Here's a basic scene mockup using art I made for my game. (note: the sketches in the frames were from an artist I know)

I'm thinking about how to fake the light coming in from the windows (and also dull the divide between the floor and wall), and came up with this:

I'm liking how it looks (though the sun rays from the window might need to be softer), but I'm not really sure what to do with the window glass itself. It's a 2D game, so there's nothing really actually "behind" it. I could draw something to put out there, but from this camera angle, you'd basically be looking at the ground.

I could have a small collection of "window background" art pieces (like garden pathways and some pottery or something) that I could mix and match when creating areas, to give uniqueness to each window without having to make entire scenes for every window in my game. Hmmm.

Do you have advice on how to make the windows' glass look better?

The angled light helps alot, thanks!

I'm not sure I have the window slashes right - here's two of them, one with a few thicker beams and one with multiple thinner beams.

The light beams look a bit unnatural going to the right. Maybe it's just me. I'd try to angle them to the left and maybe with a bit bigger angle.

As for the window panes, they already look good IMHO, but if you want to add backgrounds (maybe only for the occasional open window) I'd try pretending that the ground levels out at that point (since looking at the grass would be boring) and maybe add a static background image with something thematically appropriate (hills? castle? a village?) that scrolls slower than the main game scrolls (to make it look like it's off in the distance).

(Link to the altered version: http://s4.postimg.org/wtb92l9jx/servant.png)

Hello. A few observations:

- No blue glass, make it a bright gray. It should look more realistic.

- Add a mirroring \ reflection effect on the floor so the scene feels more three-dimensional.

- Improve the lighting: use stronger shadows and the indoor objects should give stronger hints of the indoor lighting. An example is the table, it's a faceted object and should have different lighting on each side.

Wow, that's impressively different. I hadn't considered floor reflections in the 2D engine of my game. I'll have to give it some thought and consider how much time I want to invest improving it - most of my floors will be rougher stone tiles and carpeting, and older wood floors, which doesn't reflect as much, and it'd probably require two weeks or more of work to implement it for basically only one city that is affluent.

Though I could fake it just for the few scenes that have shinier floors, by manually creating a reflection and then applying it with alpha or overlay blending. It'd be alot of work to do it in my engine automatically, but it only takes a few minutes in a decent art program. I think I'll fake it then, though with subtler reflections. That'll definitely improve the areas that can benefit from it. Thank you!

I'll play around with the glass coloration a bit more also - with the streaks Glass_Knife mentioned, and many with objects scene through the window.
The brightness of the portraits definitely need to be toned down and more greyish/beigish so they don't appear like they are emitting light.

I can definitely do stronger shadows for the objects, and strengthen the difference in brightness for the object faces. Since the lighting will be pre-baked into the object sprite, I can't dynamically light them.

The light beams look a bit unnatural going to the right. Maybe it's just me. I'd try to angle them to the left and maybe with a bit bigger angle.

That doesn't look quite right to me. Maybe I'll do something closer to the original centered beam, but with just a slight angle to it.

As for the window panes, they already look good IMHO, but if you want to add backgrounds (maybe only for the occasional open window) I'd try pretending that the ground levels out at that point (since looking at the grass would be boring) and maybe add a static background image with something thematically appropriate (hills? castle? a village?) that scrolls slower than the main game scrolls (to make it look like it's off in the distance).

Huh, I hadn't thought about using parallax on the windows. Thanks! I have parallax in other parts of the game for other purposes. Because of how close-up things are, I don't think I can get away with showing real distant structures like castles or forests or distant islands (my game isn't side-scrolling. It's closer to 2D Zelda birds-eye, but not fully birds-eye - you only see the north wall), but parallax combined with the "window background objects" could really add depth to the scenes.

I could probably do the light beams parallaxed also, so when you are walking, the angle of the light beam changes slightly... though then it wouldn't illuminate specific spots on the ground, so I'd have to have it fade out faster.

That doesn't look quite right to me. Maybe I'll do something closer to the original centered beam, but with just a slight angle to it.

Yeah that doesn't really look better either. Hmm. If you look at some reference images (click) you'll notice that the light beam kind of spreads out a bit so that the resulting "image" on the floor is wider than the window. Might be worth a try.

I knew there was some technical term for this.