CONTEST: Want to work on something that'll be featured on the SMBX website?

[Enjl]

Got rid of the Tony's tileset, thank you very much.

Spoiler: show

that's a good 30x15 blocks right there :ok_hand:

[Drifloon]

I think it would look better if all of the boxes were empty--that's what I did

I did the same thing, too.

[Ness-Wednesday]

I agree with you Pixelpest, to kind of think it I'm not liking the empty ceiling, though should I add a bit more than trees, I don't like upside down SMW bushes.

Spoiler: show

Even when I lay down 30x15 switch blocks, it seems to extend longer beyond a path when I type 480x960 when saving the screen though, I'll check that out.

:Ok_hand:

Can you people stop being sarcastic for once, it not helping and it's getting very old.
What is it going to do for that person when people just be sarcastic, it does nothing but damages bothers the owner of the screen.
It wouldn't even him/her me improve a bit, it'll eventually tick them off.
Can I advise people before head, if you want someone to improve don't just laugh at them and be sarcastic, is it really that hard for y'all to do?

It's not like if I'm taking it seriously, but I think it's going a bit too far, and it seems like most of it goes towards mine, Camacho and Shinbison's levels.

[PixelPest]

If that light sarcasm is so ground-breaking for you...whew! You shouldn't be on the Internet. But the trees just look dumb and even worse than before. I meant vary the height of the blocks; make it look more natural. Look at my screen I posted a ways back to see what I'm referring to

[Shadow Yoshi]

Ness-Wednesday and Quantix, your screenshots don't fit the specified dimensions. Please make sure they're 480x960 pixels and 30 blocks by 15 blocks.

[Ness-Wednesday]

If that light sarcasm is so ground-breaking for you...whew! You shouldn't be on the Internet. But the trees just look dumb and even worse than before. I meant vary the height of the blocks; make it look more natural. Look at my screen I posted a ways back to see what I'm referring to

I didn't mean it that, I mean it's not worthy enough critisim to actually help.
But I understand what you mean now, I'd like to rearrange this now.

Spoiler: show

I measured 15 blocks and divided 30 and I got a 960 width screenshot.
Also added water and changed the trees.

[Quantix]

I think it's fixed.

[Enjl]

Can you people stop being sarcastic for once, it not helping and it's getting very old.
What is it going to do for that person when people just be sarcastic, it does nothing but damages bothers the owner of the screen.
It wouldn't even him/her me improve a bit, it'll eventually tick them off.
Can I advise people before head, if you want someone to improve don't just laugh at them and be sarcastic, is it really that hard for y'all to do?

I can already see the lynching I'm getting for "taking everything too seriously" and "acting like the saviour of the smbx community" or whatever memes people come up with to shut down any form of disagreement between forum users.
Here goes.

Obvious bad scaling and centering of the screen aside...
Looking at your screen as a whole, I can see a conflict between decoration and environment. Your environment is obviously supposed to be a cavern, yet the bushy decoration on the floor and ceiling make it look like a more foresty area.
I also haven't measured but I'm 95% sure this screenshot is both wider and taller than the wanted resolution, so you'll sooner or later have to decide on the area which you want to capture. What I'd have done is capture the area of the scene which you want to work with from the start, so that you have full control over how you want to present it in the end.
Anyway, back to aesthetic. I think this screenshot is generic enough to be taken into both a forest and a cave setting. I think you're going for the cave because it makes up a larger portion of the screenshot, so I'll give some tips on how to achieve that one:
-actual cave bgos
I remember some pack had SMW layer 3 cave background inspired bgos. Knowing this community, there's probably a SMB3 recoloured version. I THINK I've seen the recolour before, but I unfortunately cannot tell you where you can find it. Looking in the large SMBX GFX pack in the SMB3 and SMW categories is a good start though.
-give the one interesting aspect of your screenshot more exposure
The only thing which gives any sort of personality to your screen right now is the body of water. Considering I've already seen much more stylised and interesting images on this page, why would I pick this one over the others? The obvious direction in which you could take it is a limestone cave. If you want to strictly adhere to the SMB3 vanilla aesthetic, clever placement of (actual cave) bgos and adding water drops, another puddle and changing the background to something with more depth (SMB3 other cave bg, lower part) should be enough. You CAN however go absolutely crazy with this idea if you feel like it.
I will not go into more detail on other ideas which can make this screenshot more interesting and less boring as a whole, so I'm just gonna list some:
-gemstone cave (requires gem bgos and would look awesome with a lot of colours)
-conflict between water and lava/ice/poison (left/right) (obvious requirements. Colour contrast can be good here)
-underground jungle (requires a more grassy tileset, more flora and, ideally, a wiggler or ptooie)
moving on...
-npc balance
your coin placement is lame and same-y and your enemies serve no purpose beyond having them. Keeping in mind that this is an aesthetics contest, you don't have to think about how the player moves around on the screen. You're trying to create an environment. The fish in the water is a good start, but adding enemies that are associated with caves rather than bobombs or sidesteppers or whatever helps carrying the aesthetic: buster beetle, buster beetle block, variations of charging chucks (puntin', diggin'), swoopers, spike tops, fuzzies (sm3dw?), gloombas, buzzy beetles. You shouldn't add all, but clever placement of any of these can help in giving your environment more life and personality, even if they're just generic mario enemies for the most part.
Also try mixing up your coin patterns. They're random and nothing but zig-zag.
-buzzy beetle area
I didn't talk about this one until now for a reason because frankly, this fits with nothing else and just looks out of place. I could've talked about "SMB3 style" with the SMB1 styled (smb3 recoloured) trees or the Sidestepper that doesn't even have an outline, but I feel like when we get to the SMB2 bridge piece we need to talk. (incoming hate)
My problems with this small area are plenty and they all kinda go back to "it doesn't fit" or "it makes no sense" or "it ruins the aesthetic by distracting from it and making you stare at this beautiful mess of seemingly random stuff". To start things off - the bridge doesn't go with your SMB3 aesthetic as it's from SMB2. Furthermore the colours on the chains conflict with the rest of the scene by giving a very metallic contrast to the otherwhise natural environment. If the contrast were explored further in the screenshot (mechanised cave, underground ruins) it could work, as nature and metal would be balanced out. However by just adding two chains off to the side you throw everything of balance and if you don't intend to explore this idea of a man-crafted influence on the cave further, I suggest you scrap it entirely. In fact, I'd much rather see just a SMB3 cave sizeable in this spot.

