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I am a Coconut
Red_Nova- 02/17/2016 11:01 PM
- 4222 views
Yep, you read that right. I am now a coconut. I say this because I let my bad habit of doing too many different things at once get the better of me again.
After the new prologue was released and received some super helpful feedback (thanks so much, by the way), I started my new semester at school. For this semester, I'm relearning Unity for one of my game dev courses, which means learning both an entirely new engine as well as C#. Plus, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Global Game Jam, so that's 48 hours of crunch to get a game out. Fun huh? It sure meant that I couldn't work on this as much as I wanted to. But silly me, I kept trying.
You know what the first thing I thought to myself when I got back from grinding a game out over a weekend running on a collective 5 hours of sleep? "I'm gonna take a break from PotF and spend a week grinding out an entirely different project in RPG Maker." Add that spontaneous side trip on top of the stress of learning a new engine and some real life drama, what little energy I have left at the end of the day slowly drains away, melting my brain into a thick paste along with the rest of my insides, leaving only a shell of a body.
Hence my new life as a coconut. I make smart decisions on a regular basis.
But that's all over with now. The jam is done, the side project is done, and I'm super psyched to get back into Prayer of the Faithless. My new status as a tropical fruit is going to make game dev slightly harder, but I think I can manage. Just for you.
So what have I done that's actually worth talking about? Well, aside from some work on the game page (new description, CSS edits, etc.), the first few areas for both Aeyr's and Mia's stories are nearly finished, save for some placeholders. Things are progressing at a pretty steady pace, though again, there's been less and less time to work on it.
Out of curiosity, for those that have beaten the prologue and know where Aeyr and Mia are going, which story are you interested in seeing more? The next release is going to have both their stories at once, but I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on which story setup seems more interesting, or which character you want to see more.
On the artistic side of things, I'm redesigning Aeyr's portraits and busts. I've learned so much about anatomy and art now that I think Aeyr needs a serious overhaul. There's a recurring theme I noticed when making art for games: I always seem to do the main character first. Ordinarily, that's not a problem. However, as I'm both improving my art and deciding on the visual style for the characters, the rest of the cast ends up being very different from the main character, requiring me to go back and redo the first few pieces.
Here's line art of Aeyr's old and new Knight design for comparison, with the Revenant outfit coming later once I'm satisfied with his body type:
Maaaay have gone a little overboard with the evil grin. But man I like the evil grin.
As far as my totally untrained eyes can tell, Aeyr's proportions now match up pretty well with the others in style, so it doesn't look as jarring and out of place anymore. I may just end up giving this treatment to the rest of the cast if this new Aeyr clashes too badly with them.
That's all I had. Sorry. What else do you want from me? I'm just a coconut.
After the new prologue was released and received some super helpful feedback (thanks so much, by the way), I started my new semester at school. For this semester, I'm relearning Unity for one of my game dev courses, which means learning both an entirely new engine as well as C#. Plus, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Global Game Jam, so that's 48 hours of crunch to get a game out. Fun huh? It sure meant that I couldn't work on this as much as I wanted to. But silly me, I kept trying.
You know what the first thing I thought to myself when I got back from grinding a game out over a weekend running on a collective 5 hours of sleep? "I'm gonna take a break from PotF and spend a week grinding out an entirely different project in RPG Maker." Add that spontaneous side trip on top of the stress of learning a new engine and some real life drama, what little energy I have left at the end of the day slowly drains away, melting my brain into a thick paste along with the rest of my insides, leaving only a shell of a body.
Hence my new life as a coconut. I make smart decisions on a regular basis.
But that's all over with now. The jam is done, the side project is done, and I'm super psyched to get back into Prayer of the Faithless. My new status as a tropical fruit is going to make game dev slightly harder, but I think I can manage. Just for you.
So what have I done that's actually worth talking about? Well, aside from some work on the game page (new description, CSS edits, etc.), the first few areas for both Aeyr's and Mia's stories are nearly finished, save for some placeholders. Things are progressing at a pretty steady pace, though again, there's been less and less time to work on it.
Out of curiosity, for those that have beaten the prologue and know where Aeyr and Mia are going, which story are you interested in seeing more? The next release is going to have both their stories at once, but I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on which story setup seems more interesting, or which character you want to see more.
On the artistic side of things, I'm redesigning Aeyr's portraits and busts. I've learned so much about anatomy and art now that I think Aeyr needs a serious overhaul. There's a recurring theme I noticed when making art for games: I always seem to do the main character first. Ordinarily, that's not a problem. However, as I'm both improving my art and deciding on the visual style for the characters, the rest of the cast ends up being very different from the main character, requiring me to go back and redo the first few pieces.
Here's line art of Aeyr's old and new Knight design for comparison, with the Revenant outfit coming later once I'm satisfied with his body type:
Maaaay have gone a little overboard with the evil grin. But man I like the evil grin.
