[FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

[Nethellus]

I'd still say
Studio K
all the way.

...

Cos Studio K is hardcore badass dudebro.

[yllamana]

I actually really like the G one. It seems like a colourful world that I want to explore.

I sort of like Pink Darrell more than the later one. The later one is so much less expressive and my inkling is that there's a reason sprites at this size tend to be stylised rather than trying to look realistic - because it just works better on that scale.

H has the same issues as the existing game going on, but it's just a mockup, so maybe the finished art will appear better, and we still don't know what they look like animated. So it's all waiting and seeing.

[Aklyon]

You know, as much as H's looks like a 2d Navi, no one else has shown a Glyph yet.

[Mánagarmr]

As far as the Glyph goes, the stock one is actually really good.

[x4000]

Yep, particle effects are not planned to change all that much in most cases. A few need it, but not that one.

[goodgimp]

Off topic, but I'd vote for Forest Rage as a candidate for particle updates. A friend (who is a fan of the game) joked that I was shooting carrots at enemies, now I can't stop seeing it in the way.

[keith.lamothe]

Off topic, but I'd vote for Forest Rage as a candidate for particle updates. A friend (who is a fan of the game) joked that I was shooting carrots at enemies, now I can't stop seeing it in the way.

Yea, it's always funny until someone takes a mach-2 carrot in the knee.

[Martyn van Buren]

Vote for G so far.  I really like the air of menace their version has; the others seem a bit SNES-cheerful to me.  I think Environ is supposed to feel dangerous and overwhelming.

Would like to make sure that kind of tone comes through in whichever style prevails.

[nanostrike]

I'm sure the entire palletete isn't going to be brown.  But there will definitely be some environments (Ice Age, Time After People) that will have a lot of brown because...it would be natural.

[x4000]

Off topic, but I'd vote for Forest Rage as a candidate for particle updates. A friend (who is a fan of the game) joked that I was shooting carrots at enemies, now I can't stop seeing it in the way.

Yeah, that one I really hate, and is the main one I'm thinking of for replacement of particle effects.  Though there are a couple of others, too.

I'm sure the entire palletete isn't going to be brown.  But there will definitely be some environments (Ice Age, Time After People) that will have a lot of brown because...it would be natural.

Yep, exactly.  If you look at the original tones of the abandoned towns in the game even now, it's very brown also.

[Brise Bonbons]

Uh oh, as expected, choice of art overhaul direction looks to be a divisive topic! 

G's work is the most polished and finished looking at the moment, which I think a lot of people are consciously or subconsciously latching onto. It seems like it would be an OK match for the tone of AVWW, based on what we've seen here. It does feel a little bit conventional, which is troubling given that, to me, the tone of AVWW is more "idiosyncratic and sophisticated intelligence" rather than "your normal action game".

K's looks promising, though I worry that the style is a bit too exaggerated for the tone of the game. I worry it will overemphasize the SNES/Comic vibe. While AVWW clearly draws inspiration from SNES and 16 bit era games, I feel like it is still primarily a sophisticated, modern game made in the age of procedural generation and "naturalist" SF (the BSG decade, if you will). I think the art should reflect that.

H's work is clearly still rough, and as such I don't want to say much about it. If their sprite artist can make things look good in motion, then I think their style has great potential to capture the sophisticated, modern tone that I think best suits AVWW.  But the fact that the composite concept piece looks so disjointed is a little worrying to me. That said, I often see artists trained in 3D work doing concept stuff, and it shows - they are simply not specialists in drawing and color design. What really matters is what the sprite artist does with the concept pieces. EDIT: I adore their concept for the sniper balloon. The drawing is a bit crude, but it's super weird and cool as an idea. It's one of the reasons I'm so intent on waiting to see their finished work; if they can realize polished versions of that concept and the character art they've shown, I think they are by far the best match for AVWW's unique style.

Can anyone from Arcen clarify which of these studios is doing the sprites and which is doing the articulated mesh style? I assume at this point G and K are the sprite shops? If so, H's finished work could look very different indeed.

[goodgimp]

Off topic, but I'd vote for Forest Rage as a candidate for particle updates. A friend (who is a fan of the game) joked that I was shooting carrots at enemies, now I can't stop seeing it in the way.

Yeah, that one I really hate, and is the main one I'm thinking of for replacement of particle effects.  Though there are a couple of others, too.

I vote for a amorphous emerald bolt trailing leaf-like particles. Or a screaming monkey bazooka.

[yllamana]

Pretty as some of the current effects are, I think it's really likely to be good for the overall look and coherency of the game if all or almost all of the current particle effects are redone by the new studio. It'd be a real shame to try to cut costs there and have an important element of the game look jarringly out of place.

[keith.lamothe]

I vote for a amorphous emerald bolt trailing leaf-like particles. Or a screaming monkey bazooka.

Fixed.

"Furious George"

[BobTheJanitor]

I saw an interesting post on the SA forums today from someone involved with a recently failed Kickstarter project. (Retrovirus, an interesting little game that I'm kind of disappointed didn't make its goals.) Since there's a Kickstarter looming in the future, I thought some of that information might be interesting or useful for you guys.