The Significance of Art

[DrakeNavarone]

I've been wondering, just how significant is the artwork to a project? Obviously, a project cannot honestly be called a visual novel without some art, but just how important is it overall? It seems like a lot of the projects here have art just to fulfill that requirement, instead of truly utilizing the medium. I'm not trying to say that the art in OEL games does not have a point. It does get things done. It gives us a portrait of the characters, shows their expressions, creates a setting (and for the lazy, cuts down on written description). But those are the kinds of things we see in every project. While useful to storytelling, it's not exactly an original concept. Moreover, is it really necessary? Just how many of these stories could be told without any of the art? Would they really lose anything in the end? My answer is, for most cases, nothing would really be lost. It would be a different experience, for sure, but no reduction in quality.

So why aren't there more projects that are fully utilizing the ability to incorporate artwork as part of their story? It all seems like a separate element instead of integrated into the plot. I'll admit looking through the Works in Progress forum, and reading about that "revolutionary" project with its 300 or so graphics is what lead me to write this. Perhaps that project will be the answer to my question and I'm just jumping the gun. But it did get me thinking as to why other projects aren't putting that much emphasis on the art... why other projects use it more as decoration than a tool. For a while, I couldn't think of a single OELVN that really used its art to its advantage, as the tool it was meant to be. Then I remembered one scene in O3 that did just this (spoiler tagged, just in case).

The one flashback scene where Yoshiyuki and Ochi are kissing while she's at the hospital. Then the color is added, and you see that Ochi's hair is white. It was one of those "Oh, wow" moments.

Now that is really utilizing the art. Another (non-OEL) example is Ever17. Could that story possibly be told without its utilization of the art? Would the plot twists be nearly as stunning? Would they leave you just as speechless? I personally don't think so. So then, why (after everyone who's played it seems to love Ever17, and after everyone here seems to love O3) aren't more people tapping in to the true potential of the art aspect of visual novels? Is it because of the dominating community mentality of "Story first, story first, story first"? Why does art always seem to be a secondary concern? Why aren't they done in parallel and why don't they have equal priority?

Perhaps I shouldn't be the one posting this... I'm no exception. I myself am thinking along those lines of "story first, art second" with my projects. My nanoreno project will have the bare minimum art-wise and I don't think I could ask anyone to commit to artwork for Evergreen until the script is finished (Plus, I don't know how much weight my words have, not being an artist and only having one little demo under my name...). But some other time, some other project, I'd like to make a story that utilizes the art to its fullest, where it's a complement to the story not just an ornament. I'm just curious why other people haven't done it yet... Maybe I, like several others, am really just waiting around for that epic game to appear... But I don't need it... I'm just looking out for that VN that uses all of the potential the art element has... that'll be an epic in my eyes.

[lordcloudx]

I guess my short KNs don't count? I believe some of them wouldn't make a lot of sense without the art.

[F.I.A]

I assume you mean the inclusion of scenario arts that speaks for themselves?

To me, it is rather by the maker's choice to incorporate such artworks. In a way of speaking, the inclusion of such arts can make or break a game. And to work on these works, more efforts are needed to make the gamer understand its meaning.

[DaFool]

~Uguu

Maybe this is similar to the feeling I get regarding writers and pushing the writing boundary

Art is expensive, plain and simple. Expensive in terms of time. Unlike writing, its hard to just delete and rephrase art.

I'm pretty slow, but an average character art for me takes 4-6 hours, and an average bg takes 6-11 hours per piece (of course then one can easily tweak to make other expressions and night versions quickly)

Regarding that revolutionary 300 (Lol reminds me of that graphic novel movie), before there was a lull in progress, the first few months involved lots of planning and we came to the conclusion to employ the techniques used by animation studios:

script -> screenplay / storyboard (plugging in engine) -> rough linetest / lineart -> (possible) clean-up / inking -> (may be discarded step) inbetween -> digital coloring -> voice acting

A lot of corners will need to be cut to save on time, such as digital inking, full CG coloring / shading. In fact a non-paperless approach might help churn those scenes out.

Another thing is that the filesize for this project might escalate out of control. Imagine 300 jpgs, each 100kb. That's already 30mb, but what if they're larger?

[monele]

What DaFool said : it's mostly expensive :/... Doing good art is difficult. Doing lots of good art is worse and will take a *lot* of time. Compared to writing, it's hard to actually draw things the way you imagine them unless you're a very good artist. And remember people do this in their free time ^^;. If you're going for an art intensive project, it means you'll be doing that, and *only* that, for months of your life. Artistic people might have trouble focusing on a single thing for so long maybe? (free souls, ne? ^^)

If it wasn't all that long and complicated, what you'd see from me would be interactive animes, always. But from wishes to reality, a lot is lost ^^;

[dizzcity]

I wonder if it's possible to create it the other way around... I seem to have more success writing AROUND art/pictures than trying to find art/pictures to match my story. I agree fully, though, that some stories don't really make use of artwork as much as they could (my second project Wedding Vows comes to mind... it can stand perfectly well on its own as a text-only project, and art is merely for decoration's sake). But yeah, I also think there could be more ways in which art is used in our current projects.