As far as my totally untrained eyes can tell, Aeyr's proportions now match up pretty well with the others in style, so it doesn't look as jarring and out of place anymore. I may just end up giving this treatment to the rest of the cast if this new Aeyr clashes too badly with them.
That's all I had. Sorry. What else do you want from me? I'm just a coconut.
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CloseOn the artistic side of things, I'm redesigning Aeyr's portraits and busts. I've learned so much about anatomy and art now that I think Aeyr needs a serious overhaul. There's a recurring theme I noticed when making art for games: I always seem to do the main character first. Ordinarily, that's not a problem. However, as I'm both improving my art and deciding on the visual style for the characters, the rest of the cast ends up being very different from the main character, requiring me to go back and redo the first few pieces.
First of all, the new portrait looks a lot better, and a lot closer to actual anatomy. There's still a lot that could be done, but it's miles better than the first, so kudos on that- anatomy is really, really difficult to get right.
I wanted to additionally point out that doing concept art for the main character first is actually a totally legit way of doing things. The characters you see the most of should look on point first and then inform the style of the other characters.
One popular question my concept art teacher would ask is "When Capcom is doing art for a new Street Fighter, who do you think they concept first: Ryu or Ken/Vega/M. Bison?"
So yeah, it's not an issue that you do the main character first, at least not in my opinion. Learning more about developing concept art and and art style guides will help you keep all the characters up to the same standard as you go, but it's also something you just get better at over time. Developing assets in a non-linear way and using placeholders is also a good way to avoid that issue, since you'll be doing all the portraits at the same time with that methodology.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Pizza
First of all, the new portrait looks a lot better, and a lot closer to actual anatomy. There's still a lot that could be done, but it's miles better than the first, so kudos on that- anatomy is really, really difficult to get right.
Thanks, Pizza! I agree that there's plenty that can still be done, and I can see it even though I finished the friggin thing less than two hours ago. I'll keep at it.
I wanted to additionally point out that doing concept art for the main character first is actually a totally legit way of doing things. The characters you see the most of should look on point first and then inform the style of the other characters.
One popular question my concept art teacher would ask is "When Capcom is doing art for a new Street Fighter, who do you think they concept first: Ryu or Ken/Vega/M. Bison?"
This was my mentality until the time of this blog post, actually. What led me to that statement was a newfound thought train of, "How about I make an NPC first? In terms of body anatomy, it'll be the same as when I get around to the MCs, and since NPC designs are meant to be less elaborate, it'll serve as a good jumping off point for when I make flashier designs for the MCs." Aeyr's initial Knight outfit was an exception, as it was meant to be plain and unappealing since it would soon get replaced with his Revenant attire.
That's an interesting question, though! I've been out of SF for years, but the last designs I remember of Ryu and Ken were not flashy as opposed to, say, Vega, despite being essentially the face of the series. Good food for thought!
So yeah, it's not an issue that you do the main character first, at least not in my opinion. Learning more about developing concept art and and art style guides will help you keep all the characters up to the same standard as you go, but it's also something you just get better at over time. Developing assets in a non-linear way and using placeholders is also a good way to avoid that issue, since you'll be doing all the portraits at the same time with that methodology.
Doing them all at the same time, huh? Yeah, it sounds painfully obvious to me now that you say it. I guess the thing that kept me hesitating was the inevitability of going back and redoing all the portraits as I got better at art. I wanted to stay away from the trap of constantly redoing old works to better reflect current skill.
Still though. Better to have all the portraits done at once in order to keep them consistent. Thanks for the advice, man!
This was my mentality until the time of this blog post, actually. What led me to that statement was a newfound thought train of, "How about I make an NPC first? In terms of body anatomy, it'll be the same as when I get around to the MCs, and since NPC designs are meant to be less elaborate, it'll serve as a good jumping off point for when I make flashier designs for the MCs." Aeyr's initial Knight outfit was an exception, as it was meant to be plain and unappealing since it would soon get replaced with his Revenant attire.
Well, I think the problem with making NPC designs first, conceptually, is that by trying to make less interesting design and then add interest to them you're sort of building up the artistic look of the game the wrong way, and might wind up creating more disparate characters who don't look like each other or don't look like they belong in the world.
Not saying it can't be done, but it seems strange to me personally. NPCs are meant to add flavour and depth to the world, mainly to be another setpiece for the game to act around- so they're supposed to look like they belong next to the player characters, not the other way around.
Doing them all at the same time, huh? Yeah, it sounds painfully obvious to me now that you say it. I guess the thing that kept me hesitating was the inevitability of going back and redoing all the portraits as I got better at art. I wanted to stay away from the trap of constantly redoing old works to better reflect current skill.
Still though. Better to have all the portraits done at once in order to keep them consistent. Thanks for the advice, man!
Yeah, in the interest of production you should be trying to cut out as much unnecessary do-over as possible. With completely aesthetic stuff like portraits, it's a great place to do so.
