Messages

I'm only in it for the chicks.

Edit:
Misspelled chicks. I had seven words to keep track of and I failed

Ok, so from now on we'll publish the entire update in the bump-post as well.
This will make it easier to follow the chronology of the whole thread, and it will also let us comment on updates easier.

The original post should still display all updates, preferably with dates added.

[Distant monster, more sketching]

Distant monster, more sketching
Made some speedpaintings, still no clear vision in my head. I think I want a huge monster towering in the distance, almost featureless, with someone fleeing in the foreground.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48175.msg636453580#msg636453580

Also, what's the general opinion so far on having a collective thread like this? I find it rather cozy myself, to have everyone gathered. I think having separate threads for everyone would make it easier to keep track of an individual member's process, but maybe people would be conscious about having few visitors/posters in their threads, and it would perhaps be more competitive. Thoughts?

[May 8th, Distant monster, more sketches!]

Alright, I don't really have a plan or a clear picture in my head yet, so I just sat down and sketched a bit today.









May 8th, Distant monster, more sketches!
I still have no real visions for the monster itself, so I'm just sketching some more, this time more land/cityscapes. I think I want to make the monster appear in the far distance, its features almost indiscernible, probably with the hero in the foreground, being chased. I'm gonna do a handful more of these sketches, as I really enjoy the process, and the randomness can give me new ideas for designs and nice compositions. I try not to spend more than perhaps 15 mins per sketch.


I really love sci-fi cityscapes, and if I go with this setting I'll probably try to increase the sense of speed further. I like the idea of a fish-like, floating monster, even though it's not really original. I began drawing the buildings seen more from beneath, with a more "drastic" perspective, but I changed it back to a more standard perspective, but some buildings are still tilted.


This one has a very straight and calm composition, which I hope can make the giant humanoid shape even more eerie and out of place. I envision someone being chased seen in the foreground. The tree-brush is just a placeholder until I draw my own trees. Still some perspective-lines visible.

May 13th, Flying cockroach snake!

It's a bit messy, so I hope to get it cleaner. The focus will be on the two figures on the hover-bike-thingie. I might bring them even closer to the camera, to be able to catch more details.

Ok, it's been a month and a half, and since nobody has picked up the ball, I've gone ahead and fired up an AGS workshop:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48175.msg636453457#msg636453457

I kept it pretty simple. I know there were plenty of ideas about sub-forums and all sorts of nice features, but then I figured it's better to just get something started.

So, happy work-shopping!

Sorry for hi-jacking this thread, but:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48175.msg636453457#msg636453457

Let's get creative!
I hope it can be as productive as the previous ones.

[Update May 13th]

Update May 13th
In order to stay in the workshop, you have to have at least a sketch ready before midnight. This sketch is the one that your finished piece will be based on, and the one you'll received feedback on.

Tomorrow we'll put away our own creations for a while and spend a day or two to discuss our members' pieces and suggest improvements.
Over and out!

Monster

This workshop isn't exactly game-oriented, since I'm asking you to make a full-sized, hi-res illustration. This time your artwork should feature any kind of monster of your own design. It can be a portrait, or a whole scene. It can be cartoony or horrifically realistic, any genre, style or execution.

Monsters like these.

Week one
We present our ideas. We show references and/or describe the scene in words. After the first week, we should have some kind of concept sketch ready.

Week Two
During the next week, we exchange feedback and start fleshing out our illustrations; we set up the lighting and start colouring.

Week Three
After the second week, we give each other a final round of C&C and start refining our pieces, adding details, textures and highlights where needed.

Vote
After three weeks, we present our final versions, and vote for a winner. Only participants who've been active during the entire activity are eligible for the final vote, although people may enter the activity at any point. We give votes for
* Best development - Vote for the one who's been the most active from the get-go, posting updates and explaining methods, laying out plans and elaborating thoughts.
* Most helpful - Vote for the one who's given the best feedback to other participants.
* Best finished version - Vote for the best illustration.

