Is this art direction any good?

[soggie]

The programmer art you have is obvious programmer art.

Which one? The "original art" (the one below the concept art) is actual art assets, rendered in-engine using Ogre3D (3d character is photoshopped in though). It is part of the first tech-demo artpack, which I paid for (inclusive of character design, tileset, high poly model, low poly model, source files, etc).

The image in the OP looks okay if a bit artificial and toy like. If that's your intention it looks fine. I assume the oversize vehicles and people are part of the toy or board game look.

Don't mind the size. It's just a hacked together sample art to show off the style.

Another thing to consider: Since the artstyle is unique to this guy, you'll always be dependent on him. Not saying he isn't trustworthy or something but if something happens or he suddenly demands more money or whatever may happen you're pretty much fucked. Then you're forced to find a different artist who has his own style.

A valid point. So far his track record had been nothing but stellar (2 works done, 3rd set coming end of this month. I've practically booked his time until March, for concept artwork and character designs). In any case, he seems to be reasonable and I do trust him, so I guess this part is fine.

 

[ghostdog]

I'm not sure if using only unique hand-drawn backgrounds is valid for a crpg. I mean for a game of decent length, with enough areas to keep you interested , it would be an enormous amount of work. I think it should be a mix of hand-drawn areas and some standard buildings/models you can reuse, something like the IE engine games.

 

[Avonaeon]

From the link with the buildings, it looks like the assets can be combined in different ways to relatively easily make new assets. I think it looks good, and it would go a long way towards making it look unique. I say go for it

 

[soggie]

I'm not sure if using only unique hand-drawn backgrounds is valid for a crpg. I mean for a game of decent length, with enough areas to keep you interested , it would be an enormous amount of work. I think it should be a mix of hand-drawn areas and some standard buildings/models you can reuse, something like the IE engine games.

Funnily enough, this coincides with our recent shift in design decision to keep the world as small as possible, offsetting the reduction of size with an increase in size and value in NPCs.

The idea is that the entire world has a backend economy underneath built around precious metals and agriculture, and every single NPC (even in random encounters) have their own history, family, and impact on the backend economy that killing them, or damaging their lives would dramatically change the world. Not in a canned quest sense but rather, in a more open world sense.

Killing the master weapon smith would result in a gradual degradation of weapon quality across the board, and would stop production of his signature products. Since supply now becomes limited, prices increase, which in turn hurts the mercenary group that employs his weapon exclusively. The mercenary's lowered prestige eventually leads to their failure to defend a trade caravan carrying precious iron from one of the mining towns, thus leading to an iron shortage...

Well, that's kind of ambitious, but the concept is still there. Less people, more importance, and more permutations and numbers of quests and relationships.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm not sure if using only unique hand-drawn backgrounds is valid for a crpg. I mean for a game of decent length, with enough areas to keep you interested , it would be an enormous amount of work. I think it should be a mix of hand-drawn areas and some standard buildings/models you can reuse, something like the IE engine games.

This sounds like a misunderstanding.

It wouldn't be hand-drawn full backgrounds, as in adventure games, it would be hand-drawn scenery objects like buildings, trees, cars etc etc.

What we're now thinking about is whether to use 2D hand-drawn objects, or whether to use 3D pre-rendered objects.

Both have their pros and cons (with 3D objects having the obvious advantage of only needing to model one object, then render it from 4 directions, while with 2D you'd have to, say, paint 4 chairs so the chair can face in each direction), and we're still undecided on which we're going to use.

 

[JarlFrank]

Killing the master weapon smith would result in a gradual degradation of weapon quality across the board, and would stop production of his signature products. Since supply now becomes limited, prices increase, which in turn hurts the mercenary group that employs his weapon exclusively. The mercenary's lowered prestige eventually leads to their failure to defend a trade caravan carrying precious iron from one of the mining towns, thus leading to an iron shortage...

Well, that's kind of ambitious, but the concept is still there. Less people, more importance, and more permutations and numbers of quests and relationships.

Yeah I think you're being a little overambitious here again.

What we are planning to do, though, is to have different currencies and a more flexible economy that can change based on your actions. Some quests might affect the economy, some might even be given to you in order to affect the economy (Hey you, we'd like the currency of our rival city to be de-valued, how about you go and damage their economy by doing my quest), and killing people might have unforseen consequences on the economy such as soggie described (so killing the master smith in order to loot his shop considerably raises the price of weapons and weakens the economy of the town - oops, you didn't expect that to happen, did you?).