It's no problem! It's very rare to get to talk about concept design and pre-production type stuff in the often trigger happy RM scene, so I'm more than happy to talk about it.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Pizza
Well, I think the problem with making NPC designs first, conceptually, is that by trying to make less interesting design and then add interest to them you're sort of building up the artistic look of the game the wrong way, and might wind up creating more disparate characters who don't look like each other or don't look like they belong in the world.
Not saying it can't be done, but it seems strange to me personally. NPCs are meant to add flavour and depth to the world, mainly to be another setpiece for the game to act around- so they're supposed to look like they belong next to the player characters, not the other way around.
Yeah, good point. Appreciate the correction!
Yeah, in the interest of production you should be trying to cut out as much unnecessary do-over as possible. With completely aesthetic stuff like portraits, it's a great place to do so.
It's no problem! It's very rare to get to talk about concept design and pre-production type stuff in the often trigger happy RM scene, so I'm more than happy to talk about it.
It certainly doesn't help that this game isn't exactly a short, 10 minute romp. Development of the game and development of my individual skills feel like they're progressing at VERY different paces, and constantly seeing old, worse art can do a real number on motivation and can lead into the endless cycle of do-overs.
author=Red_Nova
Out of curiosity, for those that have beaten the prologue and know where Aeyr and Mia are going, which story are you interested in seeing more?
As much as I love Mia, Aeyr's new situation and powers are fascinating, so I have to vote him. Mia's a very close second, tho ^_^
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Thanks, unity! It's nice to see where they stand outside of my own head.
I, personally, would prefer to see more of Mia's story first. Although I like Aeyr and am curious what's going to happen to him next, he's been the focus of the story for so long now that I feel it's about time we switch over to the other protagonist for a while. Also, I think with regard to dramatic effect, keeping the player in the dark about Aeyr for just a little longer would only increase the suspense.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Yeah, that's understandable. The idea behind the story structure was alternating between the two, with Aeyr coming in first. There's an event later in the story that requires this order, so I'm a bit nervous about switching it to have Mia come first. However, I'll certainly try to include more Mia stuff in future blogs, though!
I can't decide on which story to work on first, so I've been doing a little of both at a time. This means that I can easily give out some updates on both characters at once for future updates.
EDIT: Actually, this just occurred to me: Mia's first segment is more like her introduction to her role in the story just like Aeyr's was. If I slide her "episode" back a little and call that HER prologue, that'll give her enough screen time to establish herself as a main character without disrupting the flow of the story!
Holy crap thanks for saying something, NS! This is so much easier to do than what I had planned! See, this is why I love talking with people in blogs. So many good ideas crop up from a simple chat.
I can't decide on which story to work on first, so I've been doing a little of both at a time. This means that I can easily give out some updates on both characters at once for future updates.
EDIT: Actually, this just occurred to me: Mia's first segment is more like her introduction to her role in the story just like Aeyr's was. If I slide her "episode" back a little and call that HER prologue, that'll give her enough screen time to establish herself as a main character without disrupting the flow of the story!
Holy crap thanks for saying something, NS! This is so much easier to do than what I had planned! See, this is why I love talking with people in blogs. So many good ideas crop up from a simple chat.
author=NeverSilent
I, personally, would prefer to see more of Mia's story first. Although I like Aeyr and am curious what's going to happen to him next, he's been the focus of the story for so long now that I feel it's about time we switch over to the other protagonist for a while. Also, I think with regard to dramatic effect, keeping the player in the dark about Aeyr for just a little longer would only increase the suspense.
That's an awesome point. ^_^ I'm changing my vote to this XD
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Awesome! With this new direction, you'll not only get to see Mia next, you'll see her sooner rather than later. I'll just focus on Mia's episode now and the next upload will be the (for real this time) complete prologue for both main characters.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Me in this frackin blog
You know what the first thing I thought to myself when I got back from grinding a game out over a weekend running on a collective 5 hours of sleep? "I'm gonna take a break from PotF and spend a week grinding out an entirely different project in RPG Maker."
You know what's the smart thing to do after writing a whole bunch of paragraphs saying how excited I was to be back with this game? Setting it aside again to participate in a two week game making event. Hahahaha...
If I was a coconut when this blog was first posted, then what am I now? Two halves of a coconut drained of it's milk and banged together to simulate horse hooves?
Monty Python reference. Kill me.
Anyway, it turns out that the Aeyr redesign above clashes pretty badly when viewed next to the rest of the character portraits. You know what that means? Yep, time add a total visual overhaul of all the characters to the list of things to do. After this event is over, I'm gonna redraw and redesign every character from the ground up! I've already gotten a couple of rough sketches done for Mia and Amalie, but I want to wait until I get something more finalized before showing it off, like the next blog. Unless you're reeeeeally eager to see it now?
Hope that's cool with everyone! I think you'll like the new portraits.
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