Rules
* The theme is "monster", and people should be able to look at your piece and think "yeah, monster, I get it", so don't interpret it too loosely or symbolically just to be special...
* We're talking illustration here, so it's not a sprite, and it's not a background. While it may be a portrait, it's a portrait with some sort of backdrop (not just a floating face). Preferably, there's something going on, or at least something being expressed.
* The finished piece should be at least 600x600 pixels. You may present sketches and concepts at any size, but do use thumbnails if your pictures are more than 1000 pixels, so we don't have to scroll the board sideways.
* Let's do this 2D. While 3D may be used for the initial mock-up, we'll use 2D software for most of the production. The reason for this is that 3D modelling is so fundamentally different, and your process won't be very helpful or inspirational to other participants.
* We give plenty of feedback, but we don't provide paint-overs. This is after all an individual challenge, and furthermore posting various versions of others' works will probably make the thread confusing.

If you want to participate but have no material or even plans yet, just claim a spot by posting here and you can add stuff later. If you haven't joined the activity within the first week, you may participate outside of the competition.

Posting
We can distinguish between WiP posts and other chatting by adding a title to the WiP posts. Like, everytime I publish updates to my own picture, I write something like
"Balrog, WiP, step 5" in bold at the top. That will make it easier to keep track of someone's progress, in the midst of chit-chat and c&c. Preferably you link back to the previous step, if you want to be super-helpful to your audience.

While cheering and commenting is free for anyone, don't spam the thread with one-liners or just unnecessary blathering, since the thread risks becoming rather unwieldy anyway.

Go!
Alright, so let's sign up and start planning/sketching!

Here's a nice inspirational video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBsLCPYGmUQ

Another AGS workshop:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=34542.0

Miguel, couldn't agree more, with basically everything in your post.
Maybe we should make it a workshop activity, where everyone paints their own monster head, from scratch? Any takers?

Ok, given the direction Progz has chosen to take, the picture is improving alright, and Frito's version looks good.

I'm just a bit concerned with the process - I really think that more time should be spent on making a sketch and getting the basic shapes and angles and proportions out there, and build up the image from the bottom, so to speak. When you pixelate in low-res, you add elements to the picture piece by piece, but that's a method that shouldn't be used in hi-res painting.

Hi Frito, sorry I missed your plea. I think your sprite is pretty good, and there's little I could do to improve it. I would probably pick a slightly different hue for the shading (and not just a darker orange) as that will often make it more interesting to look at, but then again it's a very small and simplistic sprite so it's just a minor thing really.

As for the animation, make sure his entire body moves, not just his arms and the drill. When lifting a heavy object, you compensate by moving back a little (to keep balanced). It's a very common mistake to only animate that which seems the focus of the operation, and forget all the compensatory movements.

I read my post again and saw that it came off as a bit rude - what I meant about "a matter of minutes" is that I think you will be that quick, considering all the experience you have with drawing, not any Joe Shmoe.

Since I hate to leave comments without leaving a paint-over, I rushed home to create this:

It's basically meant to suggest a better starting position - from here you can define and refine shapes and lines, and add more saturation and highlights to selected parts.
Note how in your picture, eyes and teeth seem almost phosphorescent - without a direct light, even whites will disappear in shadows.

PS:
Looking again at my picture, I realize I have altered too much of the original - rather cartoony - shape and style for it to be a fair paintover. I hope it can still be useful.

I think it's hard to say if you've spent a reasonable amount of time doing that thing, since a person who's really skilled and experienced wouldn't end up with something like this anyway (no offense). But let's say that with a year or so of training, you would probably reach this stage in a matter of minutes.

Some c&c regarding your technique.
I don't think you should ever use a paint bucket. Vary brush size, shape and opacity, and that's all you'll ever need.

Avoid adding highlights and shadows to every individual shape. It deprives the piece of a focus, and creates a lot of small "pillows" everywhere that are just distracting.

I think the colours are too disparate. The face is cyan, the lips are really pink and the eyes hazel. You have used both blue, black, darker cyan and desaturated cyan for shadowing.

