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[oldblood]

The mockup is promising, but I would advise that you take more control over saturation and environmental haze. Usually you have more saturation the closer you are to the camera or viewpoint. In my example I've simply axed up the foreground and the background and given a stronger blue tint to background and increased saturation by 30% on the foreground.

This is great feedback and I think you may be right... Thank you for the feedback! Much appreciated.

[Greipur]

This is great feedback and I think you may be right... Thank you for the feedback! Much appreciated.

No problem, I'm looking forward to see more. It's also worth noting that I assumed that you're aiming for realism or a painterly feel. I get that you want to have a bleak outlook (literally), but having a wider range of saturation can make the game easier to read, personally I also find it more appealing.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Finally had the chance to catch up on this devlog.

Nice to see your plan for the new game and seeing you push yourself outside your comfort zone. My favourite aspect so far is that you are able to jump in and get your hands dirty when needed. Like the idea that despite all the planning you do for attacks there will just come a time when you have to jump in and try and sort things out.

Enjoyed following along with Masochisia so looking forward to this one.

[oldblood]

Nice to see your plan for the new game and seeing you push yourself outside your comfort zone. My favourite aspect so far is that you are able to jump in and get your hands dirty when needed. Like the idea that despite all the planning you do for attacks there will just come a time when you have to jump in and try and sort things out.

Thank you sir. Definitely fun & challenging to push yourself in new directions but... I mentally fluctuate from being proud of myself for trying something new and the next day wanting to cancel the whole thing because we're in way over our heads...

DEVLOG XI.

Work over the last week has been split into a few different directions- primarily focusing on attempting to animate various cycles for the couple characters that I do have and starting to work the environments into the game itself. So things like getting a parallax system in place, working on updating the day/night cycle shader to work better with the assets that we have etc. It's all still very WIP so I don't have a lot of visuals to share yet but I will likely have some screenshots and gifs to share for the next devlog.

***

Animation has been a challenge. This shouldn't be too surprising considering I'm not an animator. The animations I did in Masochisia were incredibly rudimentary- but it worked well with the overall simplicity of the game. In this game-- simplistic animations just won't cut it.

Using skeletal animation presents me with both benefits and challenges. It remains dramatically faster and more cost-effective than traditional frame-by-frame animation and allows me to do the character customization much more easily. The downsides though is that the body twists, curves and turns in unique ways in reality... particularly during combat. So being limited to a 2D system that doesn't allow for that type of movement is a challenge. You could hypothetically swap out body parts, but then you start approaching the question of "why not just frame by frame"...

The Orc Walk (Updated)

Attempting melee animation, testing smears with the sword...

I'm also attempting to wrap my head more around animating with mesh deformation. This is a really cool feature that gives me a lot more flexibility in my animations but it much more resource intensive to the game. As such, I'm limiting mesh animations to just the main character and a few unique/special characters. Almost all the other NPCs will be skeletal only.

The mesh deformation allows me to animate really anything- but is primarily use for things like clothes or anything that is dangling/hanging from a character. In this case, I'm using meshes along with skeletal animation to animate the clothing on the main character as well as to add more rotation to his body (note the movement in his chest etc).

Meshes hard at work: Clothing & Chest Area

Until we start getting the animations into the game, won't really know what needs to be tweaked till its all in action. So just trying to get some base animations in that can be adjusted and fixed as we go. So, next items on the to-do list:

     ● Enviro Assets In-Game: Finish getting these in game, cleaning up the camera & shaders systems from the original prototype.
     ● Get First Characters In-Game: Get the stick-men replaced with some of these first characters.
     ● More Art: Wrap up some other characters that are in-progress and more environment assets.
     ● More Animation: Lots of different cycles to do and I'm sure a lot of animations to update once I see it all in action.

[nnyei]

I think it's high time that I leave a comment on your new game.

It's really nice to see that you're trying your hand at something completely diffent.

I'm personally not very taken with the visuals yet. That might be because I naturally gravitate towards a more colorful palette, or maybe I associate a more realistic look with only belonging in a 3D game (for example, I really like the visuals in Dark Souls 3), but I feel like there's something missing. And it bothers me that I can't put my finger on what. I'll let you know if I ever figure this out.


Some comments about the animation:

If you're going for a blinking animation (the updated ork walk), always try to shoot for a 3-frame animation. 2 frames will look choppy to the human eye no matter what you do, so try to add one extra frame, i.e. open eyes　→ half-closed eyes　→ closed eyes (and then back again).

I'd change the curve on the animation (in the "graph" menu) for the sword swing so it has even more momentum behind the downward swing. I'd also make the smear even bigger the more momentum it has, but that might just be my personal preference.

