New game- QFG style: Menus and background critique

[skitt2501]

Hello all!

So I've been working on a game for a little while, in the style of the quest for glory games (in my opinion Sierra's best). So I know most of you guys don't seem too fond of 3D graphics in these adventure games, and I can understand why. But because I have little-no artistic talent, but am very good at learning new software, I've been using Blender to make all the sprites and backgrounds.

First of all, here's the main character.





I think this is a pretty good character model and a good walk cycle. The other nice thing about 3D modeling is the animations look much cleaner and are very easy to create.

Now, where I think I need some work is in the backgrounds and menus, and I'd like to hear some suggestions for how to improve them. Since this is a QFG style game, it is an RPG, and I've included a stats sheet and a spells menu.

Stats:


Spells:


And I also have a special actions menu:


As you can see, I sort of streamlined the menu system so that you can switch from any one to another without having to exit out. I haven't shown the inventory or control panel because as of now it's pretty similar to the AGS default, besides a different background and font.

Also, here's my icon bar:


As you can see, that's one of the backgrounds with another character. How do you like that background?

Here's an example of speech with that character:


And here is another background:



And last but not least, since this is a QFG game and an RPG, here's an example of a battle screen:



So like I said, I mainly wonder how you all think the GUI menus and the few backgrounds look. Also, if you want to give me an overall critique on these, I'm certainly all ears.
Thanks!

[Virgil]

I had written a huge post on this when the forums crashed D:< So this is a much more succinct recreation:

flat character colors
bad shader on boots (plastic look)
sharp lighting removes the character from other rooms that would be lit differently
clipping on torso and hair
improperly proportioned legs and arms
badly posed fingers
no neck/spine/head movement on animation (otherwise its okay)

no no no no Papyrus font please
stats window far too big, buttons too big, etc
character portrait very weird, uncanny valley etc.
spell window far too big, fireball doesn't need a description (put spell descriptions in an optional window or the manual)
health/stamina/mana bars do not need to take up the entire top of the screen, especially if they're being covered by other windows, align them side by side vertical so you can quickly assess the levels of each in one glance (instead of three)

badly modeled environment geometry (use bevels so you don't get right angles)
bad texture work (rug, generic noise textures)
off center camera (lower the horizon some)
angle of camera does not match the perfect back view of characters
weird cloth/shawl on old man character on the neck (but decent modeling otherwise)
the old man portrait has the background of the room behind him, which makes me think that either he never moves at all, or he does move and you have a background for every conceivable position he could be in.

cave room has a generic noise texture that doesn't look like rock
shadows don't follow the light from the torches
torches look bad
wooden table has bad unwrapping / bad shading on legs, again, bevels!
wooden table / door sit weirdly on the floor
stairs in the cave look exactly like the walls, even if they were carved out they'd look different after use
cave mouth looks unfinished (pure blackness)
more unnatural right angles in the walls (in a cave, no less)
stretching in the cave walls/floor UVs

the combat action menu takes up way too much space than it rightly should
all the sprites have black outlines with bad AA
grass looks flat, boring, unrealistic
horizon stands out badly, needs some more back there to make it realistic, even cliffs don't look like that
rocks look oddly slapped on and not part of the world

This probably came out a little harsher than originally intended, but its the second time I had to write it all out. You've got some potential and can sometimes model well, so I'd like to see more of what you can do (and more 3D people on AGS.)

[zabnat]

Just one thing. Special actions menu. Top row. Second from the left. What is he doing? Special action tumble over?

Also you seem to be lacking proper lighting on all the rooms.

Still, you got some potential so keep working.

[mode7]

There's been enough said about the character already. Apart from that - I think it looks pretty good.

