2D Vs 3D characters

[Akjosch]

This is a city of 13 million people. If you keep seeing the same people over and over, it's convenient, and extremely unlikely.

Our mind doesn't work like this.

Just from my recent trip aboard: Were the flight attendant, the women who sold me the ticket to Ueno Zoo and the restaurant waitress who showed me how to write the middle kanji of "Akihabara" the same person? Not likely. Did they look the same, or even similar? In hindsight ... I couldn't tell. They were small young female women with a nice smile and straight black or dark brown hair. Two weeks later, that's all I remember of them. Same goes for the males too - the owner of the Ryokan in Kyoto where I stayed for a few nights and the tram conductor in Hiroshima who explained to me how to pay for the ride were likely very different, but for all I remember them they could as well be twins.

We keep running into the same kind of people, and until and unless they are actually important to us, we only ever remember what kind of person they were. We're doing more or less well at re-recognising them though - humans are great at pattern matching.

So basically, making a generic character sprite - even out without facial characteristics like eyes, mouth or nose! - is fine for those characters, because that's how we end up remembering them anyway.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Even big budget games feature dolls. You look at who populates any of the cities in the AAA games and you will the same small amount of resources used over and over again. If you are looking for it you will see the patterns. Does it matter? Not really. Creating that many unique resources is just a silly waste of money.

How do you expect to get what you want any way? You seem to be unwilling to compromise of quantity (dolls or re-using characters) or quality (3D bases or generic). It's unlikely for you to be able to get both at the same time. You are probably going to have to compromise or be willing to pay for an artist.

[TrickWithAKnife]

Ok, I'll end my questions now. I think I'm going to paint myself as uncompromising or unrealistic, when in fact I wanted to ask these questions to make sure I wouldn't make any silly decisions.

I appreciate all the great advice.

[Akjosch]

Ok, I'll end my questions now. I think I'm going to paint myself as uncompromising or unrealistic, when in fact I wanted to ask these questions to make sure I wouldn't make any silly decisions.

Uncompromising is good. It's your work, your vision, stick to it!

[TrickWithAKnife]

There have been other people who made games for studying Japanese. They did have high followings because there is a demand for fun educational games, but ultimately the games suffered immensely because of the egos of the creators, and their unwillingness to listen to other people.

I can see that I could easily fall into tw same trap, which is why I made this topic.

Of course it's not easy to accept doing everything your way is not always the best way, but making a game is a kind of growth experience.

The end result will be much better for it, and its much easier to do in the beginning.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Of course it's not easy to accept doing everything your way is not always the best way, but making a game is a kind of growth experience.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with doing what you want to do, you just want to make your game the best it can be. It's just that between what you want and the end result is a lot of work and sometimes that amount of work proves impossible with your current means. A game is never perfect, there are always things that need to be sacrificed. I think having very minor characters look kind of similar is the lesser of most evils and most readers won't even care. Your efforts could probably be focused in another area that the readers will care more about to greater effect.

[Sharm]

Ah, the 80-20 rule. It's useful for figuring out how to cut your epic ideas down into manageable levels. Deadlines are helpful for doing this too.

[OokamiKasumi]

... Because of where this and many other things happen, turning that random person into a recurring character is possible, but very weird. This is a city of 13 million people. If you keep seeing the same people over and over, it's convenient, and extremely unlikely.
I want the player to feel alone sometimes. Familiar faces destroy that feeling.

Have you considered using silhouettes for Random Strangers?

Because there are no faces, the reader can easily fill in their expressions by using their imaginations.
-- And at FREE, they're cheap and plentiful.

Link -> http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/web ... lhouettes/

[TrickWithAKnife]

That's a really interesting idea. It seems like 2D is overwhelming better, ever if 3D is a lot easier and faster.

I'm still figuring what will be happening with the 2D art, so it would also depend on the artist(s) opinion too.

[OokamiKasumi]

That's a really interesting idea. ... I'm still figuring what will be happening with the 2D art, so it would also depend on the artist(s) opinion too.

Silhouettes are ungodly easy to make, so even if you have a particular art style for your characters, it wouldn't take 2 seconds to Color Overlay those character images into plain, faceless silhouettes. With a bit of shifting in arm and leg positions, no one will even know that the original characters are being reused.

Honestly, silhouettes are so easy to get and use, I'm honestly surprised that no one used them in one of the VNs in your Worst VN Ever competition.

[TrickWithAKnife]

That reminds me, it's after midnight...

[SusanTheCat]

OokamiKasumi beat me to it.

I like silhouettes.

As a Reader
- It gives me a general feeling for the character
- I know they aren't that important
- Can be given basic expressions

As a Creator
- Easier to make

From Fall Fair:



Susan

[FragmentedBergyo]

I've also wanted to recommend transparent silhouettes, but I've been beaten to it.
Some of the older Chunsoft Sound Novels used that technique for ALL of the characters,not just the background ones.
Example 1
Example 2

(Personally, I think it held a certain charm and expressive power to it.)

[fleet]

Sorry for joining this topic late. I make my VNs using 3D art, and would advise you to use 2D art if you want more people here at LSF will look at/play your VN.
Compare the number of views and downloads on my Arnie and the Hitchhiker VN (http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=15382) with just about any VN with 2D art and you'll see what I mean.

Do what you want to do, and have fun while doing it.

[pineapplepocky]

In my opinion, the reason why people are opposed to it is because they haven't been convinced that it looks good. If one day someone in the world makes it convincing enough, I'm sure people will change their minds. Well, I personally haven't been convinced, but I mean, one day...one day someone will shine a light on this and make it convincing. Well, not me.

There has been a webseries called RWBY and it's changing the idea of a 2d character in a 3d world with some anime looking characters in the works. If that concept was taken another step further, it would be pretty cool for a visual novel to take in that form.