Assuming the orcs are the more heavy-footed race in your game, I'd give their steps more weight. So their gait is markedly different from their more light-footed counterparts.

It might just be the conversion to a low res gif that kills some frames, but the deformation for the clothes look very twitch-y and illogical at the moment (particularly the long patch of fur hanging by his back). I realize that it's a work in progress, but it shows that you're playing it by ear. I'd try to look for some reference animation or video footage to study.


Ah, I only meant to leave a short comment and here I go again... Feel free to ignore any of my commentary when you feel like it's unwaranted. Also, I hope none of my comments discourages you in any way because that's really not what I'm trying to accomplish.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how this game will shape up to be.

[oldblood]

Thanks for stopping by! Haha.

Ah, I only meant to leave a short comment and here I go again... Feel free to ignore any of my commentary when you feel like it's unwaranted. Also, I hope none of my comments discourages you in any way because that's really not what I'm trying to accomplish. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how this game will shape up to be.

Not discouraged at all, I honestly agree with you on pretty much every point. From the environments needing more color and missing some elements to the animation critiques... Like I said, I pretty regularly fluctuate between moods where I'm excited by the challenges and the next morning feel like I'm totally incapable of chewing anything I've bitten off.. A lot of these areas I have no real experience in so its definitely been learning as I go.

It sounds like you have some experience in Spine based on the way you worded a few things. Do you do 2D animation yourself?

[nnyei]

It sounds like you have some experience in Spine based on the way you worded a few things. Do you do 2D animation yourself?

I do. I have some experience with digitally hand-drawn animation, and I've used Spine before -- hence my nod to the graph menu -- although I've yet to use it for any professional work. I've mostly used After Effects for pseudo bone-animation stuff. (json files weren't needed, but a background and a camera perspective were, etc.)

[oldblood]

DEVLOG XII.

Shortly after my last devlog, I was hit with a fun notice:

2 Terabytes of Backup Coming Right Up...

So I spent a weekend (when I traditionally get the most work done), backing up harddrives, installing a new drive and re-installing and copying over a lot of files. Good news is I'm all back up and running. Reminder: Keep your stuff backed up...

In gamedev news, making tweaks to the existing assets based on feedback I received on the initial mockup. Most notably working in more color and new props to utilize.

Bushes, some small leafy greens...

Ferns, grains, grasses etc.

One of the keys to the environments will be diversity. More colors, shapes, sizes, pieces... Just things to help break up the repetition. Some areas will be more open, others will be more densely wooded- and there will occasionally be areas for special/random set-pieces which should help make the world feel unique. All the assets being done right now are pretty much following the idea of single "biome" in the Fall but its certainly possible that other biomes/environments could be down down the road. Right now though-- that's just too much to work to think about so just focusing on the minimum viable product and fleshing out this environment.

Link to actual resolution: http://i.imgur.com/8GUmoEA.jpg

A few notes on this mock-up, in reality- I would probably try to keep the evergreen/pine trees contained to the more densely wooded areas and the traditional trees would be found in the more open areas so they likely wouldn't be too mixed. There's also a green bush in the foreground, I would probably use something smaller like grasses, vines or perhaps a thin tree etc for foreground assets. I have to be careful with the foreground assets as they can certainly add some depth to the scene to give that impression you're watching from a distance but I have to cautious to not let them interfere or impact with the gameplay or get in the way of the player.

I'd love to hear any impressions or suggestions you may have on the environments...

[nnyei]

There's also a green bush in the foreground, I would probably use something smaller like grasses, vines or perhaps a thin tree etc for foreground assets.

If I were you, I'd make the assets that are in the foreground darker than your middleground so you have something like a gradient going on:
background=light colors → middleground=normal colors → foreground=dark colors
I'd also blur the assets on the foreground layer a little bit.

Rayman Origins and Legends did those things I just described if you want to look at some reference (I'm not gonna link to any screenshots seeing as your posts are already picture-heavy).

[Greipur]

I think it's getting there. But yeah, as nnyei said you might want to push the colours some more.

Another proposal is that you might want to work more painterly with the trees, having all that detail on texture for this game feels odd imo. I think your game would pop more if you had simpler shapes on leaves etc.


Random painting from Daily Painters (Tom Brown) as an example:

In my opinion this is much closer to the style you're going for with the characters. That you imply details such as foliage rather than render it.

[Zorg]

In my opinion the environment is too clearly separated between foreground (floor, trees), midground (fog, trees) and background (mountains). Like paper slices of a landscape, not an actual wide landscape. I guess you added the fog to make the characters more visible against a brighter background? In my eyes, you need a (partial) connection between the foreground floor and the fog trees, to create the impression that the characters could turn 90 degrees and walk towards the horizon (if they wanted to).

