The planning and creation of CGs

[Auro-Cyanide]

I'm mostly thought collecting again as I try to wrap my head around doing CGs for a full game. It's proving more difficult than I thought, as well as creating rather unique challenges.

So, how do you plan your CGs? How do you pick what moments to show in a scene, and what to show for each moment? What things do you consider problems with CGs and what do you consider strengths? What is your work process like when you are creating an entire set?

[Obscura]

Oh wow...good question. I'll be looking at this thread.

From my fledgling attempts I can only say I try to pick something that's either funny and is a stand-alone joke or the climactic moment.

Either way I'd try not to pick anything that's already expressed by the text. I feel like the art should convey something all by itself, even if it's a mere suggestion of a smile or a look of sadness, etc.

But that's just like my opinion, man.

[Fungii]

It's always awkward when it's supposed to be an intimate moment (sexual or not) and I'm still staring at too character sprites on screen nowhere near eachother.

I know people get bugged by the 'faceless protag' cgs too, but I think the justification with that is that it's to help the player insert themselves to that position, hence why they're always brunettes with plain hairstyles. It's like playing a characters vs playing a role.

One thing I notice with CGs too: DUTCH ANGLES
EVERYWHERE

[fioricca]

Ummm

CGs are a lot of effort to make and have a lot of impact, so they're definitely best to use in key scenes. What constitutes a key scene would depend on the type of game; for instance, dating sims focus on romance, so I'd want to see pretty CGs of the main character being intimate with the date partner. Scenes that substantially affect a character are also best illustrated; for instance, if the date partner suddenly decides blowing up buildings is more exciting than dating you, you'd want a CG of him/her blowing up buildings. ... that was a terrible example but you get the drift... XD;

One of my all-time favourite CGs is from the last case of the second Ace Attorney game, when Franziska bursts into the courtroom with evidence that turns the situation around. A lot of effort was spent building up to that one moment when it seems like all hope is lost, so Franziska storming into the room made a lot of impact. Totally a good CG decision.

I think it depends on which scenes you'd like players to find special. CGs are often compiled in a gallery, so when players have cleared a route and visit that gallery, a good CG set should have illustrated moments that make players go "aww, yeah, that happened ;w;". I don't think I've ever disliked something because a CG was there, because pretty pictures are always nice to look at; but I've had moments when I thought a scene was badass, but the accompanying CG didn't do it justice. 8( That got on me a little.

[CaseyLoufek]

One thing I notice with CGs too: DUTCH ANGLES
EVERYWHERE

My theory on this is that the first VNs were on such low resolution displays they resorted to Dutch Angles because you have more space diagonally than horizontally or vertically.

My approach is to brainstorm a list of potential good candiates and pick the best and most essential and hope there's the resources to get those done. If there happens to be enough to do others, great.

You want a good spacing in time so they don't appear all at once in play. You want a good variety of images. You want things that won't convey well with the basic sprites. You also want things that will be visually interesting and serve a significant role in the story.

[AxemRed]

My theory on this is that the first VNs were on such low resolution displays they resorted to Dutch Angles because you have more space diagonally than horizontally or vertically.

There's always more space diagonally: Pythagorean theorem. It doesn't really have anything to do with low-res, it's just as valid now.

Because the text box eats up some vertical space, even with 4:3 resolutions you're left with effectively widescreen. For event CG that focus on a single character, the dutch angles allow you to see way more of the character.

[CaseyLoufek]

Well it's just as valid, just not so desperately needed. That's why I brought up the low res aspect.

[ThisIsNoName]

Well, I can't really give much advice considering I haven't actually done any games, but I found [url=http://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress. ... r-deakins/]10 cinematography tips by Roger Deakins[/rul] that might help. Not all of them are applicable, but it has at least a few tips on composition, lighting, etc.

[nyaatrap]

My games are mostly battle or sex scenes, so I have no problem of deciding key scenes - They are almost automatically defined.
The problem I have is, how to show standing figures without rolling cameras - you know, that inclined CGs more than 45°
I'm trying to code imitating animations which don't use that unnatural inclining. Didn't get good result yet, but I have to make some solutions someday soon.
BTW, I laughed at the google search result of "tilt"

[junna]

BTW, I laughed at the google search result of "tilt"

type "do a barrel roll"

[RunicV]

BTW, I laughed at the google search result of "tilt"

I Googled the word tilt... And the page tilted to the right. ._. I was WTF for a moment, until I saw that it's an Easter Egg. I'm using my iPhone. /gets shot in the head for posting something irrelevant to topic.

A CG should happen when it's a dramatic moment. /shot for being Captain Obvious I'm pretty sure there are some useful laws for CGs, like there are for significant figures...

[wakagana]

I feel like CG's are most important when introducing very important characters, showcasing moments of the story that are important to the character development, and in some cases random events that may happen that are just worth drawing. ( IE something comical. )

Just my personal preference towards the subject. :t

[Auro-Cyanide]

I don't have any issues with Dutch angles, but I don't use them very often. I'm not sure why.

I'm going to try and articulate my personal problems with CGs so far, which is going to be a little difficult since I'm not even sure what my problem with them is >_>

Basically, it's a sense of... confusion probably describes it best. It's not that I have a problem imagining the scenes exactly, I tend to think very cinematically. But choosing the exact right moments to draw for the best effect? That is proving difficult. It's a bit hard to not just want to draw everything. I'm conscious of the fact that because of time I can't really do that, but I'm having issues knowing when to trust the sprites to do their job (what would be the point of spending so long on them otherwise) and figuring out the moments that truly need another image to help describe it. So I suppose it's mostly a trust issue with my art work and where I feel like I need to compensate for it. At some points I'm going to have to let it go, but figuring out where the lines are is hard ;_;

[Deji]

I think of CGs as illustrations on a book; you only get space to illustrate one important key thing every x amount of pages! And you want that, if people look only at illustrations, they can see the key moments of the story.

My rules to decide what thing to illustrate are:

• High priority: What *definitely* can't be portrayed by sprites and texts alone and is a key moment in the story.
• Med priority: What may be able to be portrayed using sprites and/or text alone, but would work better if illustrated and is an important moment in the story.
• Low priority: What would look better illustrated, but you can make it work with sprites and text and won't affect the story flow, since it's not that much of a key moment in the story.

My process is underlining the key parts while reading the script for the scene I'm told to illustrate, then mark what's the most important of them all.
As I'm going through those key moments, I quickly make gesture/stick-figure sketches of them; lately I have a template file open with rule of thirds grid in it for sketching, otherwise I just sketch on a piece of paper.

After we decide how many of those moments are going to make it into final CGs with the writer (and/or the one that has the money x'D ), I try to find a nice, preferably not boring angle to draw the scene in.

I try to use dutch angles and such because I think it breaks the static perspective of sprites and backgrounds you usually have going on on-screen It gives more of a dramatic sense and remarks the moments as being "special", imo


Lately, I go on and illustrate a bunch of moments or scenes on the same sequence because I can x'D; I use cut-ins for less important scenes and fullscreen for key moments on Yousei, for example (:

[Daistarir]

@Deji : You're know a lot. I'm think I'm death under your greatness .