Some feedback on AVWW - (face melting aesthetics)

[DesiQ]

Nice find!

There are so many. ;__;

[yllamana]

I feel like the problem with the art is it's too detailed (I feel the same way about AI War, for what it's worth). I think when the art is less granular - like a Super Nintendo game, say - your mind will fill in the details and it'll look fine, but when it's more detailed it just looks a bit jarring.

To bring up an example from the game - I like the art on the world map, for the most part. There are a couple of tiles that are a bit unclear (they look a bit like seaports), but for the most part they're quite evocative in spite of - and, I'd argue, because - of their lower detail.

So I can see a few different potential routes for Arcen, here, for both AVWW and future games:

1. stick to the current art style. It's certainly got its positives, too!

2. switch to a simpler style using lower resolution, more basic sprites. I think this could be a good way to go. Players' minds will fill in the blanks.

3. keep an existing, "busier" art style, but move away from basic sprites as a concept. That could mean simple 3d models, or some other method that lets the art "breathe" more, with range of motion and so on that isn't practical with monolithic sprites alone. As a random example, characters made up of a bunch of different sprites. One example I'm thinking of had a character whose body was a complete sprite other than their right arm, which was a separate sprite to let it animate independently.

Shax, looking over my shoulder, thinks part of the problem is how much of the background is just empty, and how there's a foreground of pretty characters and objects over obviously-tiled backgrounds devoid of detail. I agree with this and I feel like a lot of the areas (I'm thinking of the interiors, here) are lacking in personality; I don't feel a pull to explore them because they often feel pretty samey. I quickly fall into a pattern of wanting to get the items I need and escape as fast as I can.

By contrast, I think the caves can be more interesting and are generally more fun than the interiors.

Caveat to all this that I think the game often looks very nice. A lot of the art is very pretty; it's just the limitations of it that hold it back. Lightning Esper is my pretty monster of the moment.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I feel like the problem with the art is it's too detailed (I feel the same way about AI War, for what it's worth). I think when the art is less granular - like a Super Nintendo game, say - your mind will fill in the details and it'll look fine, but when it's more detailed it just looks a bit jarring.

To bring up an example from the game - I like the art on the world map, for the most part. There are a couple of tiles that are a bit unclear (they look a bit like seaports), but for the most part they're quite evocative in spite of - and, I'd argue, because - of their lower detail.

So I can see a few different potential routes for Arcen, here, for both AVWW and future games:

1. stick to the current art style. It's certainly got its positives, too!

2. switch to a simpler style using lower resolution, more basic sprites. I think this could be a good way to go. Players' minds will fill in the blanks.

3. keep an existing, "busier" art style, but move away from basic sprites as a concept. That could mean simple 3d models, or some other method that lets the art "breathe" more, with range of motion and so on that isn't practical with monolithic sprites alone. As a random example, characters made up of a bunch of different sprites. One example I'm thinking of had a character whose body was a complete sprite other than their right arm, which was a separate sprite to let it animate independently.

Shax, looking over my shoulder, thinks part of the problem is how much of the background is just empty, and how there's a foreground of pretty characters and objects over obviously-tiled backgrounds devoid of detail. I agree with this and I feel like a lot of the areas (I'm thinking of the interiors, here) are lacking in personality; I don't feel a pull to explore them because they often feel pretty samey. I quickly fall into a pattern of wanting to get the items I need and escape as fast as I can.

By contrast, I think the caves can be more interesting and are generally more fun than the interiors.

Caveat to all this that I think the game often looks very nice. A lot of the art is very pretty; it's just the limitations of it that hold it back. Lightning Esper is my pretty monster of the moment.

Simpler style would probably turn me off from this game. The detail is what interests me graphically and I have seen way too many simple-graphic games here lately that I don't want AVWW going down that same route.

3D models aren't happening for time and CPU/GPU reasons. Trying to actually think of a game that has had 3D character models in a 2D game...none are coming to mind, but that isn't saying much .

King

[yllamana]

I feel like the problem with the art is it's too detailed (I feel the same way about AI War, for what it's worth). I think when the art is less granular - like a Super Nintendo game, say - your mind will fill in the details and it'll look fine, but when it's more detailed it just looks a bit jarring.

To bring up an example from the game - I like the art on the world map, for the most part. There are a couple of tiles that are a bit unclear (they look a bit like seaports), but for the most part they're quite evocative in spite of - and, I'd argue, because - of their lower detail.

So I can see a few different potential routes for Arcen, here, for both AVWW and future games:

1. stick to the current art style. It's certainly got its positives, too!

2. switch to a simpler style using lower resolution, more basic sprites. I think this could be a good way to go. Players' minds will fill in the blanks.

3. keep an existing, "busier" art style, but move away from basic sprites as a concept. That could mean simple 3d models, or some other method that lets the art "breathe" more, with range of motion and so on that isn't practical with monolithic sprites alone. As a random example, characters made up of a bunch of different sprites. One example I'm thinking of had a character whose body was a complete sprite other than their right arm, which was a separate sprite to let it animate independently.

Shax, looking over my shoulder, thinks part of the problem is how much of the background is just empty, and how there's a foreground of pretty characters and objects over obviously-tiled backgrounds devoid of detail. I agree with this and I feel like a lot of the areas (I'm thinking of the interiors, here) are lacking in personality; I don't feel a pull to explore them because they often feel pretty samey. I quickly fall into a pattern of wanting to get the items I need and escape as fast as I can.

