Promotional Art - what you think?

[DrewCCU]

I posted this in our Star Trek Adventures: Year One thread of AGS Games in Production but I thought i'd post it here to see what you guys thought of it ... comments appreciated.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The outfits look great but the models look very very Poserish which in my opinion is a bad thing.  In particular the bulbous shoulders and forearms remind me of the default model.  As far as the faces go they're quite detailed but none of them actually look like the characters they should represent.  Spock's chin is too wide and his mouth too far down on his face, his eyebrows not long enough and his skin tone should be slightly greenish (from his copper blood); McCoy has similar bags under his eyes but they look too asian (he actually resembles Sulu from that angle), and Kirk's face is completely unrecognizable to me (perhaps it's his hair and nose shape?).  It's clear you put a lot of work into this and whoever is handling the faces is talented so I see no reason to lie and tell you how much like the characters they are.  If you switched their costumes people would probably think they were different people entirely.

Also, I notice McCoy's medical insignia is red; is that some sort of glitch?


I apologize if I appear harsh but I've seen the wonderful work you've put into other aspects of the game and the characters seem to fall short of the bar you've set for yourself.

[jamesreg]

Sorry I have not had a chance to respond to this post in the last couple of days.

I have had some health Issues which are taking my attention away at the moment.

I did want to comment on ProgZmax notes on the character sprites.

First and foremost I am not here to blast your observations or thoughts in anyway.

We asked for the input and are glad to have it so keep it up as this is an ongoing project
and we intend to allow the players to influence and be a part of the future direction of the series
such input is very much appreciated.

However I do want to comment on your observations and input a little here in open forum.

First its important to note one very important fact here.

These sprites were created for the purpose of being reduced in size for in  game use only.

When viewed as intended in game at a reduced size the sprites much more so take on the look of the "Actors" Who portrayed them originally.

I will post some of the reduced in game sprites for further critique and examination when time permits me  later this week.

In addition to this I would like to point out that the insignia on McCoy has been corrected and was an oversight on our part it was part
of an earlier revision of the uniforms that we never got around to correcting.

Also I want to point out something else and that is that even though we are re-creating episodes and stories from the original 1960's
Star Trek television series we do not intend to recreate these episodes 100 percent as they appeared in television.

As anything this game series is our take and imagination of these events same as any other re-make that is common these days.

Now with that said I will clarify we intend for our stories to take place as much as is possible within the original "Prime Universe" cannon that
we all grew up with.

It is from this universe of stories and characters our series will draw much of its inspiration and as much as we can capture the nostalgic feel of all of this and bring it into game format we will do so.

It is our goals to capture the feel and essence of trek itself and re-tell and allow fans to re-live some of these adventures in a new and exciting way.

old things never die they simply take on a new life in a new format so true today it seems as everything is being remade.

As far as the characters and the actors appearance as much as I love the great Shat and company and as much as I myself consider them
the one and true Captain kirk and crew we must all face facts these people are getting older and some of them have already passed on
and sadly left us already.

for nearly 50 years Trek has been with us we as fans have enjoyed the series in all its formats which has included 5 Television series, 1 animated series, 11 movies countless comics, novels and other media as well as man fan made episodes and movie projects and of course the games.

Thats  a lot of incarnations  and the original series characters have been portrayed multiple times now though this new movie, fan projects etc.

And all the while we as fans have stuck with Trek in its high moments and its low moments and all its incarnations why?

Its not 100 percent because of this actor or that actor no matter how beloved they are.

It is because in the end we all enjoy and love the vision trek represents and the imagination it creates of a better world and a better future
and some kind of hope for all of humanity as impossible as that seems in real life we can escape to Trek and feel that we can as a race overcome
all of these petty problems.

To me thats what Trek represents always has and hopefully always will that makes it have a life far beyond any actor who will ever wear a star fleet costume.

So thats the important thing for me as long as we capture the spirit and feel of these stories and characters I'm not as concerned if they look like this actor or that actor or not.

I am concerned and take note of the poserish remarks and that is influencing some of our future work at the moment.

We are working hard to bring as good of a game to all of you as we can.

I have known going into this taking something so recognizable as trek we would have split thoughts and some people would love it and some would hate it no way around that.

But for a group of people who never released a full project like this before and some of us who never knew anything about game creation at all
before this I believe we will bring you something to enjoy.

Alot of our time went into figuring ags out, trying to learn the skills we needed, developing an interface etc.

as future games come out we will be able to concentrate much deeper on making things even better and and keeping the games fresh
and something new and unique.

every episode was so unique and different there are a lot of cool things we will be able to do to make each game unique and different in some way.

anyway I will upload some samples of the smaller sprites for review as soon as I can.

thanks and keep imputing on the project.