tl;dr
-your screen is boring as hell and in its current state has no chance of being picked, looking at the competition
-your screen is a mess of two themes with not enough personality to be interesting in either
-subpar npc placement which is thrown in, rather than used to enhance the aesthetic
-random buzzy beetle lift because

If you have any questions regarding my criticism or point at arguments where I'm wrong, please do.

E: 3 new posts, my points still stand (except for the dimensions).

[Shadow Yoshi]

I measured 15 blocks and divided 30 and I got a 960 width screenshot.
Also added water and changed the trees.

It's still not the right size. Open it up in an image editor to verify.

Also, please make sure that there are no level editor graphics (such as the green water square or the transparent items in ? blocks) in your screenshot.

[Aero]

[StrikeForcer]

hosting images

Proof that it meets the requirements: uploading pictures

E: blended tooo much so shaded trees to be darkest purple

[PixelPest]

Here's my earlier one with fixed wrapping and a new one:



EDIT: Also

you should fix your screenshot; it's only 958x450 instead of 960x480 like it should be

[Enjl]

b

Increase contrast between foreground and background in the first one and get rid of some of the clutter.

[PixelPest]

b

Increase contrast between foreground and background in the first one and get rid of some of the clutter.

What clutter are you referring to? Also, I kinda like the mininal foreground-background contrast in terms of the general harmony and feel between them. When I tried to increase it I found it kind of took away from it a bit. Thanks for the feedback, but for that part I think I'll keep it the way it is

[Enjl]

- Your screenshot shouldn't have a ton of stuff going on in it. Just the blocks, BGOs, and some NPCs will do, but feel free to make those things interesting.

It could be that I'm overinterpreting this rule, but next to 4matsy's screens yours are the ones in this thread with the most stuff going on in them. I feel like half the npcs and coins can be removed from either to give the environments a less busy look. For the castle a larger number of objects CAN work, since a castle environment is more hectic than a cave in most scenarios, but I find the object distribution in the cave to be no less than a mess.

Addressing your point regarding the background object brightness: While I can see where you're coming from, two things to consider:
1) solid areas should be easily distinguishable from non-solid areas (oh my god enji get glasses you idiot). I CAN clearly tell the difference between them, but on a sweeping look over the screen it takes a closer look to properly view it in its entirety. The light bgo colouralso makes it so that the enemies mesh with it. Notice how the background objects have almost the same colour brightness as the npcs. It's another level of indistinguishability.
2) Your cave is very bright on all layers. Look at your castle screenshot. The contrast between foreground and background is clear. There's a balance. In the cave that balance isn't there.

[PixelPest]

I see more what you're talking about now and I can definitely see where you're coming from. If this was a level contest, I'd definitely be changing the things you mentioned regarding the cave since it is true. However, since it isn't, the contrast isn't necessarily needed so I'm not going to go back and add it in, since I've achieved the result I wanted for the purpose of this contest. But for sure, I totally agree with you regarding the need for BGO vs. block (vs. NPC) distinguishing in general

[Quantix]

Fixed the first one again, and added a new one:

Just so we're clear, the screenshots can't be anywhere above or below 960x480 pixels right?

[PixelPest]

Correct. I'd review the guidelines again as well because your forest screen is missing some kind of ceiling. I also think it looks a little cluttered; there's too many colours and too much variety in general (in terms of blocks and concepts)

[Ness-Wednesday]

Does it matter if it's either 480x960 or does it have to be 960x480?

Spoiler: show

[Witchking666]

Also, just to clarify, are fully custom backgrounds allowed or are we restricted to vanilla-ish ones.