So what are the options for those of us who can't draw?

[Josh R]

Obviously this has been addressed before, but I would like to hear a few new takes on it.

I'm working on a game, and I just don't have the skills to draw up any beautiful backgrounds. I try, but I fall short. I then decided to try and take some real photos, and see if I could filter them into something resembling a sierra scene. I just haven't managed to get the right look yet, and I am pretty discouraged. I'm really pumped about my script and puzzles, but I just can't manage the presentation.

So has anybody with minimal art skills manage to release any good looking games without enlisting other artists? If so, I'd like to hear about it, because I am stuck and I don't know where to go from here.

[scotch]

Your idea of taking photos is a good one, the mistake is probably trying to make them look like sierra scenes, that just isn't going to happen.  Sierra made some pretty looking games, but there are many other styles that work great for adventures.  Even if you use very lightly edited photos it can look good, as in Soviet Unterzögersdorf.  The famous adventure games were made by professional artists, there are some people around the community that can make similar graphics but most can't, so people should be trying more unconventional stylised graphics I think. As hobbyists we have the luxury of being able to do that.

[ildu]

You could:

1. Stick with drawing, as you will finally succeed if you take your time and actually study it.
2. Draw badly and complete your game as such. It doesn't make the game very appealing, but if the story is good, than it doesn't really matter.
3. Get someone to draw for you, which may be very difficult.
4. Take photographs and make kind of GK2 adventure.
5. My personal favorite; use 3D. Still, you need to learn it first.

[Josh R]

I'm having a lot more success now. I'm filtering photos, and I've switched to a watercolor filter. I also filtered my characters the same way, so everything looks like it belongs together. Hopefully it works with sprites too.

[2ma2]

What you must realise is that in the end, so called "beautiful backgrounds" are not necessarily adding to gameplay. I more tend to enjoy highly unprofessional art since of it's naïve qualities. Graphics should contribute to gameplay. If you only strive to make the game look good, you miss the points. AGI games rock, but are they visually appealing? Yes and no. Yes because they are coherent and functional but No because they have a god awful color scheme.

Taking photos, yes, that works. It's great for realistic games quite frankly, and you can achieve good results.

Using photos for characters? Is difficult to pull off with good results, but try it, by all means.

Using 3d? Now, 3d is just another medium. Let's face it, if you, like most people, assume yourself to be artistically inept, then 3d doesn't automatically make you do great graphics. They are slick, yet soulless, and frankly, the biggest feel-killer of the century when done poorly. It is like filling your rooms with high saturated gradients, believing that this simulation of technical mastery somehow makes appealing graphics. You might aswell post a big lens flare over the room.

..yes, I dislike 3d. I've seen way to many poserdolls.. my rant is over now though.

[InCreator]

There are NO people who just can't draw. Atleast, not for adventure game graphics.

If it comes to drawing, some people have talent and some others not. For example, I drew very realistic pictures with pen and paper from age of 6. Some people can't even draw the way I did when I was that young.

But this does not mean that they couldn't make decent backgrounds or sprites.
The amount of talent only helps here, but doesn't restrict anything. Room backgrounds consist arranging and composing geometry and texturing it. You don't have to have "good hand" to make interesting curves and stuff like that, you just have to know how to draw boxes and spheres.
This is something that needs only practice, and endless amount of experience. And is therefore totally learnable.

Sprite art is a bit different music; but in low resolution, I'm sure everyone can learn enough to arrange some colored dots so they resemble humanoid/animal.

Easiest way to understand that you're not the one who can't draw is to start drawing. As my national saying goes, "Fear has big eyes" which means that things we don't try seem a lot worse from distance. Once you get things going, you'll start to see ways to improve this and that and eventually end up with decent graphics.

I don't want to say anything bad, but in my opinion, atleast 60% of AGSers have not this mystical variable named "artistic talent". They're just brave, optimistic, a bit stubborn and eventually, very successful. Come visit Critics Lounge and see yourself.

[PyroMonkey]

If one can at least make a framework of a room, for example, they're pretty much set. You just have to put in some time doing the coloring, but basic shading and stuff is really easy if you know what you're doing.

[LGM]

I'm actually knocking around an idea to start First Person adventure of some kind using photos... So it's definitely a medium to try. But I'd suggest not using built in filters. Custom taylor your images, find your own "style."

[Helm]

text adventures

[Afflict]

No no no! No text advetures!

Dude just check out the loomis book, fun with pencil.
The man is convinced he can teach anybody how to
draw, get this... HES RIGHT!

[Josh R]

What you must realise is that in the end, so called "beautiful backgrounds" are not necessarily adding to gameplay. I more tend to enjoy highly unprofessional art since of it's naïve qualities. Graphics should contribute to gameplay. If you only strive to make the game look good, you miss the points. AGI games rock, but are they visually appealing? Yes and no. Yes because they are coherent and functional but No because they have a god awful color scheme.

Thanks. I guess I should really explain that I am not a bad drawer. I was quite good at one time, but I stopped drawing several years ago. I can surely draw a framework and color it with photoshop. The reason I don't like that approach is becase I'm unsure of the response a game like that would receive. I have a really solid story, and good puzzles, so I really want everything to be at that level. I'm a perfectionist by nature, and I hate releasing something that I am not impressed with.

