Portraits?

[Ladonna]

I need to see more to really give a judgement. Of all persuasions.

The two at the top are well done, but first perhaps you could tell us whether they fit in with your own imagined views of any characters that you have written? Will you have written descriptions of NPC's? If so, make sure the pics are not totally different to the written description.

Thats the problem with graphical portraits. They sometimes say too much, and tax the developer with having to conform to the artist, or vice versa.

Anyway, get some more for judgement please.

 

[Zomg]

I've been actively annoyed by character portraits in more or less everything besides Arcanum, where they were superb. Anything less than that quality and they're a liability, just because specific visual representations paralyze your imagination. Give me a text snippet and a blurry head texture any day.

 

[MountainWest]

I don't like them. They're not bad; they're just not that good. They lack character and detail, and some proportions and lighting strike me as odd. E.g. the eyes on the guy to the left and the brooch on the guy to the right.

I'd rather let my imagination paint the faces than looking at those you presented.

Note: this is coming from a guy who fail at drawing stick-people.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Am I the only one who really didn't like Arcanum's portraits?

Personally I think the guy has some talent. If I were running the show I would have only a few NPCs have portraits and only the "very important ones" where it might be a little more important to really put a face to a person. Otherwise text descriptions work perfectly.

Maybe you could write up some descriptions of one of the more important NPCs, give him a tone or somesuch to work in, and see what happens.

That's what I would do at least.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Without being sarcastic: is hiring a 'professional' artist too expensive for AoD?

Depends on the price. I didn't shop around though, too time consuming at this point. Last time I placed an ad on conceptart.org, I got over 40 emails and dealing with each guy, answering questions, providing feedback, reviewing test pieces took an insane amount of time.

I don't like them. They're not bad; they're just not that good. They lack character and detail, and some proportions and lighting strike me as odd. E.g. the eyes on the guy to the left and the broach on the guy to the right.

Agree.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Maybe you could write up some descriptions of one of the more important NPCs, give him a tone or somesuch to work in, and see what happens.

Posted already as per Roqua's request; see page 1. I can post some dialogue samples as well, if someone cares.

 

[stargelman]

I agree with Edward. It's probably a better idea to use portraits for the more important NPCs exclusively, if at all, a bit like in Fallout. I'd really prefer a thorough description of the NPC in text though, as seen in Planescape.

One funny thing about character portrays is how they're sometimes used in irritating ways. For instance when the sprite or model for the character look nothing like their character portray in dialog. Hope you won't make that same mistake.

 

[Human Shield]

Portraits are usually more important in a party game IMO. Keeping the main character free of portraits would be fine.

Portraits on NPCs can be limited, take the fallout approach and use the best ones for the most key characters (and I guess the most interesting ones too).

For the art you have you could just use them as a textures and place them as actually paintings in the game. So the leader of the thief guild is vain enough to have a painting, you would have to decide if it is realistic (maybe the paintings are all just leftovers from the past, and you run the pictures through a photoshop filter), but it does show class and gives the player cool things on the wall.

 

[Lumpy]

Portraits are usually more important in a party game IMO. Keeping the main character free of portraits would be fine.

I don't think so - since the main characters will be pretty watered and basic anyway*, portraits would help individualize them.

*unless VD would disagree?

 

[Roqua]

@ Roqua: One more time, the portraits are for NPCs.

But to test the artist, if this is true, why not post a character description and backstory and we'll see what he can do, and ask others to throw their hat in the ring and we can see what they can do. It can be like the interface thread 2.

Why not?

These are the unedited (don't mind the writing) descriptions we use in-game when we introduce a character to you:

Cado has been a thief ever since he could remember. Unlike many people who thought that stealing was a quick and easy way to make money, Cado believed that stealing was a job, much like guarding or trading, and like any job it required a lot of time and efforts, rewarding hard work and dedication. Running a thieves guild in a small town was a difficult and dangerous occupation, and the guild was hit hard more than a few times in the past. A few years ago a guildmaster was nailed to the guild's door, and Cado, who was next in line, had reluctantly accepted the duties and carefully navigated local waters without attracting too much attention to the guild.

Cassius was a relatively young loremaster, having recently celebrated his 42nd birthday. Unlike his gray-haired colleagues with long beards symbolizing wisdom, Cassius' hair was still black and his beard was a stylish black rectangle symbolizing more interest in the opposite sex than in the dusty scrolls describing the tactical brilliance and numerious victories of one of the long dead emperors. Cassius had been waiting patiently for one of his gainfully employed colleagues to die, when Antidas' emissaries made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Dellar's appearance was misleading. He looked like a skinny sad-looking scribe who would be the first to die in any fight. In reality the last two decades Dellar spent fighting for one cause or another, mastering the tricky art of killing your opponents before they can kill you. The highlights of his career included protecting caravans, raiding caravans a few years later, rotting in a dungeon and fighting for food scraps, being noticed and promoted into a gladiator, finally escaping to Teron and faithfully serving House Daratan ever since.