Quick and dirty overpaint:

[oldblood]

Hey nnyei, Greipur and zorg- thanks for the great feedback. You guys all bring up some great points and sort of reiterate that it's "not quite there yet". nnyei, I agree Rayman is probably the best example to reference and I think trying to approach it like a gradient may be a good idea. Greipur, I actually originally was kind of wanting to go with the super rough painting style but the early tests just weren't working as well as I'd hoped and I think it would be challenging to have a cohesive aesthetic so we've ended up in this sort of hybrid painting approach that's more on a blend of like classic painting and some more detailed elements. I don't know, we may need to revisit the foliage for something simpler... But overall the style has already kind of evolved from my original thought. zorg, I appreciate you always putting in so much detail to your thoughts- your quick overpainting really helped me visualize your recommendation.

Here is a quick update based on some of the feedback:

Removing link cause enough images on this page...

Added in an additional ground between the main ground and the background trees. This definitely does give more depth to the scene and obviously, the more parallax layers the better as it just add more movement and life to the world. Also mixed in a bit of blur/depth of field to the foreground/background which is definitely something that will be a part of the parallax.

I've had a few people make a comment about the ground being a bit disorienting so we're gonna gives zorg's suggestion a try and maybe revisit the ground so that's it less like a "cliff" feel. My challenges with this style of 2D game in a world where you can collect resources and base-build is:

     ● Making sure characters and npcs are easily identifiable on the main ground.
     ● Making sure the player can easily tell what resources can be collected or not collected (e.g. you can't chop down trees in the foreground or background)

The benefit of the cliff style is that because of its style, most assets will end up around the top of the ground and are easily identified as something you could resource. But we'll see, hopefully once this is all in-game and you can see it in movement the parallax will help add further clarity on what's part of the scenery and what's a part of the game you can utilize.

[Canned Turkey]

Your background looks great to me.
The foliage and ground looks the best, if I could offer any criticism for the other parts, the mountain in the foreground almost looks blurred.
Mountains are usually starker than that, the snow and trees cut through the black of the shadows wherever they can. If you add a lot of detail in between the light and dark, that's what makes it look like it's the size of a mountain and not a scale model.

Fun fact, I live on the other side of this mountain

Also what this picture helps show, although not a necessity, and it should correlate with the tone of your game, your background doesn't have a lot of vibrancy.
That's fine because I'm guessing you know that and wanted to make it feel more mellow and serious, but I figured I'd point it out anyways.

[oldblood]

Thanks Turkey! Holy shit thats gorgeous. You're very lucky to live there... I do think that would be a bit bright of a palette for a game with some orcs running around murdering people but I understand your point on shadows and light.

NEED FEEDBACK...

Brighter colors and textured ground or more muted colors and cliff ground?

[A Strange Bird]

Muted colours and cliff ground, imo! Looks darker and just fits all of it way better.

[Alex87]

Definitely muted colours and cliff ground for me too. Starker seems to look better and helps the characters stand out a bit more.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

+1 for muted colors and cliff ground.

[nnyei]

Same here. Muted colors (though I can go either way on this one) plus cliff ground (this one definitely).

Actually, when I first looked at the upper image, my brain couldn't properly process it. Because you put in some pretty long grass (as seen directly below the two coniferous trees), but the perspective doesn't hold up in the sense that we don't see the grass closer up (i.e. bigger) as it should be as we go closer to the camera. The ground just seems to tilt downwards, and so it creates a very weird perspective. So yeah, that's my biggest reason why I prefer the second image.

(Is it just me or does that one lush green bush stick out like a sore thumb? Maybe it just sticks out so much because you don't use those colors anywhere else, but my eyes seem to naturally focus on it, which I don't think you want considering it's just a piece of the environment. Anyone else feel that way?)

[Zorg]

While a continuous cliff does not make much sense to me, i have to admit that it looks definitely better (and gives you room for UI). The muted colors, too.


Some additional thoughts:


Click for original size

+ Maybe it would look good if you move the characters some pixels into the landscape.
+ The sun is the main light source of the scene, everything else cannot be brighter that the sun.
+ You could repeat the color of the sun in the clouds. The lower surface could be darkened.

[oldblood]

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions everyone, very helpful.

@nnyei: Yeah something still off in perspective. And yeah, that bush needs some color tweaking- its pretty straight green...

@zorg: Great feedback all around. Its funny you were showing lowering the characters, I was just looking through some other games to see if I could find some better solutions and was just trying to figure out some ways I could lower the characters into the ground more and still make it work. I'm gonna see if I can make that work...