Official "A Whiff of Steam", the LövelyRPG project topic

[giniu]

in Wiff's case, the character has "pre-set" animations/views, so he can really only navigate those angles without looking weird (like in the demo, looks extremely awkward, like I have vertigo or something).

And you judge what it will look like "in Whiff's case" by looking at unfinished prototype made in probably less than 24 hours of work at once, and made to test out world drawing (yeah, it's unfinished prototype, it's prototype 1 iteration 2 WIP, it means it's just about 15-20% done, there will be 5 iterations to complete the prototype)?

Anyway restricting movement to animation angles is change of 3 lines really - but we did not bother for now because there are more important things to do and it would have to be rewritten anyway when collisions comes in. But here you go - there is prototype where mouse movement doesn't look like you described and the movement is restricted to angles in which we have animation - prototype1_iteration2_wip4.love - really, if you don't like key movement and say that it would be OK if it was made for mouse movement, just forget there is a way to move with keys and use mouse. Oh, and this one have your tiles already in (the non-water tiles for now), so you can see them in action, thanks again for those

[partymetroid]

My biggest concern with using trimetric projection is the asset creation -- drawing in such a perspective is REALLY hard with a regular 2D art pipeline (e.g. pixelated sprites). It seems 3D (prerendered, of course) would be most appropriate for this game... but we don't really have anybody who can create 3D assets.

I understand it would take a long time and a lot of effort to write new code -- but what I'm asking is:

Which would be harder, writing new code or creating art assets in this awkward projection? *Cue debate between programmers and artists.*

Also... why was the art style up for voting, anyway? An art style is grown over the course of an artist's career -- not when being told, "Here, draw in this very foreign art style!" You pick an artist and accept his style.

I'm not trying to be rebellious. I just don't want this project to be set up for failure.

[Robin]

but we don't really have anybody who can create 3D assets.

We could turn to OpenGameArt for that.

Also... why was the art style up for voting, anyway? An art style is grown over the course of an artist's career -- not when being told, "Here, draw in this very foreign art style!" You pick an artist and accept his style.

I'd say a good artist is capable in more than one style. Also, this was always intended to be a community project, so I'd say that it was the plan to get more than one artist involved, which meant you'd need to agree to a single artistic style anyway.

[Ryne]

Also... why was the art style up for voting, anyway? An art style is grown over the course of an artist's career -- not when being told, "Here, draw in this very foreign art style!" You pick an artist and accept his style.

Well normally you would chose an artist based on his portfolio, and decide "Hey, I really like his style, BUT, I would like him to do [this]". In a project like this one (where no one is getting paid) you don't really have the luxury of "choosing" an artist, but hope that theres someone around that can create something good. Though a lot of times even if you don't like someones work, it would eventually blossom into nicer looking art.

Whenever I start art for any project I ALWAYS think it's good. Then, I'll go to sleep, wake up the next day and think that it's trash, work on it, make it better, and in the end you get something really polished.

I'm not trying to be rebellious. I just don't want this project to be set up for failure.

I still think the perspective is NOT the way to go. I know there was a vote, but I think if the vote had a wider audience then the outcome would have DEFINITELY been different especially if you had given examples like "Isometric - Final fantasy Tactics", "Trimetric - Fallout" etc. I've asked about 10 people what they thought about trimetric perspective and they all give the answer "it looks weird". I just wan't playabililty to be the deciding point.

Take a look at "Queen's Crown". It's an iPhone/iOS game that recently came out. An RPG with great art and it's extremely fun to play. Even just moving the character and the basic combat system is great.

I just don't want the game to end up as one of those games that have 100 players that think it's good, because it's not really catered to a general audience. It seems like where it's headed. These days (especially) people want something that's easy to play. The story can still be engaging and mature but the game itself needs to be intuitive.

[partymetroid]

but we don't really have anybody who can create 3D assets.

We could turn to OpenGameArt for that.

I just browsed through their stuff. No trimetric graphics; and none of their 3D stuff is usable. (A couple of blank human rigs here and there, but those don't help us enough to consider OpenGameArt a good source of art assets.)