The BGs are (sorry) horrible. A few suggestions to improve them:

- Extremely low polygon count
-> Use a heightmap terrain/ displacement material for outside areas and for caves.
-> For the models (chairs...), well I normally use the 3d warehouse (its like google images for models)
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

- No proper lightning
-> Get some proper lightning setup in your areas (I don't know how to do this in blender - but you can do at least a lightdome for the outside areas)
-> Get a good render settings with radiosity, AO or what ever. It improves quality so much.

- No textures
-> http://www.cgtextures.com/

[Virgil]

- Extremely low polygon count

Another good point. Especially since you're just rendering out backgrounds, you can go into the millions on your polycount.

[skitt2501]

The polygon count actually is somewhat high, but you are right, it can go higher. I've been trying to implement some of these textures but most of the time what I get looks extremely unnatural. I'll keep trying though, maybe there is something I'm missing.

As for the lighting, I also tried getting realistic looking lighting setups but when I render that background and put a character in the room in AGS, it again looks unnatural. There are some of those character lighting tools in AGS that I'll check out, and hopefully that can help me out.

But besides all that, yeah I need to keep at it with the backgrounds.

Now, what is wrong with papyrus? I was searching through windows fonts and fonts online, and that was one of the best I could come up with. Are there any other suggestions?

Also, Virgil, are the menus really too big? In games I play, I prefer the menus to have readable fonts, and decently sized images. It's not like you need to be looking at the background while you are in the menu screen, and it's not like you can't get back to the game with a single click.

Also, I tried to get good grass and I even have a nice image of good looking grass:



But again there is an issue when I import that into AGS. The character will just walk on top of all of that looking very silly, and I'm at a loss as to how to get good looking grass but make it so that the characters' feet will be behind the grass at certain points. Actually, I just thought of this: if I make little strips of walk-behind areas, and thick enough grass, would that look realistic enough? Or is there another way to do this?

Also, the battle menu is way too big, yes. I actually just threw that together yesterday, and I've been tinkering with it since. I'm trying to include enough room for a couple more buttons, so we'll see how that goes.

Now, can I ask how people feel about the icons? I think they look decent enough, but as buttons they don't really have much personality. They're just flat boxes. Is that okay, or do you all have any suggestions of how to make them more button-like or just look nicer? Thanks!

[Khris]

Getting a character to walk in that grass so it looks good is impossible. Forget it.

On to your graphics: I'm sorry to say this but I have seldom seen graphics that ugly and horrible. There's no other way to say this, and again, I'm really sorry, but there's no way in hell I'd play this even if it had the most immersing story, best puzzles and most epic soundtrack of all times.

Those screenshots are a culmination of every single reason why there shouldn't have been any 3D games until every game looked like this: http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/430837-assassin-s-creed-ii-windows-screenshot-ahhh-that-s-what-i.jpg

The only alternative is this: http://www.mobygames.com/game/nintendo-ds/legend-of-zelda-phantom-hourglass/screenshots/gameShotId,314152/

There's simply nothing else; 3D art must look like a photo or be low-poly pixel/cartoon art, everything else is miles deep inside uncanny and/or dead ugly valley.

Also, regarding the use of the papyrus font in an RPG: it's like using Comic Sans on a flyer; it has been done so many times by such a buttload of people without any aesthetic sense that just looking at the font makes the eyes hurt.

Upping the polygon count wont save this, I'm afraid.

I can't give you any useful advice other than to drop Blender and try your hand at 2D art.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Sadly, I must agree with Khris.

[Ali]

There's no other way to say this, and again, I'm really sorry, but there's no way in hell I'd play this even if it had the most immersing story, best puzzles and most epic soundtrack of all times.

I think this is a little overly-dramatic. There is a lot of 2D work exactly like this in the critics lounge, and people rarely make such off-putting statements.

I agree with Khris's suggestion to start out in 2D, planning and sketching backdrops before realising them in 3D.

As for the grass, making the blades smaller should be all you really need to do to make it work in AGS.