Thats good, but what are you looking for in art direction? Colorful? Gritty and grimmy with a lot of darks used? Something sharp and clear? Black and white? Oil based, water color, pastel, etc? Use the example of a good character portrait as a an example of the art direction? Or do you want to not comment because you'd rather get vastly different submissions covering different directions and rule nothing out?

I'm pretty good with pencil but I can't ink well, and I suck at painting in general. If I were to try it out I'd like to know if you want full detail and shade (which would cripple the direction a painter would take) or just a general outline. I can emial you some things I've done so you can see if my style rules me out before I waste time on a new piece if you want.

 

[Ladonna]

Portraits are usually more important in a party game IMO. Keeping the main character free of portraits would be fine.

Portraits on NPCs can be limited, take the fallout approach and use the best ones for the most key characters (and I guess the most interesting ones too).

For the art you have you could just use them as a textures and place them as actually paintings in the game. So the leader of the thief guild is vain enough to have a painting, you would have to decide if it is realistic (maybe the paintings are all just leftovers from the past, and you run the pictures through a photoshop filter), but it does show class and gives the player cool things on the wall.

Agreed. I personally like portraits if there is a shitload of them and they are decent, but if that will spread the butter even thinner, then the above suggestion is the way to go. Important characters only, leave the rest to the imagination.

But hey, if you want to rope in a few more graphic whore sales, be my guest!

 

[SimpleComplexity]

hey they are nice concept arts, i guess it depends on which size you want them to have it in your game, when you size them a little bit smaller and give them some Photoshop farbsettings finetuning they could turn out great. Plus i think its important to have the same concept art style, so if you decide to pick the artist then he should do all portraits, if possible.

 

[golgotha]

The biggest problem with them is since they're so "soft" visually, they seem to lack any detail. Detail is what sets people apart, and thus it hinders the belief that these are unique characters.

Even with my limited ability, a two minute edit in PS seemed to do wonders for the image:

Note, this is only for example's sake.

Now, I'm not going to say whether the edit looks better than the original, art wise. But for a game that relies on the image of the NPC to invoke some kind of reaction in the player, I'd strongly prefer the edited.

 

[Elwro]

I like the original portraits, wouldn't mind them being used as NPC's images in the game. But than again, I have absolutely no artistic taste whatsoever.

 

[kingcomrade]

I really love those protraits, why do you guys have reservations about their quality??

 

[Lumpy]

50% probably do cause VD said so.

 

[Special_Can]

Facegen!!!


The're fine. It's just fucking portraits. What happen to peoples imagination, imagine your damn character!

 

[Fez]

If you can get a stack of those for the right price then I'd say go for it, VD. They seem decent enough to me even at that size and I'm guessing when they'll be displayed on screen they'll take up less space than that.

 

[callehe]

Even with my limited ability, a two minute edit in PS seemed to do wonders for the image:

that's really good actually, PS saves the day again. a little unconforming to AoD's colour code, but a clear improvement from the originals. I like the pseudo cel shading feel of the constrasts. They are also a lot less 'liney'

 

[MacBone]

I'm not crazy about the first two character portraits. Neither is bad, but they both seem more amateurish than professional. Each seems flat compared to the third portrait you posted.

 

[One Wolf]

I often prefer my mental visualization of character portraits better than rendered ones. I have encountered this phenomena repeatedly in films made from books. The imagination is a powerful paintbrush, especially when the text descriptions are at the level they seem to be.

My vote is no portraits, unless they are done by Ganbat.

 

[Jora]

If you can get a stack of those for the right price then I'd say go for it, VD. They seem decent enough to me even at that size and I'm guessing when they'll be displayed on screen they'll take up less space than that.

I kinda agree with this. AoD isn't a game you buy to marvel some Boyarsky/Justin Sweet art. They aren't amazing but they are good enough, and if this guy is interested in doing them, why not? Extra art is always a plus.

The black and white pictures at the beginning of the Geneferge games that are used to tell the story and the images accompanying the skill descriptions in the Avernum games aren't made by amazing high profile artists but they're good enough. They add flavor to the content. In their on way they give a small sense of professionalism, a sense that some effort was put into making the game.

 

[One Wolf]

As an example of what good portraits could be like, here are some crops I made from larger pieces by Ganbat:

 

[Elhoim]

OH, TEH BLOOM MADE TI INTO AOD!!!!

 

[Claw]

Without many words, I feel inclined to agree with Roqua and Edward.

These portraits would make nice talking heads for important characters.