One of the most ambitious ideas I ever had (which I scrapped immediately as being too complex), was the idea of telling a story sense-by-sense. Like a robot awakening with all of its input functions disabled. First words and text-menus only, and then after the story is done, a replay of the same story, but with the "eyes" activated, giving new meaning to certain phrases and imagemaps allowing for greater exploration. Then the "ears" are unlocked and sound/voices are added which state passwords and other secret access codes which give more new information and allow even further exploration of the world. (And if I could find a way to put touch, smell and taste into a visual novel, I'd try those as well...) I'd love to see someone try to do this, but being cynical, I don't think it can be done successfully... yet.

-Dizzy-

[DrakeNavarone]

I'm not saying projects need to be art intensive, nor am even saying the art has to be excellent. What I want is to see a project where the art is really used. Where it's vital to the telling of the story, not just part of a package. To me, it always seems like a separate element. So a OELVN is not a whole, it's just the sum of its parts. I believe that people are not making the most of this aspect of visual novels, and I wonder why. I realize that creating good art is difficult, but so is good writing. It may be more mutable that art, but that's not necessarily an advantage. Change after change after change can be made, and an author might not settle on anything. Sometimes it's also difficult to write what you imagine, like it is to draw as you imagine. So why aren't we doing more with the art like we do with the story?

This is another thing that's been bothering me. Why is story so much more important than the art? Why is it that it's always the story that comes first? Why aren't they of equal importance? To do things this way, to me it sounds like a great way to make a book with pictures, not a visual novel. I just don't get why everyone says "just focus on the story". It's as if the story is more than enough and the art is inconsequential. If that really is the case, why not simply write stories? Why bother making visual novels? It's part of the name, so why isn't it a real part of the process, instead of just an addition, just decoration?

Maybe I'm just too firm a believer in "Show, don't tell" and "A picture is worth a thousand words"... I honestly don't believe there's been one picture (aside from my O3 example) where a picture has been worth that much. Sure, a handful of words, maybe even a hundred, but a whole thousand? No. It feels like I'm watching a movie that has an excellent story, excellent music, and excellent acting, but the camera is always static. It just stays fixed at that one spot. That sounds like a boring movie to me. In the end, it might be a good flick, but it'll never reach great. For visual novels, the art is your camera, and I'd like to see creators use it, to put it to work.

[F.I.A]

While I agree with your statement of "Show, don't tell" and "A picture tells a thousand words", as how DaFool said it, compared to writing, art is a rather hard production.

Yea, you can edit and edit till you are satisfied with art as well, but what if the base of it is eating on you? Most of the time, you have to dump that and remake it.

Or let's just say that we got more of the writer talent than artistic talent over here.

[DaFool]

In a visual novel, text is the backbone of pacing the story. That's why it's important. Dan Kim hinted at this when he had quite a little difficulty porting Kanami. Whereas with comics/manga, layout is the backbone of pacing the story...the way the panels are arranged, their size, and the camera angles all contribute in altering the visual impact so that, for example, a 2-page spread takes more time for the eyes and brain to process and is the visual equivalent of a larger descriptive paragraph.

That sort of comics-style layout variance is hard to do in a constant 800x600 screen. It's doable sure, you can still mimic comics layout, but you'll need to do a lot of panning and zooming, and too much of that is bad. (It's like reading e-manga for me or manga scans at ridiculous resolutions and hitting the left / right / up / down / arrows and zoomin /out gets annoying.) Printed media has an advantage in this.

Thus the only other way visual novels can be paced will be like cinema, which is the natural progression (with recent animated JP eroge).

Now, if you don't have a lot of backbone text to pace the story, what can you have?

I'll let you in on a secret...music

That's why Makoto Shinkai's works are so moving to me as visual poetry. Think about the two common techniques he uses to pace his stories / game OPs

1.) monologues...the spoken equivalent of visual novel first-person text
2.) music...timed perfectly to Tenmon's tune.

Visual Novels are usually 1.). For 2.), you'll need a really good creative commons musician to work with. And I imagine you'll really need to use Skip Disable for that, unless you can set the tempo of a tune with a slider like you would text cps. But that only works on dedicated sound editing programs.

[monele]

I'm wondering what people are really looking for? Better quality, more quantity or just "something original" made with the graphical aspect (dizzcity's idea is a good example)?
Is it the staticity of it all which is boring? Or the "always a bg and sprites" status? Do you want animation or "camera works"?
Are there existing examples of what people want too? Could help understand this ^^

[frumplstlskn]

To me, visual art is the most important thing about Visual Novels. I haven't been able to play many OEL games because the art is distractingly lame. If not for the art and bit of storytelling difference, I could just be reading a novel. I believe that the art amount is fine, but the quality needs to be higher, unfortunately.