I would like to see the sketch you've made for this, as I fear it's not... sketchy... enough. I'll illustrate my points later.

Yay, let's kickstart Grundislav to mittens! And then sit and watch while he struggles to meet really high expectations

Oh, hehe, I kind of see Adam's point here.

Spoiler

"What am I" - the observer isn't necessarily a part of the army. So it could basically be anything, or more precisely, the one asking the riddle in the game. So yeah, human (if it's indeed a human).

[close]

I guess I had it coming with the "easy" remark :/

Easy.

Spoiler

Bees.

[close]

I don't really like her look, or maybe I just can't read what she's expressing.
I've tried to adjust the proportions in her face a little, and cleaned up unnecessary pixels. I've also worked with the colours and shadows/highlights to add some depth to her shapes.

[imgzoom]
http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/punkedit.png
[/imgzoom]

Hm, the shading works pretty well but I'm not a fan of the face. I've tried adding in some shading and altering the face a little bit. I've also started on a front-view sprite but I haven't gotten round to the head yet.

[imgzoom]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/EnoRed/Sprites/PunkyV3_zps004f4a15.png[/imgzoom]

And yes, her shirt is getting more and more low-cut. I think if I continue down this road the next update is going to have her in a thong, so I'll try to show some restraint next time.

Really? I mean, it's fine if you don't like my edit, it's not that well made, but is that main character going to walk around with that insanely aggressive look all the time? Is it a parody game? Eyes nearly popping out, mouth almost frothing with rage... Her facial muscles are gonna cramp eventually. Like Progz I'm starting to wonder what level of seriousness you're aiming for

I don't really have any touchstone when it comes to 3D modelling, so I will just say that I think it looks good.

The buildings look just like typical sci-fi buildings to me - overly complicated and oddly shaped

Yeah, this is a situation I've found myself in too. It's basically the same with animations - it's nice if somethings moves in every room, but sometimes there's just nothing there to animate.

I don't think you should cram in too many ambient sounds - a sporadic horse neighing or a cow mooing is fine. The thing with ambient sounds is that they have a really strong impact on the scene. If you add howling winds, suddenly the game will turn really spooky, as you say, and hearing a clock tick will convey loneliness and desolation. Squeaking floor boards build up suspense.

Anyone here planning on pledging?

No bumping, please.
If people want to pledge, they'll pledge.

[A brief history of the AGS community before we moved to this place, for those who want to know]

For those who want to know what the AGS community was like before moving to this place, here's a brief history:

A brief history of the AGS community before we moved to this place, for those who want to know

Pre-Ezboards
Nobody really knows what was going on here. It's a bit like the universe before the Big Bang. Basically it was CJ and Gilbert, talking about all the good games that could hypothetically be made with the AGS.

Early Ezboards
CJ soon understood that people wanted to be able to talk about stuff outside game creation (don't look so shocked, younglings, this was before Facebook - people needed to hang out somewhere) so there was a general forum made, called gen-gen. In gen-gen, Eric wrote funny stuff, Helm wrote angry stuff, Naranjas wrote intelligent stuff and Dgmacphee wrote silly stuff. The rest just basically stood around and watched.

Every game that was released was praised to the skies even though they all sucked. If it had a character that could move, it was considered great. Virtually all games were just Roger and lots of blue cups, and this was considered wacky and parodical when it was in fact just lazy.

Yahtzee showed up and proved that AGS could be used to actually make playable games, and then he left again, for he had been insulted somehow.

2ma2 appeared and made a game that really looked good, without any warning whatsoever, and he was considered awesome for a long time. Every time he promised to make a new game, it was all the community talked about for years. Then he stopped making games.

In the community at large there were hardly any rules, and in gen-gen there wasn't even a god, so gradually everyone started flaming each other and acted like trolls. Then Evenwolf appeared out of nowhere and calmed everyone the fuck down, and from then on there was order.

We implemented lots of new forums, like the critics lounge, and suddenly the community grew really big. Then we left Ezboards. The rest is history. No wait, that was the history, the rest is the present, kind of.