Phil is perplexed

[jwalt]

In general, how unsettling is this mixture of elements?



Adeel, to the right on screen, is just an object at this time, and I'm just displaying from an interaction. I'm trying to decide whether to proceed, and if so what resolution to shoot for. I didn't like the look of my characters at 320x, but this looks better to me. That might not be the public opinion.

[arj0n]

In general, how unsettling is this mixture of elements?

Can you tell what the idea behind the mixture of elements is?

And I guess Roger is just an object on that vending machine, not a character?

[jwalt]

Can you tell what the idea behind the mixture of elements is?

And I guess Roger is just an object on that vending machine, not a character?

I've got a nebulous idea for a RoN game, but don't have much in the way of 2D spriting skills. I might be able to use my 3D characters, but if mixing the elements is too off-putting, then it would be a waste of effort. I could also set out to model RoN, but that would be very time consuming, and not of much use to anyone.

The scene is from a default game using a mixture of RoN assets and my models. Roger is the only character in the scene. I was looking at screen resolutions and sprite sizes to find something that I thought might work.

[CaptainD]

You could make the plot involve characters from another dimension coming to RON. which is why they look so different.  The look is a little bizarre but if it results in a new RON game, which aren't exactly plentiful, then I'm all for it!

[Problem]

Combining these styles will never look convincing, but there are a few things you can do. First, you should at least use the same resolution for all characters. Mixing low-res and high-res characters is a bad idea, I think. If your characters don't look good at 320x200, adjust the models. Make them cartoony, make important details bigger, remove unnecessary detail and forget about realism.
Try to change the shader settings (if your software allows it) to get rid of the smooth shading. Or do some post-editing, use a colour reduction filter for example. Then make the colors more saturated.

Very quick and bad example:
[imgzoom]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1891681/lowres.png[/imgzoom]

[jwalt]

@CaptainD - I figured a RoN game might be most forgiving with this mixture, and your explanation could work.

@Problem - I'd concluded that I was probably going to have to work on the model lighting in Anim8or to pop out the colors better than they were looking in-game. Appreciate the input!

I think I need a scene where "Data" first arrives in RoN:



Would any of the particle system add-ons in AGS be helpful, here? Industrial Light and Magic has nothing to worry about from me, but the folks who did the Transport Rings in SG1 might have cause for concern... Or, maybe not.

[arj0n]

You could make the plot involve characters from another dimension coming to RON. which is why they look so different.

Agreed

[Monsieur OUXX]

My advice:
- in your final AGS game, your character can only be rendered at ONE angle (you have only one walkcycle unless you do a real 2.5D game).
- Yet, if your scene was real 3D (as seen in the animation from your 3D tool), the angle would CHANGE ever so slightly as your character moves closer to the camera.
So there is clearly a conflict between the two.

In point n click games, designers work around this by doing two things :
1) cheating with the perspective of the background. That you can already consider done: Just pretend your drawn background is slightly isometric (only the floor is visible, it helps)
2) Choose a "neutral" angle to render your character : render it as if he was perfectly facing the camera, with his feet almost flat, like the drawn guy in your background). That usually works and it hurts the player's eye less than trying to render the character with an angle matching the floor's angle and ending up overdoing it.

[Problem]

With a standard perspective view, it can be tricky to set up the camera correctly.
I get pretty good results using an orthographic camera instead, facing the character directly and pointing about 10 degrees downwards. An orthographic view really helps, because it gives a neutral undistorted result that is much more usable with most background types you find in an adventure game.

(I've made an example rendering that illustrates this quite well: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1891681/perspective.png)

[jwalt]

Lots of good suggestions and things to consider. This is how it stands, at the moment:



Still trying things. I believe the extra dimensional explanation is going to be used. Except for Adeel. He's different because he's from Pakistan. 

I still need to teach Adeel to walk, but Data and the Browncoat have already learned. These are antialiased, and there are artifacts, but not very noticeable (at least to me).

[Adeel]

Still trying things. I believe the extra dimensional explanation is going to be used. Except for Adeel. He's different because he's from Pakistan. 

How dare you ?!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Yes, orthographic camera. That's what I meant when I said "isometric" but used the wrong word. Not a "real" perspective anyway, that's the trick.