"Sketch" Style Screenshot *UPDATE*

[undergroundling]

UPDATE: I fixed (most of) tjhe little jaggies.  Hopefully it looks better now.  Of course, now I have to go back and do it for 39 more frames of animation, but whos counting.  (Although if anyone feels like lessening my workload, I can send off a couple frames to ya to help me out  ).  Let me know what you think of the (slightly) improved artwork.

I've been experimenting with some artwork styles for a game I'm working on.  I really like how this looks, it looks (to me) like characters cut out of a graphic novel and being moved across the page (with animation, of course).  I'm looking for C+C on how the pic both looks and "feels" (i.e. emotion, ambiance, etc.).

So without further ado...



Oh, and the little white jaggys do show up around the character against dark backgrounds.  Doesnt really bother me that much...I think it lends to the sketchy quality, but if anyone thinks it makes the game look uglier, let me know    Won't want to ruin anyone's playing experience with jaggy white pixels.

[anasazi]

I like the look, but more as concept art than a final game look.  I think it would be tough to play a game in this style, mostly because it would be hard to get good detail.  It looks to me like the style works best with large areas of shading.  I can't really picture a more detailed scene that wouldn't look kind of weird.  
Still, I think you could modify it to work, and it's certainly interesting to look at.

(And yes, the little white pixels would bug me as long as the outline for the character remains hard and black.  If you softened it some, it would be a)less noticeable and b) more arty.)

[Rincewind]

Ah, nice bg - The whole b&w/sketchy look gives a rather sad touch to the picture. Perfect for a more "artistic" game, or whatever you want to call it... I like it.

(And a bit off-topic, sorry: Undergroundling, have you recieved my Instant Message? I'm ready to start doing the backgrounds.)

[MachineElf]

I really think you should try to get rid of the light pixels for a better and more professional feeling. The eerie mood gets a little ruined.
Otherwise, it's perfect for a strange horror style game where you don't quite know what's real and what's not. I like it.

[Synthetique]

look at this!

[undergroundling]

Ah!  Synthetique, have you been stalking me?  Heh, I've just been using that as a default test background when I've been too lazy to make a new one and want to try something out.  Quite a difference from start to finish though, innit?

Oh, and Rincewind:  Sorry bout that    I just noticed I had new messages and I did read yours and couple others I need to respond to.  Check your PMs now, I wrote a response.

I'll be posting a new copy of this as well, hopefully with some of the jaggies fixed maybe later tonight.

[Dr. Awesome]

Ooh, I'm afraid I don't like this. It looks filtered. I would much prefer to see these done by hand and then scanned. I know, more work. It would look nice, especially if you didn't know what you were doing.

[MrColossal]

i agree, i'd rather see these hand drawn like three times and then animated so they looked jittery

if the pencil lines weren't so dark and you did this it may just be possible to survive a whole game while the background constantly strobes

and it doesn't matter how many filters you apply... that still doesn't mean shadow should be coming out from under that door, hehe

eric

[GarageGothic]

Reminds me a bit of the style I'm going for in Shadowplay, except I use colors as well as pencil lines.


As for looking filtered, I think the problem is mostly in the background, because the computer doesn't really understand the image - you wouldn't draw the window like that if you did it by hand. I think the sketch renderer does a good job with the character though. If you do hand drawn backgrounds with sketch rendered characters, like I do, you wouldn't have that problem.

I considered rendering characters normally, printing them out, and then tracing over them by hand to get more control of the lines and then scanning, but currently it seems like an impossible feat. If I should do that for every animation frame of every character in the game it would never be done.

Are you animating the background as well as the character? And are you using a flickering idle animation for the character, so the lines are always changing and flickering?

I really like the look, it reminds me of rotoscoped animation, like that old A-ha video (Take On Me, was it?) What game is this for?

[MachineElf]

You could use this style in dream sequences or something like that, instead of having it in a whole game. Looks better now with most of the light pixels removed.
I agree though that a real hand sketched background would be lots nicer.

I like that Shadowplay BG a lot as well.
Hm, I really should get my hands on a scanner...

[PeaceMan]

I like it. It look like those short animations you sometimes see on tv.

[undergroundling]

Just to clarify a lot of the questions people were asking, I wasn't planning on having a "jittery" look to either the character or the background.  I was going for a more static, "graphic novel" look.

Also, wasn't planning on doing a huge game with this, just a shorter piece.  I guess I was somewhat inspired by DG's Dada game to do a short, expressionist game.

I'll try drawing some backgrounds, but as I'm not that great of an artist (well, I can draw with a tablet, but thats about it) I'm not sure how they'll turn out.  Otherwise, I can keep experimenting with filters to get a closer look to how I want it.  I'll keep y'all posted and update this thread again when I have a better image.

[Hollister Man]

Hey Undergroundling,  you use Poser too!  Hint:  Render>Make Movie>Quality=Current Sketch Settings.  Then set up the rest of the dialog to your liking.  Just make sure you don't have a red "selection" border around anything.

[undergroundling]

Hollister: Yup!  I use Poser and I'm not ashamed of it either    I thought it might be a neat effect to use in a game so I tried it out.  Of course, it requires a little more than just that, I had to pull out individual keyframes and photoshop them a little, but yeah, thats basically what I did.

[Hollister Man]

Oh, I thought you were having trouble getting the frames rendered in a timely fashion.    I like poser a lot.  If you check out my "talking view" thread, you can see some of my new work.  I think you might want to adjust your "object" settings in the sketch designer, so as tomake the char a bit more detailed and less "I'm bald and I have big outlines."  Just a suggestion.