So basically, I do have the talent to draw up some standard old school backgrounds, but I wouldn't be satisfied with them. But as I said, I am starting to get a better feel for filtering photos to make them look more like paintings, and it's working pretty well.

[Helm]

What you must realise is that in the end, so called "beautiful backgrounds" are not necessarily adding to gameplay. I more tend to enjoy highly unprofessional art since of it's naïve qualities. Graphics should contribute to gameplay. If you only strive to make the game look good, you miss the points. AGI games rock, but are they visually appealing? Yes and no. Yes because they are coherent and functional but No because they have a god awful color scheme.

Thanks. I guess I should really explain that I am not a bad drawer. I was quite good at one time, but I stopped drawing several years ago. I can surely draw a framework and color it with photoshop. The reason I don't like that approach is becase I'm unsure of the response a game like that would receive. I have a really solid story, and good puzzles, so I really want everything to be at that level. I'm a perfectionist by nature, and I hate releasing something that I am not impressed with.

So basically, I do have the talent to draw up some standard old school backgrounds, but I wouldn't be satisfied with them. But as I said, I am starting to get a better feel for filtering photos to make them look more like paintings, and it's working pretty well.

text adventures

[MillsJROSS]

I think of myself as a person who "just can't draw." I agree, that if I took the time to practice and went through some hardship I could be person who could draw. However, making backrounds is something I absolutely loath. I just don't enjoy doing it. I also don't enjoy doing things I hate. So, it's obvious I'm not going to put the time and effort into becoming better at it. If, and hopefully when, I decide to make a game for profit, I fully intend to get someone who's passion falls in this area. For a freeware game, I'll make my own graphics.

I think there are people who "just can't draw." Just like there will be people who just can't orchestrate music. It's not that these talents are above them, it's that they lack natural ability, and a desire in seeking how to gain that ability the hard way around. They see no gain by learning this talent.

However, this leaves people like myself in a conundrum(sp?). Only because it's much easier for a pretty lookin game filled with a vile gut wrenching plot, then a not so good looking game with a nice cream filling, to attract a bigger audience. I do believe graphics make up people's minds from the start. Some people will not open thereselves to a game with horrible graphics. But in the end, if you're game is really good, people will suffer through the eye poop you put on the screen.

-MillsJROSS

-MillsJROSS

[DGMacphee]

Think of other ways to make a background. You do not necessarily have to "draw" as such. There are many artforms to use to design backgrounds.

For example, Aaron's Epic Journey used painted backgrounds and looked marvellous.

I had an idea to take the techniques from Dada and make a game built with handmade collages, mainly using coloured paper. I think that technique would work.

You mentioned photographs? How about designing model landscapes with clay and odds'n'sods (a la Wallace and Gromit) and taking photographs of them.

There are endless possibilities if you can image them.

[2ma2]

Just for the record, I toyed with the idea of seeing Ultimerr with "professional" graphics. It didn't work at all. Ultimerr rules harder than your grandmother BECAUSE of these graphics. Something about the abstraction and low tone increasing the words.

Why not textadventures?

[Josh R]

You mentioned photographs? How about designing model landscapes with clay and odds'n'sods (a la Wallace and Gromit) and taking photographs of them.

That's actually a great idea. I might try something like that after this project. I could just do some stop motion for the animations. Anyhow, my current project is pretty lofty, but maybe I will try some clay in the future.

[SSH]

My own games are an example of how something arguably worthwhile can be made without much drawing ability:

1. Princess Marian series: childish drawings
2. Awakening of the Sphinx: Not-great drawings
3. Pixel Hunt: everything deliberatly done as simple geometric objects and yet it won MAGS

[Janik]

You mentioned photographs? How about designing model landscapes with clay and odds'n'sods (a la Wallace and Gromit) and taking photographs of them.

Very interesting idea! It still requires some artistic ability, this time for sculpting rather than drawing. But I would love to see a game with clay characters and sets, that would be something! The figurines could be sculpted and photographed behind a green-screen, and then used as sprites in the game. You could place them on some kind of turn table to get all 4 (or 8) angles of rotation.

[Khris]

You mentioned photographs? How about designing model landscapes with clay and odds'n'sods (a la Wallace and Gromit) and taking photographs of them.

"The Neverhood" did this, too.
It's quite a cool adventure game, although it's puzzles and gameplay aren't exactly its strong side.

[Wretched]

 Platypus (shoot-em-up) had all it's graphics done with plastacine models and looked really unique.

On the can't draw side, I don't give a toss about graphics, (see my games), I can't really draw but I am getting better with practice. For me AGS is Adventure Game Studio, not 'look how good I am at drawing' Studio. If it's an Adventure I'll play it, in a way the graphics can detract from the game, removing the players imagination, and ultimatly greatly slowing down the development time. Everyone nowadays is TV brain dead, and judge everything on appearance basically because we all know what real life looks like and can easily say good or bad visually. If your game is strong enough to get the player 'into' it, immerse into the story and just be there, the graphics serve very little purpose. The brain fills in all the gaps.
Personally I despair at the critics lounge and games production threads and their obsessiveness with graphics/walk cycles/perspective/lighting. I could go on but don't wish to 'rock the boat'.
Graphics should be functional and stlylistic, setting an atmosphere,  they are the packaging not the content.