Contest #16: Background challenge - VOTING

[YinYin]

my vote will go to the one background that has:

• black borders; top and bottom
  
• correct/great perspective
  
• custom sprites

regarding the background itself only lf2TimmE1s JulianCave fulfills these requirements (ours wouldn't get a vote either for using a stock photo)

i think for most backgrounds it is obvious at what point they fail to get my vote so i will only explain the less obvious ones

Acherontics only flaw is the way too wide backdrop image (in relation to the bg width) which thus moves around too fast and also makes all the mountains in front move too fast - they look like cardboard pieces in a pretty nice theater set (apoc already mentioned this kind of)
as soon as the whole thing moved it destroyed all expectations i had from the still image
specials like the 'once' collapsing bridge don't make up for it (i wanted to implement an animation just like that as well to have the boss sitting and starting from the mushroom in the background btw - but i wondered whether it would play again when reloading the bg and also whether fps changers could reach the repetition point)

Vallenfyre only fails for using ripped sprites that feel way too familiar (i think i've already seen elements of it in your previous backgrounds marshall)
but for using just one big animated sprite it still manages correct perspective and black bars

every other background mostly either has obvious problems with the perspective or no black bars
most of these can be easily fixed - or even avoided on the next background by better planning it ahead

@Apocalipsis (Click to View)

In case someone mentions it, we know about the bottom black bar of the background, but we couldn't implement it because of zboundary bugging the rest of the original backgrounds.

you could and you can still - the fighters already can't go to the very bottom of the screen (thus the ground doesn't need to go that far down) and you can easily move the fighting area 5px up, even if that cuts your zeus slightly -> enough space for a black border gained without changing your zwidth
also i suspect that your ground sprite actually goes down beyond the screen, which basically shows laziness i am guilty of this time aswell

I didn't mean it like that. More like "I'm not staying out of this". I apologize if it souded offensive.

don't worry - i understood
but i realize it doesn't look like it ...

@~Dome (Click to View)

thats crap. if you argue like that, every background can be a boss background.

which is true - especially since the theme was 'boss fight'
not boss lair or anything like that - if you set it up right a boss can chase the player down and challenge him anywhere, it's up to the developer to make it look credible

[Monolith]

Same like yinyin thinks about boss bg,some in this forum was saying,they cant understand how my and some others can be boss bg.
Maybe some now understand about varied boss bg

[mfc]

I'm not gonna make critics but i think the best one was the Ducklord's Ducktopia.

Pretty colorful, sweet and fresh. -i don't like dark bgs
And all handmade, unique..

[Monolith]

And all handmade, unique..

if peoples drawing base for very good bg and later scanning,making to look it digital,then outcome is awesome,so u still do not like it.
But i can understand,"everyone have their own opinion"some dont have their own opinion.
I dont know if here is more than one bg made by drawing template.
On topic,damn here is some good backgrounds,if some bg have awseome dc,i still think,puting to much things like dynamic effects or too much animation is not needed,like in chars,mods or misc things.
If u think i want to change my vote from bp to someones bg,then u are wrong,i not friend with bp,i angry for what he doing,but i like his bg,cuz its well made,sprites of bg,data is not "overpowered".

[Apocalipsis]

Actually that was intentional and that's why I wanted to reduce the zboundary... there are supposed to be black bars at the top and bottom of the background. I know YinYin is gonna criticise the lack of a bottom bar, but nevermind, it's not vital

Well, atleast I was right about that, MH :p

you could and you can still - the fighters already can't go to the very bottom of the screen (thus the ground doesn't need to go that far down) and you can easily move the fighting area 5px up, even if that cuts your zeus slightly -> enough space for a black border gained without changing your zwidth
also i suspect that your ground sprite actually goes down beyond the screen, which basically shows laziness i am guilty of this time aswell

Honestly we didn't think about that, it was not laziness.


In my opinion, black bars are important, but not that important as to disregard every other aspect of the background. Fortunately, each person has his own opinion :p

[YinYin]

In my opinion, black bars are important, but not that important as to disregard every other aspect of the background. Fortunately, each person has his own opinion :p

well if less people would fail at the most basic things i could regard the more complex features for my vote
and you would certainly have it if you had made a little effort to include this
but you had to complicate the background and for that discard something pretty essential

you've already said that you want to fine tune and expand on this background anyway

how about giving the gods different glow colors - blue on blue for everyone is not very catchy

[Apocalipsis]

how about giving the gods different glow colors - blue on blue for everyone is not very catchy

you've already said that you want to fine tune and expand on this background anyway

It was like that in a different version, where the palette was orange and not blue. In that version the blue glow of Poseidon looked just wrong, and I'm guessing it will be the same with the red glow of Hades with this colour theme. Not sure about the yellow glow of Zeus.

I'm not so excited about expanding/doing more tuning to the background right now. I'm still busy with university. And also, being honest, I was expecting better feedback for it, given the amount of work and effort put into sprites and datachanging. Not much to fix from what I read, just that black bottom bar, since the only other critic we got is that the sprites are too heavy for LF2, and I don't think we want to 'fix' that. We have one more main idea to implement but is mainly more sprites (animated sprites at that), so I guess it's not much better than this version gameplay-wise.

Also, the amount of critics in this thread is pathetic. There are just 2 or 3 users who did full critics to every background... and that includes me. There are cases in wich not every background got critics and there's a small feedback for the voted backgrounds, wich is better than nothing. And then there's voting with no critics... I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much, but I was expecting full critics for every background from, atleast, each person who did one.

[YinYin]

There are cases in wich not every background got critics and there's a small feedback for the voted backgrounds, wich is better than nothing. And then there's voting with no critics... I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much, but I was expecting full critics for every background from, atleast, each person who did one.

i kinda started writing a critique for everyone but i'm only half way done and so i figured i would at least get my vote out

i sure have more critique for you as well - more positive than negative i have to admit

[mfc]

Sorry for sounding a little noobish but could somebody write a little info about black bars? I don't understand when you talk about it...

[YinYin]

its a visual element of every original lf2 background
the black space at the top and bottom
it reserves space for function key count and difficulty setting
and it emphasizes the width of the screen (just like wide screen theater movies)
underlining the side scrolling nature of the game (the screen will never move up or down - and the black bars are visually blocking this direction)
things like this are also used in comics for example - making the last panel of a page stretch out to the border indicating that it goes on afterwards