Trying to find my style

[PaladynZer0]

Hello.  I'm new to this forum, and just got my hands on AGS.  I must say, I love this software.  Way easier than trying to hand-code an adventure game in C.  Anyways, I've been kicking around the idea of a Comedy/Adventure game for a while, but recently, my graphics guy bailed on me, so I've been trying to teach myself how to draw.  My brother and I have been debating on what type of graphical style to use in the game.  We agreed on a semi-cartoonish style blended with CGI.  The only problem is finding the right balance betwen the two.  Any constructive criticism on my sample picture would be appreciated.  Just keep in mind that I'm a programmer, and not an artist.  The software used for this picture are as follows:

gMax 1.2
Milkshape 3D 1.6.6
Paint Shop Pro 7



Let me know what you think!

[TheYak]

Love the style..  quite unique-looking.  I like the cartoony-feeling mixed with the CGI.  Now, for the critiques (this is the part where I blather about how much you suck  )
The grass looks good, but the fine-detail doesn't really go with the rest of the picture.  Its waviness is nice but lends the impression that it's actually green fur.  

The clouds are also a little high-detail IMO.  The render-fog type clouds don't blend too well with the style.  Perhaps some puffy clouds made with metaballs or transparent spheroids?  

The painted windows look good but perhaps a little fuzzy.. if they could be made sharper or maybe the frames made out of polys with the panels painted?  

The door's alright but should probably be cut into the house instead of sticking out from it.  

The only other prob I have is the sidewalk.. take the time to make a 3d-tiled cartoon-colored sidewalk and it will look ever so-much better.  Try to avoid using textures, especially when they tile unevenly.

All in all, excellent job, I'd love to see a game done in this style as long as it had consistency throughout.  Kudos!

[PaladynZer0]

Thanks for the input, YakSpit.  It's kind of funny the way you hit the nail on the head regarding the clouds and grass.  I used filters for green fur and render fog on those, lol.   I can't draw, so I'm very filter-dependent for 2D graphics. The only graphical thing I can do halfway decent is 3D modeling (I had to teach my graphics guy how to model, so I had a step up there).

As an example of my ignorance with 2D graphics, I flattened all my layers when I saved, so I had to carefully trace my sky and completely re-do it, but I think it looks better now. I didn't bother re-tooling the grass, because the "fur" look works good when you consider that the main character is somewhat of a slacker (just like me ).

The new sidewalk was very easy to do.  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.  I just fired up gmax and modeled a piece, then pasted it into paint shop as 2 tiles. A little bit of smudge-sticking to get rid of the jaggies, and VOILA!  A CGI sidewalk!

The clouds were done with PSP's "3D Green" picture tube by smearing it around, recoloring it, and playing with the brightness and transparency.  The sphere thing was also a good idea.  I don't know why I didn't think of it.

Anyways, here's the new image.  I still have some re-tooling to do to it, but it's definitely looking better than it did, in my opinion.

[PaladynZer0]

I guess I should also mention some more details about this game, so that people understand why some things look kind of strange.  It basically revolves around a slacker guy and his buddies trying to make something of their lives, by going all over trying to find things to do, both constructive and silly. As I said before, it's going to be somewhat of a comedy game, and I plan on spoofing quite a few movies and games as I move along.  For example, the reason the house looks like it does is because I was going for that "Animal Crossing"-ish theme there.  I'm sure I can talk to my little brother and think of quite a few funny things to spoof there.  Also, the style may vary slightly from scene to scene, as I would like to set the scene for gags based on other games, like possibly, Metal Gear Solid, Leisure Suit Larry, Jackass, and whatever other games/movies I want to make fun of, old and new.

It might sound strange, maybe even stupid, but hopefully people will play it and have a laugh.

[TheYak]

The changes are excellent.  I think it makes the image a bit more singular in style.  A couple things I forgot to mention.. the sun being a shaded sphere looks a bit odd.  Perhaps if the ambient is set to 100 (don't know what the setting would be called in Gmax), it might not look quite as strange...  or at least a less-contrasting shadow would make is less odd.  Maybe if you used PSP with a transparent brush and went over the sun with a yellow layer...  The flowers done with stamps work fairly well..  maybe a tad realistic for the scene but don't stand out too badly.  You could try using a replace-color tool to give them more "cartoony" colors.  I'm gonna let other people reply so I don't seem like the only nit-picky bastard.  

[remixor]

The new clouds are a huge improvement.  Good work.    I agree with Yak on a few points, though.  The sun really shouldn't be a shaded sphere.  Remember, the sun is what's EMITTING the light, so it's not really going to have shadows.    Also, I still think you should consider changing the door.  Your door protrudes from the house, which doesn't really make any sense.    I think the best way to have it would be if it was flush with the walls or even better if it was slightly receeded, but I don't think that beveled look adds to much to the picture, it just comes off as "Photoshoppy" (or Paint Shoppy I suppose).  I think the grass is fine, grass can look like that when it's windy.  Your path leading to the house is hugely improved.    It also gives the house more of a "quaint" look, in my opinion.  One minor thing that you really isn't that important is the shading on the trees.  I wouldn't worry to much about accurate highlights/shadows on a pic like this (the overall cheeriness is one of its hallmarks), but one thing that stands out to me is the shading on the left side of the right tree.  That side is coming in direct exposure to the sunlight, so perhaps it shouldn't be so dark?

Anyway, you've got some good stuff here, and your second picture is a great step up.  Congrats, and good luck with your game

[shbaz]

I understand the thing with the grass, it looks long and a slacker doesn't mow often, I know.  

I think you should maybe tone down the reflectiveness of it a bit though, and try to make some of it overlap the bottom of the tree if you can.. if it were short it wouldn't show on the bottom of the tree, but with long wavy grass like that it would. The furry look comes mostly from the shine.

How much of that was done in 3d, btw? I've been working on this same thing, I'm kind of intrigued by the way you used paint shop with it, because I've been trying to entirely render inside of blender.

[PaladynZer0]

How much of that was done in 3d, btw?

The house was modeled in Milkshape 3D, and the sidewalk and trees were modeled in gMax.  The rest was done with Paint Shop Pro.  

As for how I got the 3D models into paint shop, I just maximized the perspective viewport of the model I wanted, and turned the grid off to place my model against a solid color background..  After that, I would press "Print Screen" on my keyboard to capture a screenshot. Once I had it in the clipboard, I simply pasted into paintshop and cropped the picture to only include the  model and background. Next, I used the magic wand to select the background, and inverted the selection to leave only the model selected.  From there, all you have to do is paste the model into your image as a new layer, and then you can resize and place it at will.

Hopefully you find this info helpful.  It's about the easiest way I've found to blend CGI and 2D graphics without hundreds of dollars worth of software, and it works halfway decent too.

[edited for spelling]