LarryG on 21/10/2012 at 03:50
Looks pretty good. Can you show a side by side with the original? You still have the cobwebs to do, yes? That broken shelf always looked weird. It doesn't look like where a shelf would really break, especially since the shelves are so thick. The original had thinner shelves, no?
Also IIRC the original is more of a blue-grey tint and yours is more brown.
Renzatic on 21/10/2012 at 03:55
Yup. The cobwebs are all that's left. And that shelf? I'm just gonna assume someone hit it with a hammer at some point. Either that, or maybe draw in some stress fractures elsewhere on the shelves to make it look like it could crack like that.
I posted the original up above, by the way. As you can see, I tried following the general layout of the books, but didn't stick directly to the colors. I could've made the books blue, but then they looked ugly as hell. I figured going with the spirit rather than the letter would've netted me better results.
Vae on 21/10/2012 at 04:01
@Larry
Both look much better...and both look very similar to each other. Hard to say which one I prefer.
@Ren
Way better...That really looks good now.
One little thing I noticed, though...as far as the "floating book" thing goes, if you make sure to have a diffused shadow that extends slightly onto the front trim (like the one on the book on the left, second shelf) for all the books that stick out, instead of the black bar right beneath a book, you'll avoid the "floating book" effect...Also, the broken shelf piece is thicker than the rest of the shelf.
LarryG on 21/10/2012 at 04:10
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1402[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]1403[/ATTACH]
It's not the individual colors of the books that bothers me, it's the difference of hue. To be a drop-in replacement the tint --the mood -- of the texture needs to be preserved. Maybe some of that will happen with the cobwebs. Maybe a layer of fine dust will do it. Also right now the texture is pretty monochrome brown when it needs to be blue-grey with occasional red, green, brown and white books. The exact placement is less important than the variety.
Vae on 21/10/2012 at 04:18
I agree 100%...It needs to have that blue-gray tint, in order to preserve the mood.
Also, that left book on the broken piece should be laying against the right one.
Renzatic on 21/10/2012 at 04:23
Quote Posted by Vae
Way better...That really looks good now.
One little thing I noticed, though...as far as the "floating book" thing goes, if you make sure to have a diffused shadow that extends slightly onto the front trim (like the one on the book on the left, second shelf) for all the books that stick out, instead of the black bar right beneath a book, you'll avoid the "floating book" effect...Also, the broken shelf piece is thicker than the rest of the shelf.
The thing about that is if you make the shadow any less transparent than what it currently is, you barely notice it's there. Plus with the wood beneath being so multishaded, some shadows will stand out more than others. It's why I went with the almost opaque shadows. To me, it looked better overall.
Larry, I can match the wood and give the whole thing a bluish tint, but I won't be able to match the hue of the books without redoing the whole thing from scratch. I tried matching the books to the original, shape and all, in my first attempt, and the results, as you saw, weren't all that good. I can oversaturate things a bit, but it'll always be red and white books, rather than blue and white.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/Bookshelf_tint.jpgedit: I take that back. I might be able to change the colors of the red and brown books to blue. Dunno how good it'll look, but I'll take a stab at it.
edit 2: How's that? It washed out the colors a bit, but it's now a much closer match to the original.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/Bookshelf_tint_t.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/Thief_Textures/KBOOKCA3.jpgVae on 21/10/2012 at 04:40
Quote Posted by Renzatic
The thing about that is if you make the shadow any less transparent than what it currently is, you barely notice it's there. Plus with the wood beneath being so multishaded, some shadows will stand out more than others. It's why I went with the almost opaque shadows. To me, it looked better overall.
Okay, I was kind of being nit-picky about that anyway.
The colder blue-gray tint helps capture the original feel, rather than the warmer green-brown.
To reiterate about the broken shelf:
1) Is it me, or does that broken piece look thicker than the rest of the shelf?
2) The left book on the broken piece should be laying against the right one.
EDIT:
Quote:
edit: I take that back. I might be able to change the colors of the red and brown books to blue. Dunno how good it'll look, but I'll take a stab at it.
edit 2: How's that? It washed out the colors a bit, but it's now a much closer match to the original.
I'm sure everyone will agree that's much more like the original feel...much better. The front of the bookshelf should be darker though, and less blue.
Renzatic on 21/10/2012 at 04:53
Quote Posted by Vae
1) Is it me, or does that broken piece look thicker than the rest of the shelf?
2) The left book on the broken piece should be laying against the right one.
Check out the first shot above. I made the break look a little more natural, thinned up the board a bit, and moved the books around slightly. It's back to the original colors, but that's because I'm editing the source, rather than a collapsed TGA.
Quote:
I'm sure everyone will agree that's much more like the original feel...much better. The front of the bookshelf should be darker though, and less blue.
It's kinda ugly to me. Looks too cartoony. Then again, I usually tend towards undersaturated and high contrasty stuff, so it's probably just personal taste.
edit: Try this...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/bookshelf_tint_2.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3018396/Thief_Textures/KBOOKCA3.jpgVae on 21/10/2012 at 05:07
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Check out the first shot above. I made the break look a little more natural, thinned up the board a bit, and moved the books around slightly. It's back to the original colors, but that's because I'm editing the source, rather than a collapsed TGA.
The "break" looks better and more natural...Board thickness, now looks right...That left book should still fall over against the right one (how could it not?)...maybe even the one the left of that should as well.
Quote:
It's kinda ugly to me. Looks too cartoony. Then again, I usually tend towards undersaturated and high contrasty stuff, so it's probably just personal taste.
Taste aside, it captures a lot more of the original feel than the warmer, more monochromatic look...Just darken and de-bluify the wood on the front of the bookcase. Also, it's appropriate to preserve that subtle sense of surreality for THIEF, rather than making things complete 100% Earth look-a-likes.
Renzatic on 21/10/2012 at 05:15
Quote Posted by Vae
That left book should still fall over against the right one (how could it not?)
...the bottoms of the two books to the left and right of it are exerting enough pressure to keep it held in place? I dunno. I'll change it here in a bit. :P