James


I am uploading some of the reduced versions of these sprites on my website which can be found at www.Games4Fans.com
you will be able to find them in the photo gallery links of from page.

Please note the site is under construction still most time is being put onto this game and the site will be finished between the end of this
mission pack and start of the next.

James


Edit by ProgZ:  Please don't double post.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

So the characters will never appear this large, even for establishing cutscenes or video (or humorous quips between Kirk, Bones, and Spock)?  If so then I'd tend to agree with you that it will be harder to make out their faces, though I hope you'll take into account that my observations were made from the perspective of a non-trekkie.  I've seen the show and enjoyed it but am in no way a fanatic, so the issues I pointed out will surely be more prevalent to worshippers of the series, and this is something you should be mindful of.  

Looking at your site I notice some of the smaller characters DO read better though I think more eyebrow and some darkening makeup under the eyebrow would REALLY help Spock's character to be more 'Spocky' (and the earlier mentioned adjustment of skin tone).  McCoy's face reads better at a distance, and Kirk's actually looks quite good from the front!  I think the issue is his side view, primarily the hair and his chin, that make the 3-quarter view close-up look strange.  I definitely think the front view of Kirk casts a strong resemblance, so perhaps you could look at a profile shot of Shatner and tweak the hair a bit to bring the side view in line?

Again, I think you've done some impressive work (especially for using Poser models), but as I'm sure you notice they all seem to equally suffer from really bulbous rounded arms that work against you as an artist because they're so recognizable.  I'm not sure if there's any way to fix them aside from a new program or massive editing in another program, but if you're working on a solution I look forward to seeing it.

Also, best of luck with your health issues!

[Anian]

Hello, really admiring your zeal there. I like ST, watch it, part of my growing up, drew me into sf, along with Star wars...anyway, I kind of agree with ProgZ (the figures look a bit too Poserish, but also look better when scaled down a bit), BUT I want to help also:
...saw on your site a kind of banner that was made with the ship looking really cool flying around the Earth and I also saw you put fradient into the lettering, so I'd style the style is somewhere between modern and retro. Which is ok by me, as we admire the old we alos must accept that times change and also that nobody is perfect and that everything can be updated but still offer the athmosphere.

Anyway, time I'd be getting to my actual advice and kind of my main constructive critic - you should copy the design of old ST movie posters:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/004-the_voyage_home_poster_art.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/001-the_motion_picture_poster.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/002-the_wrath_of_khan_poster_art.png
but make a tad more modern. Take the design for example - everyone of these posters has "floating heads", which are still popular, so copy that, they space/star field surfaces and strong colors in the middle, and also rays and/or explosions - you can use that stuff, it is even still used today. You already did it with the lettering, might as well with that.
The models can be a bit textured up in Photoshop or similar, whyn ot, think of the old games (and even today), you had this cool drawing and box art but the actual graphics in game were apstract pixel shapes. Maybe even, but this is kinda tricky and too much work perhaps, make it so it looks painted like the examples.

If you'd make the poster look more athmospheric, it'll make the model quality (or likeness), that some might feel, stand out less.

[jamesreg]

Great advice on the Poster ideas.

We still have not finished our Gorn sprite and I am wanting to hold off on any more poster style ads until we have the gorn complete
as then we can do one that truly represents this particular mission pack.

We are attempting to do as well as we can with the sprites but we are limited by our own knowledge and skills in that area.
The person doing the spirtes has had the chore of also doing the backgrounds, inventory and object sprites and assisted
in some scripting areas when I got stuck.

so they have had the hardest load on them.

I would have preferred to have had someone else just working on the sprites this whole time and him working on the backgrounds and other objects
which is more his line of expertise.

the sprites could have easily been a full time job for someone on its one right.

We are doing the best we can with them and in order to have a demo out by feb we probably will not have them to a perfected state.

The demo will include Act 1 of the game and act 2 and act 3 will be in the full release a little later.

The good news is that we have most the backgrounds done for Act 2 and Act 3 already so as soon as we are done with the demo
I cans start scripting those scenes out right away and hopefully this will free up time that the rest of the team can listen to demo
comments and reviews and concentrate on perfecting the sprites better for final release.

I encourage anyone who has been following the project to download our demo and comment rather you love it or hate it when its released
and why.

this will help us perfect a better end product and could greatly influence how we handle other games in this series

thanks for the advice again