To Outline or not to outline

[NickyNyce]

I have made a short to medium length game, and i outlined all sprites and backgrounds in Black, I must say that i love the way games look without outlining things, are there any real drawbacks to doing either or ?

And do most adventure gamers prefer a certain style ?

I am new to AGS and i can draw pretty well, but when you dont outline things i believe shading and a larger paint palette definetly come into play.

Im trying to dummy down the graphics as to not have to spend hours and hours drawing backgrounds instead of learning AGS itself, soI'm trying to draw and script at the same time and need to find a medium...As you all know...Draw one Background too well and all the others have to follow....

Im using Microsoft paint...lol...not many tricks here to do amazing things...at least that im aware of...

can anyone give any feedback

This is the first time i have added a picture to a forum, hope it works

[Matti]

Well, could you show an example of your drawings? I mean, the looks of outlines totally depend on the drawing style. If the style is rather cartoony then outlines can fit very well, if it's photorealistic then it most certainly looks weird.

I'm using outlines for my current drawing style too (they aren't black but colored though) and I think it looks good that way, but you can't generalize such a decision.

[Anian]

Art sample or it didn't happen!  
It really depends on a lot of factors - drawing style, game style and stmosphere etc. But in general, black outlines make stuff look more stylish, like comics or cartoony games. Personally I almost always do what Matt mentioned, which is bascially outlines that are darker than flat color surface they surround, I think it gives control over lines but is not as strong or overpowering when observing sprite/background, somehow seem more natural (even though outlines in general are artificial).
If you look at, as antoher example, Ben304's art, it's mostly a combination - usually his sprites have black outlines but backgrounds don't have any at all.

And do most adventure gamers prefer a certain style ?

Not really, but even if they did, why would you want to be like everybody else.  

[NickyNyce]

i made my game using 640 x 400.... not sure what the differences are when people use 320 x whatever it is....andI'm wondering why people use the small resolution to begin with? ....Forgive me for asking primitive questions like this...im new to AGS and learning on my own....

When you play a game at full screen, which i have not played my game at yet, will it enlarge my backgrounds where you can see each pixel...meaning it will appear more blocky or that does not matter....hope you can follow what I'm saying....

by the way, she looks amazing....where do you find the time....i assume shes drawn at the top resolution.....very cool

thanks

[Anian]

Have you played any of the "old" (like before 2000.) or in fact any AGS made game? It would anwser a lot of your questions and I suggest you do that. Yes, it'd make your images look "blocky" (pixelated is the word you're looking for btw ) but AGS has a lot of "rendering" settings and can be set up to anti-alias images and similar effects.

Why do people draw in 320? Well various reasons, among other nostalgia and atmosphere (again older adventure games) and the fact that it is "easier" to draw (although in any resolution difficulty depends on how well you are at drawing but in general you have to draw less pxiels if you're working on a surface 320x240 than 640x480, right? Pure math, you meantioned it yourself that it takes time to draw a background).

If you're just starting out, 640x400 might not be a bad middle ground, while working you'll find out what suits you best, but again at least try playing other AGS made games and the mainstream classics like Sierra Space and King's quest games, Broken Sword 1&2, Day of the tentacles, Full throtle, Sam and Max Hit the road etc.


Critics of your background, well the first one you posted doesn't seem to be working, but I'll talk about the other two (cave and the green infested space room) - first of all, I like the style in the second one more. The black outlines work fine.

They seem to be done in different styles (former has lots of spray effects on, while the latter is much cleaner).  Both could use shadows and lighting, but it's really up to you. You should keep the drawing style and level of details consistent among backgrounds, it helps build up the atmosphere and the "feel" of the game.

The cave scene...if you meant to make the stalactites look like they're in the foreground (they're black) then the depth must be must established between that rock in front, the cavern wall and the pool that seems to be farther in the background, cause right now the depth is uneven.
The space ship with green stuff, lacks balance in details I think, the green stuff seems to be detailed and has texture while the rest of the room not so much

[NickyNyce]

I have played so many adventure games i feel like text appears above my head whileI'm speaking, i love all the oldies and some new ones, always on top of my adventure scene...

But funny you mentioned playing any AGS games, i just downloaded 6 days a stranger, ...hope i got that right, very nice and well done game so far, , i prefer the sharper resolution, but all are effective, i see what your saying about the cave and the other background also. This past 3 weeks i have made 36 BG's and have been learning all at once, its my first time drawing on a computer or making a game, So i had to drop the graphics department down in order to keep up with the scripting and learning process.

Is there a way to play my game at full screen now whileI'm still making it, so i can see what it would look like, and of course ill check out other games as well and what they look like at different resolutions.

Im just hitting the learning curve with drawing on a computer, just now noticing the approaches you can take. I also was not  sure if i could import colors without messing up the game until late in the process,.....head shaking......

I appreciate the help, and your right about the cave and other room,  I see now to just change the color a bit to do the outlines....thanks again

[Matti]

by the way, she looks amazing....where do you find the time....i assume shes drawn at the top resolution.....very cool

Thanks. Well, as you can see the thread is quite old already and I still haven't finished the whole character set, but that's mainly because I'm working on another project. It isn't as much work as it might seem. I'm drawing with vectors, not pixels and that makes things a bit easier, at least in high-res. I'm using 800x600 btw, for some reason I really like to work with that resolution. That doesn't prevent me from liking los-res pixelart though 

Other than that: Yeah, what anian said 

[Technocrat]

I have played so many adventure games i feel like text appears above my head whileI'm speaking, i love all the oldies and some new ones, always on top of my adventure scene...

But funny you mentioned playing any AGS games, i just downloaded 6 days a stranger, ...hope i got that right, very nice and well done game so far, , i prefer the sharper resolution, but all are effective, i see what your saying about the cave and the other background also. This past 3 weeks i have made 36 BG's and have been learning all at once, its my first time drawing on a computer or making a game, So i had to drop the graphics department down in order to keep up with the scripting and learning process.

Is there a way to play my game at full screen now whileI'm still making it, so i can see what it would look like, and of course ill check out other games as well and what they look like at different resolutions.

Im just hitting the learning curve with drawing on a computer, just now noticing the approaches you can take. I also was not  sure if i could import colors without messing up the game until late in the process,.....head shaking......

I appreciate the help, and your right about the cave and other room,  I see now to just change the color a bit to do the outlines....thanks again

I felt the same way when I started with AGS. I thought "Hi-res = better", but I found that "lower-res = easier", and that's what won it first for me. Then I remembered some of the amazing backdrops that the classics of the nineties had, and they were all 320xwhatever. There's less you need to draw, too (lazy)

If you want to run your game at full-screen, just press F7 to compile it, head to the "compiled" folder of your game directory, and then run it from there. You might have to change the settings in WinSetup.exe, though?

Your scenes remind me of the older-style AGS games, I had a bit of a binge of things like Larry Vales and the very old Yahtzee games recently.

[NickyNyce]

Thanks for the help, got things running at fullscreen now, I am quickly learning about shading and really digging into the color aspect of my backgrounds and notice now the direction i want to go.

I enjoy games in all resolutions, as long as the puzzles and vibe are there im more then happy. Vectors, can anyone explain what that is...and how does it make things easier to draw with?