Also... why was the art style up for voting, anyway? An art style is grown over the course of an artist's career -- not when being told, "Here, draw in this very foreign art style!" You pick an artist and accept his style.

I'd say a good artist is capable in more than one style. Also, this was always intended to be a community project, so I'd say that it was the plan to get more than one artist involved, which meant you'd need to agree to a single artistic style anyway.

I was talking more along the lines of an art director. From Wikipedia:

Various artists may create or develop specific parts of an art piece or scene; but a sole art director unifies the vision. In particular, the art director is in charge of the overall visual appearance and how it communicates visually, stimulates moods, contrasts features, and psychologically appeals to a target audience. The art director makes decisions about visual elements used, what artistic style to use, and when to use motion.

Again, we don't know anyone who draws in a Manhua style. One would need to study a bunch of Chinese comics to assimilate the style -- but then you wasted a bunch of time and effort you could have spent creating art/directing it! My conclusion is this: find a good/great artist, accept his style, and have all artists working under him assimilate it. Or have that new art director redraw their concepts in his style.

[edit] Or find a Chinese comic artist. Or someone very willing to study the art style.

[Ryne]

Iv'e also had trouble finding Trimetric pixel art for reference. Deviantart has one of the largest pixel-art collections in the world and they are EMPTY for the key word "Trimetric". Even for their non-pixel-art sections.

[partymetroid]

Iv'e also had trouble finding Trimetric pixel art for reference. Deviantart has one of the largest pixel-art collections in the world and they are EMPTY for the key word "Trimetric". Even for their non-pixel-art sections.

I'm just gonna play giniu for a second and say:

Look at Fallout 1 screenshots for examples of trimetric graphics. Even though they're prerendered, they're technically still "sprites".

[edit]I'm just being facetious. Please don't be mad.

[giniu]

If we want to be that correct, very few games are isometric. People not knowing that the correct term is dimetric or trimetric, use "isometric" while they mean "axonometric". If you look carefully, most games are dimetric (the difference is axes length. Try making 3 axes with equal length and obtain integer pixel values, you are left only with Pythagorean triples, take triple, largest of 3 is length of axis and two shorter doubled form tile size, which doesn't fit too wel into 2^k for small k - that's why it's very rare to find isometric projection in game and all other projections are actually dimetric). Probably you don't find that much examples of words axonometric, dimetric or trimetric - but it's not because they are not used, people just don't know the term for them.

[partymetroid]

If we want to be that correct, very few games are isometric. People not knowing that the correct term is dimetric or trimetric, use "isometric" while they mean "axonometric". If you look carefully, most games are dimetric (the difference is axes length. Try making 3 axes with equal length and obtain integer pixel values, you are left only with Pythagorean triples, take triple, largest of 3 is length of axis and two shorter doubled form tile size, which doesn't fit too wel into 2^k for small k - that's why it's very rare to find isometric projection in game and all other projections are actually dimetric). Probably you don't find that much examples of words axonometric, dimetric or trimetric - but it's not because they are not used, people just don't know the term for them.

You failed to address a lot of concerns (art asset flow, style guidelines).

[willurd]

Guys, we took a vote as to which projection we should use. We've made two tiny prototypes so far; that's hardly enough to make an informed decision about switching projection. And no one has even tried making assets in the current projection yet (except me, who made the block art used in the current prototypes -- and it wasn't that hard). So far the entire discussion has been based on heresay.

How about we finish a few prototypes first? Or iterate on the one we already have? If it gives you vertigo, don't assume it's the projection. Maybe make some new assets. Can't? Find some and scale/shear them to fit the projection. But development is about iteration; iteration is what's going to provide the feedback loop that will answer most of our questions. Case in point, the first prototype -- I think it went a ways to proving trimetric projection is doable for this game. We might find that it's not, but that hasn't been proven yet. It hasn't even been tested. So far the evidence is: 1) the first prototype works with the projection, and 2) other games use trimetric project; both lead to the conclusion that we should proceed as planned.

That being said, if anyone wants to actually create an isometric (or any other) prototype for comparison, I think that is perfectly OK.