Whoops
Jul/090
I have accidentally been dossing about for a week, and have got almost no work done. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but I blame board games.
To rectify the issue, I spent a great deal of time today on background art (as I should have been doing). At last count there are a wrist-aching 35 or so left to draw.
Here is my take on one of those ‘before/after’ doo-hickeys.
Landing in an Earthquake Zone
I certainly seem to have got the hang of the art style, at least.
Elsewhere, my internet has decided to become glacially slow (for broadband) of late; to the point where most sites take a good minute or more to load, and even then they don’t always load completely, leaving me to mash F5 until I see what I want. It’s a real pain in the neck.
Enlightenment
Jul/090
I’m feeling particularly pleased with myself after discovering a ‘magic trick’ for better-looking background art. Once I’ve exported the background from Flash, I drop it into The GIMP and open up the fabulous ‘Lomo’ colour correction filter (found on GIMP’s plugin pages).
Normally this would render the image in a manner which makes it look like it was taken with a cheap camera (motion blur, warping, colour changes etc), but it also has a purpose of very quickly creating a good looking vignette and highlight – much faster than doing them ‘by hand’. With this in my arsenal, I think the existing backgrounds are looking even more atmospheric.
See what you think.
Mysterious planet surface
Marvin's Room
In other news, writing dialogue for each area is a pain. I think I’m going to leave it until I’ve finished drawing all the background art, so I know exactly what is in each room.
Fun, Fun, Fun
Jul/090
I’m quite enjoying the transferring of my drafts into digital images, although I’m never quite sure of the final result. From what I’ve had said to me, no-one particularly loves their own work, and they certainly seem to look better if I leave the computer and come back a little later.
I hope others aren’t as prejudiced against them as I am.
Docking Bay
For those of you wondering what the hell that ‘P’ stands for, Marvin works for the ‘Pioneer Project’. And yes, this is the shuttle has had a little ding on the way in there. Unfortunately for the poor thing, it’s only the first of many.
Reception Area
There’s a quite elaborate system of colours to show you where things are (inspired by a similar thing in Half-Life). I think it looks quite good.
Proper Backgrounds
Jul/090
The backgrounds for Marvin Cooper are starting to take shape, and so far I’m very happy with how they’re turning out compared to their plans.
As I said previously, I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the earlier background drafts due to their somewhat uninteresting composition; I am glad to say that I think I’ve solved that in the ones I have done so far. Have a look and see what you think.
Shuttle Landing Spot
Shuttle Cockpit
I’m pleased that the shuttle seems to be taking shape as the memorable ‘friend’ I wanted it to be from the very start. It’s the least I can give it, considering the amount of punishment it suffers throughout the game…
Brand New Logo
Jul/090
Brand Spanking New
You’re looking at the very first image of the Marvin Cooper logo on the main menu background. Obviously I have yet to add any menu parts to it, but that can wait for a bit.
In case you haven’t guessed by my production of actual computerised artwork, I have finished all of the planning for the visual aspect of the game. All backgrounds, characters, items and interface designs are done and dusted and I’m really looking forward to translating them into ‘proper’ images.
While I’m not drawing the backgrounds (which I will do first), I’ll be scripting all the dialogue for the game in an object-by-object and character-by-character manner, so there is (hopefully) something unique for every action on every item. The other major point for scripting everything is that it means I can divide off all of an individual character’s lines and send them to be voiced. Of course I have yet to pick anyone to do voices, but I think I’ll take dibs on at least Marvin himself or Dillbury. Perhaps both.
I was thinking a good faux-review snippet would be “An abundance of facial hair!”. There is indeed a good ratio of characters-to-facefuzz, and if that doesn’t draw people in, I don’t know what will.
Like a Speeding Freight Train
Jul/090
In a veritable blitz of creativity, I’ve finished all the character sketches and all 26 inventory items (fixing a few issues with gameplay along the way)!
I’ll be moving onto designing the GUI tomorrow, although I haven’t really given it a great deal of thought up to this point.
I have sketched the backgrounds in ‘widescreen’ proportions, so I’d imagine it is entirely feasible that I can fill up the gaps at the top and bottom of the (1024×768; 4:3 proportions rather than 16:9/16:10) game screen, but the more I think about it the less I want an interface like that of LucasArts classics.
Don’t get me wrong, they are a superb design and they’re easy to get around, but I just much prefer the approach of the great Broken Sword with very thin pictorial bars at the top and bottom of the screen (top for inventory, bottom for interaction methods) that appear and disappear when rolled over.
Of course I don’t for one minute claim that my game will be even approaching the gorgeousness of Revolution’s masterpiece, but I do love the cinematic style that the GUI gives to the game.
In terms of the interaction types that will fill that bottom bar, I like to keep things simple. To that end I will endeavour the keep it down to Look, Use, Talk and Pick Up. That pretty much covers any and all eventualities.
I would post some pictures of the character sketches, but I’m incredibly self conscious that the vast majority of them suck. I can normally draw far better using my PC than on paper, so I hope I can do my mental image justice in the final product.
At Last!!
Jul/090
The background drafts are finally all done! It feels nice to put that behind me for now and get on with something new – not that I don’t enjoy designing background art, but things get very dry when you do them on their own for a long time.
Step two of my ‘master plan’ is in three parts – character design, item design and GUI design.
I’ve made a great start on the character design already today, doing seven of what I worked out to be thirty-one in total. It isn’t easy, given that my inability to draw people is in serious need of attention, but hopefully the more I do the better I will get, and I can go back and redraw the earlier characters later.
I never seem to have a problem with drawing cartoon heads and faces, so that is where I’ve been starting each character; the issues arise with drawing the bodies in a way that I’m happy with. I have to find a way to show a good amount of personality in each character but also make them simple enough that I can animate them with ease, so I’m going to be relying heavily on instantly recognisable body types and exaggerated features.
I’m glad I decided the game would have a cartoon style to it; having to draw one realistic character, let alone thirty-one, would leave me very flustered indeed.
On a final note, I haven’t yet named Marvin’s assistants. I’ll be posting a topic to Draglide nearer to production-time to see if anyone would like their name in the game, but if you’re reading this and I haven’t made an announcement about it, feel free to drop me a line.
Accursed Sun!!
Jul/090
Well my house has been like the inside of a kiln for the last two days, meaning I got a lot less work done that I would have liked. Nevertheless, there are now only 7 backgrounds left to do for Marvin Cooper.
I think once I start drawing these up ‘for real’ I’m going to have to heavily modify a few of them. The more I do, the better I seem to be getting at picking interesting angles. This is great for me and it means that I’m drawing some good-looking backdrops for the game, but it also means that a number of my earlier efforts now look very ‘flat’ and boring. It’ll be a case of keeping the features of the environment, but rotating the whole lot in various degrees depending on the situation.
A cargo lift shaft
A confrontational corridor
It’s been a difficult decision, but I’ve come to the conclusion that to get the very best out of this game I’m going to have to go ‘all the way’ with as many things as possible. With that in mind, I’m going to be aiming for a resolution of 1024×768@32bpp and fully animated characters & objects.
It’s definitely the most detail I’ve ever tried to put into a game and I will approach this monumental task with a great deal of trepidation, but if I can pull it off I’ll be very pleased indeed.