Having more CG scenes and hand-done backgrounds would be wonderful, but that's another unattainable standard. I just downloaded the CG set of a game that was full CG. Powerful stuff, but it must have taken forever.

[Hime]

I consider the text as the most important part, and the art and music morely as very important parts that mostly create the atmosphere. The most important thing in whole though is probably that they all work together. And in art, I think the most important thing is that it fits with the text, as example if the text says "Maria was furious" there should not be a smiling picture of Maria. I'd really rather play an amazingly written game with horrible graphics then a horrible written game with great graphics. Without art, there could be a visual or kinetic novel, but without text, there would be no story. So, I think the quality of the art isn't too important, but of course, good art is always a really good support for a good text. Besides you can always replace the images with good descriptions to give the picture, but it's very hard to express text in pictures.

[chronoluminaire]

So maybe the obvious proof-of-concept should be a story told *entirely* in art. A series of images which tell a story, without any words involved. You get some three- or four-panel versions in assorted comics, when they occasionally do a dialogue-free strip. A simple twenty- or thirty- picture one could be done, and would demonstrate the point.

Of course, that might take better form as a comic, which might explain why we've seen relatively few such visual novels. But with sprite movement, choices (by clicking one of several images or parts of an image), and suchlike, a visual novel could be created.

If you think about the point of ren'ai games, it's romance. And romance is usually assocaited with a strong story, but not always. Some sunsets for two characters to walk under could achieve it, with appropriate setup.

Anyone up for it? (I'm afraid I'm a programmer and writer, nothing remotely approaching an artist.)

[mikey]

I'm not saying projects need to be art intensive, nor am even saying the art has to be excellent. What I want is to see a project where the art is really used. Where it's vital to the telling of the story, not just part of a package.

A lot of the times though, this may be a bit gimmicky. Something like the Nintendo DS games often are. For most of the times, I personally prefer very conventional storytelling, and not too many clever and inventive uses of graphics.

If that really is the case, why not simply write stories? Why bother making visual novels?

Because it's the people's vision - should they just give up because they can't draw that well? Yes, one should aspire to create greatness, but when you can't, isn't doing the best good enough? Should you just stop and wait until you get better or simply try to find someone who IS a great artist? It is making a virtue out of necessity, but I don't think that in this case it's bad.

It's actually this what is so amazing and for what I respect all the game-makers. They don't whine about their inabilities to make a doujin version of Kanon, they don't just sit back saying "I'll never attain that" - instead they do what they can because they want to realize their vision - and it also says a lot about personality - they are willing to settle for a scaled-down version of their ideas, because they care for it enough to MAKE that compromise.

It feels like I'm watching a movie that has an excellent story, excellent music, and excellent acting, but the camera is always static. It just stays fixed at that one spot. That sounds like a boring movie to me. In the end, it might be a good flick, but it'll never reach great. For visual novels, the art is your camera, and I'd like to see creators use it, to put it to work.

To me, visual art is the most important thing about Visual Novels. I haven't been able to play many OEL games because the art is distractingly lame. If not for the art and bit of storytelling difference, I could just be reading a novel. I believe that the art amount is fine, but the quality needs to be higher, unfortunately.

Freeware amateur RPGs are short or have stock graphics. Freeware amateur shooters have simplistic levels. Freeware driving simulators have simple physics. And... freeware VNs don't have drop-dead wonderful drawings.

It's in essence this simple - and IMO also this logical.

[DrakeNavarone]

I don't care about the quality of the art. I do care about how the art is used, though. I believe a few of the games from this community have excellent artwork. But I don't think there are any games (aside from my example earlier) that really use their art. A change of expression, entering and exiting characters, even a little movement. These things are nice, but ultimately not vital. You can easily change

Code: Select all

show eileen happy

to

Eileen smiles.

quite easily. In those instances, the art isn't necessary. I want moments where the art is necessary. It does not have to be beautiful, but it has to be there. I just want those scenes where you must show them with an image, because putting it to words would dull the impact and the meaning. That's what I'm really looking for. But I have yet to see it.

Art always feels separate, like an addition. I think one of a few things at fault for this is the community sentiment that art should come second. I have yet to hear an answer why that's so. Why is it always the second rung on the priority ladder when it should be tied in first with the story? Now being first priority doesn't mean it has to be good. But it does mean that it has to be important. So why is it that art isn't treated with as equal importance as the story? No one has given me a satisfactory answer yet. I've heard "I'd rather play a game with a great story and bad graphics than a game with great graphics and a bad story". That's not a good enough answer for me. Since I would rather play a game with an average story and average art, if they are used in tandem and treated with equal importance.

Maybe I should change the line of questioning a little, to help me understand why the art in a project is always second string. Instead of asking about the importance of art, let me ask what makes the story so much more important. Why is it that the story is always viewed as the most important aspect of a project? Why is it that the writing is the project, and the rest just colorful add-ons? Is this the way we should really be thinking if we wish to create visual novels, and not just stories with a few illustrations?