Author Topic: Character artwork enhancement  (Read 532 times)

Offline avestron

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Character artwork enhancement
« on: May 11, 2010, 09:27:16 AM »
For anybody who has played certain mech games/ rpgs (FM/ VB/ GW/ CW) you will notice that developers not only include a single player image but a series of images to depict a single character.

Neutrality, Mellowness, Happiness, Humour, Pain, Sadness, Anger, Surprise, Shock, Suspicion, Ambarrassment, etc.

All these emotions could be represented in-game and perhaps even in greater detail (degrees of each emotion).

Even a limited set of 8 emotional states could be used to provide greater depth to RPG elements within the game - and perhaps also greater depth to combat within the game (perhaps even monsters could show elements of emotion for those characters who want pets or simply a richer dungeoneering experience)

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It would also be good if cybertech could not be an automatic feature of faces but simply added into portraits as purchased and installed (Overlaying the underlying jpg with the overlying pngs of different parts (where applicable)

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Taking this a step further, even the sprites could use an expansion, reflecting parries, impacts, injuries, and so on. This would probably complicate matters slightly but it would be increasingly interesting, or so I think.

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I know it would take some work - For what its worth I have some basic knowledge of Blender and would be happy to help.

Offline IronJelly

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Re: Character artwork enhancement
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2010, 09:34:01 AM »
I'm not really sure this is something the game needs, or should have development time spent on.  I play ASCII, and would not benefit from this, nor would time spent implementing it have any positive effect for me.

Further, the player's mood isn't really tracked to the specified degree.  This would require more than just setting the mood, but instead adding triggers to things that can happen that might influence the mood.  Even then, it's not a linear scale (like happy or sad), so it would need stat weighting toward each of these things, and would just be tough overall to implement for very little gain.

Then there is the cybertech thing.  Cool concept, but won't work with the emotions idea already presented.  Your face changes with your emotions.  You're angry: Your eyebrows become slanted, your pupils dialate, your mouth raises at the corners, your cheeks flush.  Now you're sad, and other things happen.  Trying to match these up with cyberware would be a pain, and require many additional images.  And the players like me who use ASCII would still not see any benefit.

Now, I would feel differently if the player had a mood (more than just being in a bad mood = lower stats as currently), that had an impact on the game.  If being happy made conversation easier, and being angry made you do extra combat damage or something, if there were plentiful and interesting ways to change your mood and interact with it already implemented into the game, well, then this would be beneficial and therefore much more interesting.

Offline avestron

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Re: Character artwork enhancement
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2010, 07:52:46 PM »
I used to play GH1 in its Ascii form for a while before switching to the isometric variant, so I can see where you are coming from when you say that you don't really see sufficient benefit to more accurately plotting out emotions for character.

Its understandable because such changes would seem cosmetic at best, and they could very well end up as little more, but your later suggestion also exposes the tip of an iceberg of opportunity for moving beyond the cosmetics and into the engine of the game - mainly in terms of plot but also in terms of mechanics.

For instance in another game I played the emotions of a unit didn't just determine whether they were at their best but determined strengths and weaknesses, and this can be taken to be true in real life also.

For instance, in the game of chess a player tends to play differently depending on who the person in the other seat happens to be, affected not only by personal mood but by confidence and also the relationship with the other person. Such perspectives can lead to different styles of play. Offensive, defensive, passive, aggressive, brutal, elaborated and so on.

In terms of GH2 this could broaden the spectrum of plot and interaction options.

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In terms of expressiveness and cyberware - yes that is a problem that I am already anticipating.

As I see it there are three options, none necessarily exclusive to each other:

a)  To have at least two expressive angles (dead-forward and forward-side) of each character in each expression whereby a degree of consistency could be achieved in terms of reference points within images - such as where the pupil and ear centers are. Then it would be a matter of alligning the off-set of the images to produce accurate cyber overlays.

b) To have character-specific cyberwear image sets, which would result in very tailored final images and colour stylable cyberwear (an extension to character colour selection)

c) To use 3D model renditions of characters an cyber parts - which has its pros (it would be possible to generate in-game models based on such renditions) but would 'possibly' take from the anime charm and would likely be a timely process

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Leaving aside the cosmetics perhaps this topic should expand more on the part of character emotions and the way such might affect game play and mechanics.

Offline Frumple

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Re: Character artwork enhancement
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2010, 09:16:33 PM »
For anybody who has played certain mech games/ rpgs (FM/ VB/ GW/ CW) you will notice that developers not only include a single player image but a series of images to depict a single character.


M'a raw ASCII player (less resource consumption, bleh), so it wouldn't really effect me, I guess (well, maybe if implementation slowed down content and mechanics development, heh.), but I still gots a question. What's FM/VB/GW/CW? It seems you say there's more mech rpgs out there, which other than that old btech dos one, I don't believe I've heard of any... well, the various gundam riffs (There's a boatload on the SNES, actually, mostly SD spins), but thas 'bout it. Obviously, inquiring mind wants to know. More timekillers, aheh.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2010, 09:19:04 PM by Frumple »
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Offline avestron

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Re: Character artwork enhancement
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2010, 11:16:20 PM »
M'a raw ASCII player (less resource consumption, bleh), so it wouldn't really effect me, I guess (well, maybe if implementation slowed down content and mechanics development, heh.), but I still gots a question. What's FM/VB/GW/CW? It seems you say there's more mech rpgs out there, which other than that old btech dos one, I don't believe I've heard of any... well, the various gundam riffs (There's a boatload on the SNES, actually, mostly SD spins), but thas 'bout it. Obviously, inquiring mind wants to know. More timekillers, aheh.


Well not sure if you're going to get much in the way of gameplay since the ones I've directly played were developed for the original playstation, but sure - may as well go through them.

FM - Front Mission series - turn-based rpg game set in a timeline maybe 50-75 years in the future - I like the way turns play out in this game

VB - Vanguard Bandits - turn-based fantasy mech game - I like the graphical emotion system, and deeper-than-shallow melee system

GW - Gundam Wing - Haven't played it but watched the videos linked to on this site's blog

CW - Hmmm... Forgot the name/ game - will come to me eventually

ToS - Titans of Steel (this one is available free - released) - Not so much an RPG per se but I like the detail of the combat system and the mech design, Micro-management turn-based

AC - Armored Core - Not really an RPG - Real Time mech shoot-em-up - I like the mech design and RT 3D battle arenas

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But this is off topic so if anybody wants to discuss any of these games I'd suggest a new thread in another section. ^_^