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[infinitarium]

Colors have always been my weakness. I'm designing destructible 3D objects for use in a Bomberman-like game. I made the scenes above to test what they'll look like in the context of the game. Obviously, it drives me mad bothers me that everything looks so brown, but I'm having trouble choosing other colors.

This is what my diffuse looks like (no spec or normal for now):



I've looked at other games and read some articles on color theory for game designers and they've helped, but I still feel kinda lost.

So far, I know:

• Player characters and enemies are highly contrasted and saturated, therefore... the floor has to be plain and desaturated, right?
• There should be, like, an accent color that I can use to make the shape of things more evident. Probably a violet or aquamarine hue.
• The main light is already yellowish so I should try to make the textures colder than I want the objects to look.

I'd like to know:

• Is the design on the walls too distracting?
• Do the objects (pillar, obelisk) look destructible? (because they are) Should I add cracks?
• Should I increase the contrast on the objects? And how?
• Should I simplify the design of the enemy (beige bandaged tank)?

Thanks in advance. Have a Gomez:

[davemakes]

1. I don't find the design on the wall distracting, I think it adds a good visual texture and cements it in my mind as the bounds of the board. It gets a little busy looking on the zoomed out view, but I'm not sure how close the camera will be in the game.

2. I didn't get that the objects are destructible, they look pretty solid. I think they definitely need to be cracked into chunks to look like they're ready to be blown apart.

3. I don't know if you need to increase the contrast of objects, but maybe the contrast of objects with each other? Right now you're working in a very tight monochromatic color scheme. Are there gameplay differences between the different kinds of pillars/obelisks and whatnot? You've got everything in a very tight sliver of the color wheel, you could probably broaden the hues even just a little to help distinguish different objects.

4. The design of the enemy tank doesn't really convey "tank." It looks kind of like a food cart or something, it doesn't have a clear and threatening canon. I feel like the design should convey to the player, "don't stand in front of this end." And again, I don't know what the player's camera will be doing, but a lot of the visual interest is on the sides, while the top is pretty much a rectangle, so it's not that interesting from most the the screenshots.

I think your work so far looks awesome, so keep it up! If you're interested, I found James Gurney's writing about color wheel masking to be really helpful. http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/01/color-wheel-masking-part-1.html