Graphics Resources: Portraits and Sprites

[wipmeeniebom]

a robot and male vesions

 

[xpace]

Those look really cool, wipmeeniebom. Nice work!

My only criticism is that I think most of them (particularly the guy in last portrait) could benefit from more pronounced shading to stay in the style of the "canon portraits." Which is something that seems to be a recurring issue on threads such as this. But IMO, I think the android is shaded fine. Though, it seems strange to me to have an android without eyes... 

I don't think there's such a thing as too many portraits. Though, I have noticed that female portraits seem to outnumber male portraits slightly.
Anyway, if you're up to it, keep em coming.

Maybe I'll find some time to try a few more myself...

[Phil Munoz]

Such clean artwork, it looks like cel-shaded 3D renders.

[xpace]

...Of course, my tablet just happened to die on me right as I was going to finish a batch of new portraits...

Did Ladi ever get his tablet fixed? Sounded like he had a bunch of new portraits partially finished.

Also, I saw on page 9 of the old Portraits thread that Mr. Hewitt posted a list of characters that still need portraits made:

[snip...]

Jondi Syd- Rocket Star weapon master; slightly sleazy and villainous looking. Should be kinda based on Johnny Ramone (Vannis was based on Tina Turner, Kynan was based on David Bowie).

Ritzi- Parshall's sister, 28 years old. Very smart, capable, tired, overworked, and no longer able to contain her sarcasm. She doesn't have her brother's people skills (or at least, can't maintain her people skills for longer than an introduction) and so works behind the scenes. She is wearing a bunny-eared loligoth casino uniform of her own design. Currently she uses Ladi's loligoth image, but I think she could use one of her own.

[snip...]

Fuschia: 22 year old female pop singer. Currently she uses Vikki's portrait, but again she could use another one. She's taking part in a mecha tournament as a promotional stunt. Her image is "Cavalier Style"- imagine a J-Pop or K-Pop singer dressing up like a scifi adventurer. Cheerful, sociable, and easygoing.

Onawa could probably also use a portrait of her own; right now she's using Brianna's portrait. 25 year old female corporate pilot. Originally from Earth, where she was a mercenary recon pilot. Her hair is tied back in a pony tail. She has a serious expression on her face; personality traits are melancholy, shy, easygoing. Her specialty is stealth/ninjitsu.

On further thought, perhaps my female ninja would work for Onawa?



She does have a pony tail and looks very serious. Also, there's no doubt this lady specializes in stealth and ninjitu. But perhaps you wanted her without a mask?

Which brings up another point:

If a portrait is reserved for a named NPC, will variations of same portrait still show up for random NPCs? Personally, I think the in-game color variations on portraits is enough to distinguish them. And part of me would think it a waste to reserve a portrait completely, not allowing any random variants.

It might be a bit complicated to code, but it should be possible to reserve a specific color combination for a named NPC (like brown hair and a blue outfit) and, while allowing the same portrait for random NPCs, it would allow all other color combos - blocking only that one combination.

[Phil Munoz]

I think that once there is an excessive amount of portraits available, Named NPCs can have portraits that are unique to themselves only... meaning no other character (named NPC, NPC or player character even) may have that portrait.

I think we could even go as far as letting the said named character have a portrait that doesn't use the standard red/yellow/green on blue background scheme since their portrait won't be under going the randomization process.

So I think we have to determine at what point can we say that we have an excessive number of portraits...

[Joseph Hewitt]

Did Ladi ever get his tablet fixed? Sounded like he had a bunch of new portraits partially finished.

I believe her tablet is fixed, but since she just became a mother I think it's going to be a while before we see any new portraits.

On further thought, perhaps my female ninja would work for Onawa?
...
She does have a pony tail and looks very serious. Also, there's no doubt this lady specializes in stealth and ninjitu. But perhaps you wanted her without a mask?

I think Onawa should have more of a somber serious, while the ninja has more of an intense serious. Her dialogue sounds like she's quiet and a bit sad... then you enter the arena and she one-hit KO's you. It's always the quiet ones.

Onawa should be dressed practically. On Earth, she did a lot of recon/commando work. She's melancholy but shouldn't be goth- goth implies a level of flamboyance, wheras she seems to be more reserved. The ninja costume is also kinda flamboyant.

If a portrait is reserved for a named NPC, will variations of same portrait still show up for random NPCs? Personally, I think the in-game color variations on portraits is enough to distinguish them.
...
It might be a bit complicated to code, but it should be possible to reserve a specific color combination for a named NPC (like brown hair and a blue outfit) and, while allowing the same portrait for random NPCs, it would allow all other color combos - blocking only that one combination.

Portraits are available for random NPCs unless they're specifically excluded by giving them an illegal filename. Generally female portraits start with "por_f_", male portraits with "por_m_", and restricted portraits with "por_x_". Random NPCs usually have grey clothing unless they're members of a faction, in which case they get the faction color. By giving named NPCs a clothing color which isn't used by any faction you can guarantee that their exact portrait won't show up randomly.

[wipmeeniebom]

Jondi syd:

ref:


I'm up to doing the rest (ritzi, fushia, etc).

My only criticism is that I think most of them (particularly the guy in last portrait) could benefit from more pronounced shading to stay in the style of the "canon portraits." Which is something that seems to be a recurring issue on threads such as this.

I'll see what I can do to fix that. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I misplaced the large version of the man with beads pic, so I'll just redo it entirely.

[wipmeeniebom]

Ritzi. Also, no longer just 2 tone shading.