[mode7]

Hm Khris sounds kind of hard - but he might be right. 3d always sounds tempting but it has to be done perfectly and even more important: it's much more work.
To have a nice detailed BG you have to model everything out - like every book in a shelf, when painting you just do a few strokes. And especially the outdoor scenes won't work without something like this: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_9_complete/ or xfrog+3d max at least not in a reasonable amount of time.

I don't say that its not possible with blender so don't be discouraged - I still think the player model is very nice.
But the learning curve for 3d is steep and you might still need a few years to get decent results.

EDIT: Ali you're also right I've seen worse art getting better comments - Sometimes I feel a little bias here towards everything that is not pixel art. But in essencse hes right

For the grass - the color and the render setting do not give you a realistic result. The color is too green and the roots are pitch black - in reality the roots wouldnt be black but get a little ambient light.
There are some ways to simulate this in renders - google for clay render or skydome.

[Anian]

3d art usually looks silly unless it's rendered, plus you can hide a lot of bad modeling with the right use of light and shadow.

A few things I'd suggest, these are not meant to be cruel, it's just a matter of experience and trial and error
- don't use that kind of grass, I know you want it to seem realisitic but I'd suggest going with what's usually used in full 3d games (even though they use these tricks so they lower the polygon numbers) - use planes with grass textures - in your case it'll help with interaction and blending of the character

- use Vue or Bryce 5.5 - but with Bryce as with Poser you have to be careful not to get that silly unnatural look that everybody seems to make. Plus Vue and Bryce aren't made for 3d modelling per say, so you'll need to use Blender for assets (boxes, torches etc.)

- you character looks genereic and very Sierra like - I'd try to use more original design

- most important, I know 3d characters might seem easier, but I'd suggest going with a 2d drawn character or at least turn the whole game into a more cartoony version

- you have uneven use of textures (I mean like texture of materials not UV textures) - compare the cellar/dungeon and the walls inside the castle

- get rid of Comic sans and Papyrus fonts - you'll thank me later

- somebody mentioned polygons and you said you had plenty - I think some confusion may entered in - it's not the number of polygons, it's how you use them   - again stuff like Bryce and Vue will give you a lot of polygons, but unless you can make everything to look the same, it'll just end up crappy. Lowpoly modeling is different compared to "regular" modeling as is pixel drawing comapred to "regular" drawing butyou might want to look into lowpoly modeling. You took on a big project and not everything seems equally fun to do - like assets (chairs, doors etc.) take time to make and it gets annoying so you lost consistency in different places.
   
-> what I would suggest is to use this basic modeling skills and use them to help you develop your drawing skills - use rooms as templates for perspectives and get 3d light sources so a computer calcualtes what kind of lighting will be in a room, use a skeleton from a character to see and quick modify templates to draw over when animating chracters etc.

I wish you good luck

[Khris]

I want to emphasize that what I wrote earlier is strictly my personal view, not the general consensus of the gaming community.

The main problem with the images is that everything looks like it is carved out of colored wax. Even the friggin' health bars are made of wax!

Also, I didn't suggest planning the background in 2D, then realizing them in 3D
I meant: drop Blender completely and create your final backgrounds "the usual way", i.e. by drawing them with Photoshop or similar.

To clarify and put in perspective what I said earlier: by no means could I create better backgrounds using blender, I have no idea how to use the program and I've never done any 3D work. I'm just convinced that creating multiple good looking 3D backgrounds on your own is an insane amount of work and requires all the artistic experience a 2D artist needs to have. So making 3D backgrounds (especially for a 2D engine) has no benefit at all compared to making 2D backgrounds. It's not easier, it doesn't look better, and creating a consistent look and feel is way harder because it's hard and a lot of work to integrate objects and characters in a way so that they don't look pasted on.

[skitt2501]

Alright, first of all: I have tried using the typical 2D paint and art programs, and I have no talent in that area. Trust me, for that type of painting, you do need some artistic talent to start out with.

