Welcome Artist!
Background Details
I'm looking for PIXEL style backgrounds.
Setting: Fantasy
Background Types:
- Dungeons
- Armory
- Barracks
- Warren
- Den
- Castle Interiors
- Caves
- Etc...
Style: Pixel art... the point is to find an artist and art style I like . Here's some samples from google that I like in general:
So in general the Castlevania series are good sources of inspiration.
The above is an example of one of the custom characters... the color palette runs more on the saturated side.
Instructions
The background is constructed of 3 ( or more ) image files in the game:
"Wall" - 512x240
"Floor" - 512x160
"Embelishment Layer(s)" - 512x400 transparent images that are layered on top of the combined floor and wall. The purpose of these is to allow for creating lots of variation without having to create multiple backgrounds.
THE DISPLAYED HEIGHT IS ROUGHLY 375px tall. DO NOT SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON THE VERY TOP OF THE IMAGE AS IT MAY GET CUT OFF AT THE 375px point ( origin bottom center )
IT IS ACCEPTABLE TO MAKE THESE AT HALF SIZE (256x200 total) AND THEN SCALE THEM UP TO MAKE THEM MORE PIXELLY IF DESIRED.
BASED ON FEEDBACK RECEIVED, IT MIGHT BE BEST TO THINK OF IT AS DRAWING A SINGLEIMAGE MAKING SURE TO JUST DRAW IN LAYERS FOR EASY SEPARATION LATER.
The image will be displayed statically, do not concern yourself with the ability to loop it.
It might be easiest to think of it as backgrounds for turn based JRPG style combat systems:
Pushed back wall:
In the examples below, the first image the wall meets at the floor line split. In the second image, the wall is "pushed back" from the join line, adding more depth and adding pseudo 3d embilshments.
In general, I recommend pushing the wall back a bit from the split line.
If you do push it back, I'd recommend keeping it to 25px pushback at most
Do not consider the right hand image as "acceptable". The floor/wall should be a seamless transition... that was just a quick and dirty placeholder I put together based on a google image.
Detailed Example
So, this is an example of what you should create.
All images have red border to make it easier to see
Wall: ( 512x240)
Floor: ( 512x160)
The floor and wall are separate so that if a floor from one background looks good with another it wall, I would be able to combine them.
Embellishing layers - These are items that get layered on the wall and floor to create variety.
(rug)
(lines on rug)
(buttresses)
(banners)
(torch - put this on the black so you can see the transparent light effect)
And then other embelishments for example would be a door:
Example of embishments being used to create another background:
Don't worry about coming up with all the variants... just make each embelishment it's own image file and I will combine and find various backgrounds.
Semi Realworld Example
Blank Wall:
Embelished Wall:
Embelishments
Embelished Scene:
Others generated from same base:
