makes me feel as if the mapping for my game will take two years - alone, without anything else ... which is a huge depressing notion to me. I suppose I'll have to wait a very long time before I can share this game with anyone ... it took me a month to just get this far, then to realize I have probably at least another month's work? *Rubs face* I'll bookmark this topic for later ...

 

Anyone else is free to chime in too, of course. I just don't know when I'm going to feel like picking this back up. Hopefully within the next week, but who knows. At least I'm not even close to kickstarter, so there's really no one to answer to.