By contrast, I think the caves can be more interesting and are generally more fun than the interiors.

Caveat to all this that I think the game often looks very nice. A lot of the art is very pretty; it's just the limitations of it that hold it back. Lightning Esper is my pretty monster of the moment.

Simpler style would probably turn me off from this game. The detail is what interests me graphically and I have seen way too many simple-graphic games here lately that I don't want AVWW going down that same route.

3D models aren't happening for time and CPU/GPU reasons. Trying to actually think of a game that has had 3D character models in a 2D game...none are coming to mind, but that isn't saying much .

King

I can certainly imagine the simpler style being unappealing, especially in the wake of things like Minecraft and Terraria. But then, it's still popular for a reason. I think the fact is having a high level of fidelity runs into problems because your visual system picks up on the discordant elements and makes them stand out.

To throw out a rather old game that was more or less 2d in gameplay terms but used 3d rendering to great effect, Space Tripper! 3d rendering is also interesting because you can create really cool backgrounds with it. AVWW has some lovely backgrounds at the moment, but 3d lets you do some even more interesting things if you take the time to utilise it.

Of course, the catch here is that all these styles have their upsides and downsides and it's a bit big to change now. Part of the reason I posted at all is I have the same issue with AI War for similar reasons (though obviously in AI War you rarely actually see the close up art, so it's mitigated). I think it'd be good at looking at new ways of doing the art for future games, at least.

Then again, maybe there are great ways of making this style work better, too!

[Wanderer]

I'm going to avoid the art discussion because... well.. I'm of a different opinion but I don't find your reasoning invalid.

However: Q is god.  Q gets your tab-key to stop targetting something off in the Aether when you're desperately trying to re-lock tab assisted targeting on to X.

Q is your friend.  Love Q.  Adore the Q.  Use the Q.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Minecraft may be ridiculously popular, but I've never really played it much . Funny enough, graphic style just didn't work with me at all, though I did play Terraria.

Really, at this point it would be better if we could focus on ways of improving the style rather than radical, complete changes in the graphic style. I say this from a productivity standpoint because as Keith mentioned earlier, there are no plans of even trying radical graphic changes for the near future. Better to work on improvements than speculate on what might have been IMO.

As for the linked game, interesting, though a bit tricky I could imagine for AVWW, not to mention the amount of work for each playable character involved which there are a lot of them in this game. Especially the skelebots o_O. But it's a neat idea.

King

[Reactorcore]

Anyone got a way to desaturate several hundred .png files all at once? Can IrfanView do anything like that? That'd make a good start for some of the more glaring textures.

Paint Shop Pro 9 or Photoshop can do that with a thing called the "Batch" function. You can even have complex instruction steps for all the images to run through and it will do that all automatically.


Anyway, I'm glad atleast one developer noticed this thread, so now they are aware of the issues and its suggestions to some extent. The rest is up to them.


Also some of you are talking about a graphics overhaul; its not absolutely necessary to draw everything from scratch.
The problem is mostly associated with Brightness, Contrast and Saturation levels for the existing work and can be improved by tweaking those settings alone. Ofcourse its not so straight-forward and it will take time to get the values right, but just keep in mind that you don't need to scrap any existing artwork to improve the aesthetics.

[Quaix]

I applied a heavy blur to all background objects -- just to test things out. Here are the results.

Here's the reference screenshot (click on the image to enlarge it):



And here's the blurred one:



Note that I didn't blur characters, monsters, spell effects, gui elements or the like, only the background objects.
Unfortunately there's a big loss of detail from the blur, but it does put all these objects into the background more. Much more pleasing to the eyes in my opinion.

I used imagemagick which has hundreds of effects you can apply. You can see a list of options here.

Any suggestions on what else I should try?

[jordot42]

Wow, Quaix is right.  The blurred image is less "stressful" to look at, easier on the eyes.

[Huaojozu]

Honestly, I would blur it even more. I don't see why you would want details in the background. Background is just that - background; it's there because looking at half black screen is stupid (more often than not).

Some combination of blur and desaturation would probably do the trick for me.

[The Wuggly Ump]

Honestly, I would blur it even more. I don't see why you would want details in the background. Background is just that - background; it's there because looking at half black screen is stupid (more often than not).

Some combination of blur and desaturation would probably do the trick for me.

Yeah, I got good results with some desaturation earlier, I'd try that.

[KDR_11k]

Don't blur it TOO much though, e.g the HL2 load screens gave me headaches with their excessive blurring.

[Terraziel]

Having had a quick experiment with photoshop, I think the blur is probably unnecessary, dropping the, in photoshop terms, hue/saturation and vibrance by 20, on backgrounds, buildings and objects does enough for me.

I'd up some screenshot comparisons but my internet is limited at the moment.

[mrhanman]

I really wouldn't like the backgrounds to loose any detail.  I think they are quite pretty, particularly the trees.  I understand the desire for the foreground to stand out more from the background, though I've not had issue with it personally.  Maybe altering the Hue/Saturation would improve things in that regard, but I suspect you'll have still others complaining that it breaks up the already supposedly fractured aesthetic even further.

Until they can hire Yoshitaka Amano, you'll always have people complaining about this.

[Penumbra]

Until they can hire Yoshitaka Amano, you'll always have people complaining about this.

Yeah right. Even if they did, someone would still complain.