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Mapping Life Forge Pics

SkywardRiver

By SkywardRiver
in Design & Creativity

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  • 2 weeks later...
Stx

Stx

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Posted

I personally think Zetasis is a fantastic mapper, and what makes it even better is that he is fairly quick and seems to know what he is doing in livestreams. So to be honest, I think that Life Forge will be an exceptional overwhelmingly game that will attract many players including myself.

All I have to say is keep it up, you guys have done a fantastic job.

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Dr.House

Dr.House

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It's way too much to explain, but it's related to Composition, in your eyes of course it looks good, but for a trained eye it looks bad, imagine a noob drawing something, any artist will notice the drawing as being simplist, noob-ish, because the noob person doesn't know and doesn't understand yet the foundations which makes something to look good.

If the noob person doesn't see his own mistakes then he will never progress, he will keep looping on that level.

 

A "mapper" needs to know some shit about art and of course composition.

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SkywardRiver

SkywardRiver

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13 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

It's way too much to explain, but it's related to Composition, in your eyes of course it looks good, but for a trained eye it looks bad, imagine a noob drawing something, any artist will notice the drawing as being simplist, noob-ish, because the noob person doesn't know and doesn't understand yet the foundations which makes something to look good.

If the noob person doesn't see his own mistakes then he will never progress, he will keep looping on that level.

 

A "mapper" needs to know some shit about art and of course composition.

 

Could you give us a couple pointers?

 

6 minutes ago, Essence said:

Of course I'm watching. It's inspiring.

 

Can't wait to see you in game :D

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Dr.House

Dr.House

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First off, everything tends to be symetrical there, which is bad [first picture, Orake picture and the one above Orake are examples of bad composition] and very random, which also is bad, of course in reality there is a lot of randomness, but that doesn't play well in art or games, it does not have to respect the rules of reality, to look good u have to break the rules and create something pleasant for the eyes.

 

The maps lack "balance", most of them, from what I see, some are too symetrical, also they lack "contrast", imagine a grey canvas with slightly lighter grey dots on them, that is how your maps look like, you can adjust that by getting rid of symetry and randomness, and add more density for contrast and some fine details at the end, but no way in random order or positions, because every element needs to rapport to the others.

 

Mapping is all about Composition, not about how pretty the style of the graphics is or how pretty you think you added those flowers there, but u have no idea why, and even if u have a reason why you put them there, you still don't understand how that affects the entire composition.

 

This is where I stop, take my advice and learn about composition and a little bit about art, mainly about colors and everything related to them.

Else, continue looping on this low level, either is fine by me.

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SkywardRiver

SkywardRiver

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27 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

First off, everything tends to be symetrical there, which is bad [first picture, Orake picture and the one above Orake are examples of bad composition] and very random, which also is bad, of course in reality there is a lot of randomness, but that doesn't play well in art or games, it does not have to respect the rules of reality, to look good u have to break the rules and create something pleasant for the eyes.

 

Wait wait, the only map shown here that's even remotely symmetrical is the latest map, and it's supposed to look like that. My other question is how are the maps symmetrical AND very random. Just curious here.

 

30 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

The maps lack "balance", most of them, from what I see, some are too symetrical, also they lack "contrast", imagine a grey canvas with slightly lighter grey dots on them, that is how your maps look like, you can adjust that by getting rid of symetry and randomness, and add more density for contrast and some fine details at the end, but no way in random order or positions, because every element needs to rapport to the others.

 

Again, the term symmetry is brought up but I completely fail to see it aside from the Desert sample. Care to enlighten me on this? Also I found that there are some great examples of contrast in some of these maps, namely the shoreline and the "peaks".

 

33 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

Mapping is all about Composition, not about how pretty the style of the graphics is or how pretty you think you added those flowers there, but u have no idea why, and even if u have a reason why you put them there, you still don't understand how that affects the entire composition.

 

I can see the point about the purple flowers in the desert map, they're a collectible resource and I did scatter them semi-randomly so I'll probably go back and fix that up, but you're speaking of this grand "composition" when you're only getting a 3rd or 4th or even 5th of the total map in these screenshots. It's the opening notes of a Mozart piece, not the grand symphonic chorus.

 

35 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

This is where I stop, take my advice and learn about composition and a little bit about art, mainly about colors and everything related to them.

Else, continue looping on this low level, either is fine by me.

 

I'd actually like some more advice as I can't seem to gleam any actual advice from the above text other than 1. Look at the map as a whole. 2. Don't place debris so randomly. and 3. Don't be symmetrical (which again, only persists on the Desert sample as intended)

 

Any answers would be appreciated. Thank you.

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Zetasis

Zetasis

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@Dr.House, thanks for the feedback! As @SkywardRiver noted, you are only seeing a small portion of the map so maybe if you were to see the whole picture you might feel a little different. I agree that mapping is an art and with like all art, one can only get better with practice. We appreciate the constructive criticism and definitely keep it in mind when mapping future locations in the world of Life Forge. 

 

To everyone else: Thank you for taking time out of your day to view our progress! I feel positive when I say that the entire team is pumped for Life Forge and really enjoy getting feedback from everyone. Your feedback is very motivating and helps us to become better game developers so, please, keep it coming!

 

As always, the team and I are working very aggressively to get content created and out for everyone to enjoy so please keep an eye out! We have a special holiday event planned which I think will satisfy the fans of Life Forge and make the holidays just that much more fun! More info will be available once we feel we have a decent amount to share and show off.

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Dr.House

Dr.House

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Just now, SkywardRiver said:

@Dr.House Awesome! Thanks for the tips! And just so ya know those last two pics aren't mine or of my work haha. Those are just other Eclipse style games that are up. Our "competition" haha.

No problem, follow the pattern you used for the 3rd Map, might be by mistake but you used a nice balance between emptyness and density instead scattering everything like on the other maps.

Scatter is pretty bad, because the eyes eventually get tired, eyes are much more pleased to see something concrete, having a nice hierarchy is the key of composition and designing.

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Zetasis

Zetasis

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@Dr.House,I can see where some of the symmetry problems are, and thanks for pointing those out. Now  that I notice them I feel I must go back and fix it. As for the randomness, most of what you pointed out are resources and are used for gathering materials so I'm not entirely sure I agree with you there, but that being said, I will continue to study your points and try and improve. Thanks again for the feedback. 

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