Now, people keep saying that 3D modeling is much harder, and, while this may be an indication of why my graphics look like they do, it goes very quickly and easily for me. The two rooms took about a total of about 4-5 hours, once I sort of planned out what I was going for. For the outdoor scene, it took even less time, but I have to admit I used a tree generator script in blender (probably why the trees are the only things that look good).

Now, one of you said something about instead of making a book with the stroke of a brush, it takes time to model each one. In this case, it took less than 5 minutes to model everything on my bookshelf, and I'd say those items look pretty good.

My other reason, besides lacking 2D art talent, for using blender and doing 3D is that the animations are SO incredibly easy to make, and they look incredibly smooth and fluid. It literally took about 10 minutes to set up the player character's walkcycle (once I rigged his skeleton, but that's a one time thing). For all these reasons, I think the argument that this will be much harder and take more time than a 2D game isn't really valid.

Now, I won't argue with the fact that the backgrounds suck, and that a 2D game probably would look better than this even if I perfect those backgrounds. But that's just not the way I'll be going with this game. If you want me to make a 2D game, I made a crappy little 20 minute game a few months ago when I first picked up AGS, and I'd be glad to share it, as long as you all know it's supposed to look dumb.

As for using something like Bryce, or Vue, I'm not sure how great these (http://www-cache.daz3d.com/sections/galleries/artwork/394/57370.jpg) types of backgrounds would look in an AGS game with a character sprite drawn on top of them. I'm trying to go for more cartoony and unrealistic colors, but still trying to keep realistic shapes for my backgrounds and objects.

And, Anian, as for my character looking generic and Sierra like, thank you ! That's exactly what I was going for! I'm trying to recreate the feeling from QFG where the player character has no personality and no dialogue, and therefore YOU are drawn into the game to give him personality. That's one of the reasons that series was so great.

So like I said, I'll keep working on the backgrounds. I've seen some pretty amazing things done with blender, and I'm going to try to get better and make some of you non-3D people into believers. But like I asked before, can I get a critique on the various icons/buttons? I'm pretty torn when it comes to them, as I think the sprites are good, but they still don't feel like buttons. This is probably just a minor gripe. (And by the way, the tumbly icon is for acrobatics/jumping. The third character class will be the acrobat, and I'm trying to incorporate some prince of persia-like acrobatic stunts for him to pull off)

Oh, and the fonts will go. Comic sans was just a placeholder, and while I've never seen papyrus in a game, I'll try to find something a bit more unique.

Edit:
I forgot- the grass isn't supposed to look right there- that's just an object that I'd put under other surfaces that should have grass on them. I'll see how it looks in the game if I make the grass a good deal shorter.

[mode7]

I just played syberia again and realized the good looking 3d backgrounds are hard to do even for professional products (I don't want to say the bgs in syberia are bad but they are far from perfect)

I think anian is right - to speed things up you'll probably need specialized software.
I'll proof this point:
Look at this Bg for example

Looks nice doesn't it? Well it took me 5 min to make it while writing this post. How you ask?
Well my 3d skills really suck -so I cheated


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
So I went into sketchup (I use sketchup because I suck really hard at blender/3ds) went into the 3d warehouse and got me a nice gondor town model (probs go to daniel papen who does awesome detailed ready to use models). I exported the model got it into vue (in whioch I have a nice realistic radiosity setup). added a tree and some grass (didn't place the grass - too lazy - just let vue create an eco system on the grass texture)
Placed the camere and rendered it. Now the cool things about 3d come in handy. As I exportet the whole city I can make an infinite amount of BGs in that city even animation (If I had a workstation at home at least).

I probably know less about 3d than you (at least I couldn't make a character from scratch like you),and I don'T want to say become a lazy bum like me - but I say there are ways to make the creation process way easier and more pleasant.
And I dont want to say cheat like me - Its also really easy to do buildings on your own in Sketchup as it is to create landscapes in vue.

[Virgil]

Your animations are not great, but passable. The knee jerk, no natural arm movement, no head motion at all. Its the best thing you have up there.

