Game News Colony Ship Update #51: Early Access on April 6th

[agris]

Do you create the portraits Nick?

 

[Nick]

No, I'm a programmer. Coding in frame flipping for portrait animations would be trivial, the problem is art. Those are mighty fine portraits, but drawing them really takes time. Adding one emotion (like pain on attack), given that it's just one frame, would double that time, thus the idea seems crazy.

 

[agris]

Sure, that’s self evident. You have 4 portraits, for example, and if each has 3 additional state frames, that’s an increase of 12 portraits for a total of 16. It’s an exponential increase in art demands.

I do wonder if there could be a prototyping process wherein portions of the portrait are identified to be impacted by states, such that only portions of a portrait need to be modified. For example, the mouth and eyes tend convey the most emotion. Your portrait artist could take the existing portrait, mask an area around the mouth and eyes, and modify those portions.

I get that y’all aren’t AAA and can’t throw money into animating cock rings swaying in the wind, I’m just spitballing in advocacy of a legitimately cool feature (portrait animation) from the older-style games that ITS draws significant inspiration from.

Nick

 

[Alpan]

It would also cause diminishing returns to kick in. An expression of pain leaves little to the imagination, because humans react to pain in similar ways, with the rare exception of masochists. So it is with most other expressions of outright emotion. Therefore conditional portraits would by definition be less expressive than the portrait of a person as they are.

 

[agris]

Alpan have you ever played a game with animated portraits that resulted in the theoretical concern that you laid out?

 

[AdolfSatan]

I do wonder if there could be a prototyping process wherein portions of the portrait are identified to be impacted by states, such that only portions of a portrait need to be modified. For example, the mouth and eyes tend convey the most emotion. Your portrait artist could take the existing portrait, mask an area around the mouth and eyes, and modify those portions.

Facial expressions don't work like that, you can't realistically portray a change in mood just by modifying eyes and mouth, people aren't emojis.

 

[Alpan]

Alpan have you ever played a game with animated portraits that resulted in the theoretical concern that you laid out?

I think you might have misunderstood, the concern is not about my possible experience with the game as a player -- I may or may not enjoy the additional portraits, it depends on the portraits. I'm not making a claim about that (To answer your queston, I did play quite a few games with the kind of portraits you are envisioning, but don't recall an occasion where the fact they were alternating felt good, or bad, to me). I was looking at it from the perspective of the game developer.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Vault Dweller GoG Early Access (Game in development or whatever its called)?

I will contact them on Monday, see what they say.

Any news on GoG front?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller GoG Early Access (Game in development or whatever its called)?

I will contact them on Monday, see what they say.

Any news on GoG front?

It's coming on GOG on April 6. They're excited to play it.

 

[Savecummer]

Alpan have you ever played a game with animated portraits that resulted in the theoretical concern that you laid out?

 

[Savecummer]

 

[Savecummer]

https://streamable.com/nn79w0

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Vault Dweller GoG Early Access (Game in development or whatever its called)?

I will contact them on Monday, see what they say.

Any news on GoG front?

It's coming on GOG on April 6. They're excited to play it.

Awesome

 

[gurugeorge]

Yeah, wuz gonna say in response to the above about changing bits of portraits to reflect changes in character (wounding, etc.) - surely it would be easy with this sort of technology?

 

[Fenix]

Unless some neural network would animate the expressions for us

The horror!

Spoiler

 

[jackofshadows]

Coding in frame flipping for portrait animations would be trivial, the problem is art. Those are mighty fine portraits, but drawing them really takes time. Adding one emotion (like pain on attack), given that it's just one frame, would double that time, thus the idea seems crazy.

Slight alteration for a new frame is hardly the same as creating a new one from scrach.

In any case, portrait's animation seems an odd idea to me since the whole game is made with UE, i.e. 3d all over, no art backdrops etc. Even slight alterations like for wounded/near death seem to be redundant.

 

[Daedalos]

Get mo'er fuggin hyped! :D

 

[ADL]

Vault Dweller GoG Early Access (Game in development or whatever its called)?

I will contact them on Monday, see what they say.

Any news on GoG front?

It's coming on GOG on April 6. They're excited to play it.

Day one. Thank you. The trailer footage looks great by the way.

 

[Savecummer]

surely it would be easy with this sort of technology?

y would it be easy? it looks like garbage
now add high res and you are cooking not with gas...
latest photoshop has faceid and minor expression changes, it works alright, i would say
imo, it would work to generate colonyshit highres portraits with minor smiles, but they would be generic "happy smile"

 

[Kalin]

Colon Ship

 

[Grotesque]

the 2D art in this game is majestic

 

[Kalin]

COLON SHIP

 

[Grotesque]

Will this game be balanced to death, Sawyer style?

 

[Kalin]

 

[Jaedar]

Colony ship is currently the 8th game in steams "most popular upcoming" list https://store.steampowered.com/explore/upcoming/
?