 

[zeitgeist]

Is the game supposed to be scalable, resolution-wise, or will it have a fixed resolution? If so, which?

 

[soggie]

Is the game supposed to be scalable, resolution-wise, or will it have a fixed resolution? If so, which?

Fixed scale, unlimited resolution. This means that the scale of the world will always be the same (possibly with only 3 settings: 1x, 2x, 3x) while the larger your screen resolution is, the more world you'll see.

 

[visions]

I like the artstyle in the first post more, has more of a distinct character. The original art style gives me sort of an Arcanum vibe, for some reason.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Lovely graphics. As for the buildings - I think they look to small. Also, a key that would turn them into transparent wireframes like in Syndicate Wars would be very nice.

 

[Davaris]

The programmer art you have is obvious programmer art.

Which one? The "original art" (the one below the concept art) is actual art assets, rendered in-engine using Ogre3D (3d character is photoshopped in though). It is part of the first tech-demo artpack, which I paid for (inclusive of character design, tileset, high poly model, low poly model, source files, etc).

I meant the one with the Barbarians and arches. I can see it is art you have bought and paid for and assembled yourself. What makes it programmer art, is it is bland and has no style of its own.

If you can afford to spend a large amount of money, you may as well get an artist with a unique and tasteful style, that can make your game stand out from the pack. You don't want to blend in, because then no one will notice, or remember your game.

As for that toy style I mentioned, which you say isn't intentional, I think it would suit the hand held PC market.


TBH the OP doesn't excite me, I would call it acceptable. I much prefer the green picture, because of the way the green light dominates the scene. Having said that, I would have to see a mocked up game screen of the OP with all of the panels visible, to have a strong opinion one way or the other.

Is this artist you are using experienced in making assets for games? Perhaps you should also investigate places like IndieGamer, as they have artists with lots of experience in working with independent game makers. The best artists don't come cheap though, and they are always busy.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Is the game supposed to be scalable, resolution-wise, or will it have a fixed resolution? If so, which?

Fixed scale, unlimited resolution. This means that the scale of the world will always be the same (possibly with only 3 settings: 1x, 2x, 3x) while the larger your screen resolution is, the more world you'll see.

Will the GUI be scaled as well? What would be the miminum resolution you plan to target in terms of GUI size?

 

[Unradscorpion]

I like it, but having all of it hand-drawn sounds too expensive to produce, I'm not getting my hopes too high.

 

[shihonage]

The concept art looks great. Reminds me of Moldova, where I used to live. Moldova sucks.

However there's a programmatic issue with large 2D props in isometric environment. You can't handle "entering building", "leaving building" or any interactions between people IN and OUT of the building in a graceful way.

Instead, you get the Fallout 3 way. The building is a box, you come close to it, it loads another area.

Now, if you use smaller 2D props as wall-pieces, then you can build actual architecture that can be entered and exited at will - but it will not look nearly as pretty as one solid, custom-drawn block of art.

 

[denizsi]

I like it but, call me crazy, it direly needs a slight touch of pixelation to avoid looking like a shitty flash game.

And do you have to have the buildings completely represented all the way to the roof? You can blend the height away into a fog after the second or third floor and not lose anything. Perhaps you could still see the complete

Now, if you use smaller 2D props as wall-pieces, then you can build actual architecture that can be entered and exited at will - but it will not look nearly as pretty as one solid, custom-drawn block of art..

One can always cut a single large piece of art down to multiple non-repeating tile pieces and not compromise the artistic quality.

What we're now thinking about is whether to use 2D hand-drawn objects, or whether to use 3D pre-rendered objects.

Why not a mix of both?

 

[soggie]

On a side note, shihonage, I found this while googling. Somebody vandalized Moldova's wiki entry:

 

[zenbitz]

I think it's a fucking great artwork, I love the pessimism and post-apocalyptic vibe it gives, as SimpleComplexity said.

... please make the buildings proportionate to the characters and the rest of the world, don't keep them like that, might sound stupid but it drives me crazy when buildings/vehicles/anything aren't proportionate to the rest of the world.

 

[Metro]

So, should I make the switch?

Absolutely. Stylized is always better than 'realistic.'

 

[Johannes]

I like both the art in the OP and the "original" style - just go with what is nicer to develop and/or fits the games atmosphere better.