I am a 3D artist by trade, (I can show you some work if you really want) I've been doing it for years now, and I can say with certainty you only have a loose grasp of modeling an animation. You have a loose grasp of proportions, shading, UV unwrapping, and basic modeling, but don't kid yourself. I'm happy that you like working inside Blender and modeling/animating, but you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole using AGS with 3D rendered sprites. Unless you're using a wireframe as a guideline, it simply looks out of place.

And your icons are just as bad as everything else. Badly photoshopped bits of the main character (instead of *actual* icons) look horribly uncanny and offputting.

[mode7]

Well I don't think the buttons look even half bad. I think their quite decent, nobody expects the graphics to be 100% perfect.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The goal of the CL is not to discourage but to encourage people to improve and give constructive feedback.  

If you find skitt's work so lacking then do the decent thing and provide some advice on how to improve with clear examples (I'm looking at you, Khris and Virgil).  Especially Virgil, if you're such a 3D expert then you're in a position to provide skitt with real, worthwhile tips other than broad criticisms.  Make a tutorial addressing some of the issues with his model, or background, or whatever, but to see people just slam someone's effort without really providing any kind of concrete advice is completely against the spirit of this forum -- and many of you know it.  If you're going to tell someone something like 'switch to 2d' like Khris because you don't think the person has potential, I'd rather you just passed on posting entirely.

Now, if you want to continue criticising his work, by all means do so.  But if you're going to comment on it then provide some advice on ways he can IMPROVE his work like mode7 has done, even if it's just to post a few tutorial links!

We're here to help each other, not tell people to give up or that what they do is horrible.  If someone's work isn't up to your standard, HELP THEM, don't DISCOURAGE THEM.

Now let's try and help skitt improve his work with some clear cut examples, everyone! 

[Virgil]

Progz is right. Unfortunately in my original post I did have some more helpful tips, but got lost. Skitt, pm me or hop on IRC and I'd love to help you out. I don't know of any general modeling tutorials on the internet though, I didn't learn that way.

[skitt2501]

I can understand where these guys are coming from, because I haven't been terribly specific about what I'm asking about.

For the record, I've only really been at this 3D modeling for a few months, and honestly, for me to have a loose grasp on some of these aspects of modeling is pretty good. Especially since I never took any courses on modeling, and I've basically been using internet tutorials to get my skills where I want them to be.

And I don't necessarily want to be able to make hyper-realistic graphics or backgrounds. I'm trying to find the area where I can still use an engine like AGS and make a game that looks decent. With truly amazing rendered 3D backgrounds, such as the one mode7 whipped up (impressive), I would think that pasting sprites on top of them would actually look worse than something similar to what I have now. It's the balance between realism and cartoony that I think would look best in AGS.

Also, I'm not really planning on learning 3D modeling to make great images in general. I really only want to make games, because honestly I have so much fun doing it. I made (half) a remake of Shadowgate a few months ago, also in 3D, and even if no one here wanted to play it, I still really enjoyed showing it to my friends and playing it myself. And I think it's a much better use of my free time than buying and playing other games.

So really all I'm asking is A: is there a way to strike a balance between realism and a 2D engine with 3D graphics? And B: what should I do differently to get there with 1) my backgrounds and 2) my menus. I'm already working on learning lighting a bit better, and making texture packs look good.

Besides the backgrounds and menus, I'm pretty satisfied with my work, and I'm going to continue with the same style (that would be objects, characters, and animations).

[ddq]

Since you're new to 3D modeling, you've got plenty of time to practice and really hone your skills. I'd recommend going for a stylized look rather than photo-realistic, perhaps something cel-shaded or similarly cartoony. What I would make a top priority is enhancing the overall design of the graphics, especially with regard to color theory, and definitely clean up the menus. Just take it slow learn as you go, don't be in any rush to release the game when you can improve it further.