[xpace]

Just my two cents:

I love your Ritzi! She looks cute and it's clear you're getting a better hang of shading.

The outfit does remind me of Goth and Lolita fashion. Though, I had envisioned most casino girls to wear revealing outfits. However, Wikipedia describes Lolita fashion as something different:

The irony of the name could be considered in that the fashion was created to fight the growing exposure of the body and skin in today's society... [snip] a movement where girls ranging from pre-teens to late 20's fight the current fashion with modesty.

As for Jondi:

It looked like you were going in the right direction. However, he did not appear the least bit sleazy or villainous to me. (Instead, he looks somewhat surprised.) He needs some sort of partly contained scowl, evil grin, arched eyebrows... or something.

Also, it might help if the portrait was slightly more zoomed in on his face so the head was bigger. That would make it easier to see the details of the face, such as the expression he wears.

Further, while I prefer realistic shading myself, I think 4 tone shading might be sufficient. At least, I've seen some portraits accepted with this.

Did Ladi ever get his tablet fixed? Sounded like he had a bunch of new portraits partially finished.

I believe her tablet is fixed, but since she just became a mother I think it's going to be a while before we see any new portraits.

Ah, my mistake. And congratulations Ladi!

Portraits are available for random NPCs unless they're specifically excluded by giving them an illegal filename...

OK, I understand so far...

Random NPCs usually have grey clothing unless they're members of a faction, in which case they get the faction color.

You must be referring to portraits in GH2 (which I haven't tried recently), because that's not the way it seems to work in GH1.

By giving named NPCs a clothing color which isn't used by any faction you can guarantee that their exact portrait won't show up randomly.

Umm, I don't follow. How would one give the portrait for a named NPC a color not used by a faction? Are you referring to color assignment in-game, or in a paint program before the finished portrait file is uploaded? Because I've not seen many portraits with grey clothing or any specific color for that matter. Nearly all of them have clothes in some combination of red, white, maroon, and grey - so the game pallete shifts the final color.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I don't like the Ritzi portrait much. The important words in Ritzi's description are "smart, capable, tired, overworked, and no longer able to contain her sarcasm". The portrait is too cute and passive. Her body language is submissive rather than confident or assertive. It's not a bad picture, but it's not suitable for this character.

It looks like you made this as a 3D model and then inked on top of that. If you can work with Poser or something, how about trying to make some of the character sprites we need?

I like the Jondi Syd image- crazy eyes. As xpace said, though, it could use a closeup and some extra sleaze.

The outfit does remind me of Goth and Lolita fashion. Though, I had envisioned most casino girls to wear revealing outfits. However, Wikipedia describes Lolita fashion as something different:

The irony of the name could be considered in that the fashion was created to fight the growing exposure of the body and skin in today's society... [snip] a movement where girls ranging from pre-teens to late 20's fight the current fashion with modesty.

I have some friends who are/used to be into the loligoth scene. The way one of them explained it is that it's about creating a hyperfeminine aesthetic which is not bound by mainstream beauty standards or done to attract men or even to win the approval of other women. Instead, loligoth fashion aims to destroy each of these cultural assumptions. It's iconoclasm with lace and frilly things. To me it sounds an awful lot like punk, but that's probably just because that's where I'm coming from. I also suspect that if you ask 20 loligoths about their philosophy you'd get 20 very different answers. Still, I like this one, and it makes a nice segue for me to give my general thoughts on female avatars...

Before I begin let me just say that this isn't directed at anyone, it's just my opinions which I'd like to make public. The portrait artists for GH have done a great job at creating lots of interesting men and women.

Video game women are frequently defined by their attractiveness. They may be cute or sexy or a different kind of sexy, but that's all the characterization they're allowed to have. This sucks. It's visually boring. It's thematically boring. It's annoying to female gamers who want an avatar they can build their character around but instead get nothing but tartlets. It's annoying to male gamers who want the same thing.

Female portraits, like male portraits, should have some character. They should not be defined by their sex appeal*. For GearHead, I'd prefer something more interesting. Express a mood, or a personality trait, or an archetype. Mix things up. Break the conventions.

Now, I will say that I think the selection of portraits in GearHead is pretty good. I do think that the female portraits tend a bit much towards young + skinny + attractive, while the male portraits don't have enough young + skinny + attractive. We could use some older portraits for both genders and some different body types as well.

*Except in the rare case where the sex appeal is the defining characteristic. But again, this applies to the men as well as the women. Speaking of which, we need more sexy men. There aren't a lot of male portraits with high Charm requirements.

[wipmeeniebom]

Closeup of jondi, soft shaded, added sneer. The sneer was actually there originally, but looked bad when shrunk so a I settled for a closed mouth. With a closer up view, it looks a bit better.

It looks like you made this as a 3D model and then inked on top of that. If you can work with Poser or something, how about trying to make some of the character sprites we need?

I only just downloaded GH2 and looked at the obj subdirectory. With those as reference, I'll see what I can do about sprites.

[Joseph Hewitt]

There's a list on the first page of this thread of needed sprites. GH1 and the default setting of GH2 use bitmap sprites; to render a bitmap sprite from a 3D model, the camera should be placed 30 degrees above the horizontal and far enough away so that the resulting image is an appropriate size. There's a page on the GHWiki about it:

http://gearhead.chaosforge.org/wiki/index.php?title=Guides:Artwork_Standards

Thanks for your help.

[wipmeeniebom]

female singer

[Joseph Hewitt]

It looks good. 

[Phil Munoz]

It's Hatsune Miku!  Cute!