I'm Robert Faludi, and I will make some guest-posts here on the blog about the graphics of Chaos Reborn. I'd like to first introduce what was the thinking behind the visuals of the game.
The objectives of the visuals are:
1. Respect the fans of the original game
2. If somebody sees the game, they should recognise it as Chaos
3. It must have a distinctive style
4. It must have a mature style
All of this points to an original style, which requires some experimentation. The first important thing is to analyse the original game's graphics features, and see why it was working. On the Spectrum, you could only use 2 colors in each 8x8 pixel region, for that reason, and to make things simpler, Chaos was using a simple black background, and each creature had 1 dominant color. It was working perfectly, the sprites were immediately recognizable, even with those severe limitations, and it made the playing field very easy and clear to look at. The world looks like a black void, and the creatures are born out of that. So the first idea was that the background could be pretty dark in Chaos Reborn too, and the creatures could stand out, they could be glowing, and oozing magic energy. Because the creatures are very important and integral part of the original game, I started concepting those, and tried to make them look otherwordly and glowing with magic energy. I took the original sprite shape of one of them, and based on that, made a new version, keeping the target platforms (mobile platforms will be supported too) and 3D implementation in mind. The creatures cannot be very high-poly, and the visuals will emphasize motion and effects over geometry and texturing. The angular look will be a style choice.
So it all came to this, you can check the progression on the lion creature:
I'm really liking the final lion. Looks very strong and powerful. Love to see what is in store for the rest of the cast.
ReplyDeleteI like the angular design apart from some of the shading effects. Is this style now fixed, or are you open to other posibilities? :)
ReplyDeleteAs we put this style into 3D, some things might change, cause this is only a concept. Both me and Julian are pretty much in a mutual agreement right now what's needed for the looks, so I think the direction is given, but small things can still change.
DeleteI like the look of that Lion.
ReplyDeleteWow, looks amazing! Really excited to see how this game is coming together. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteHow about making the magical swirly bits an even more integral part of the creature and you could, say, make the mane of the lion (and tail end) swirly and magical instead of animal furry. Or is that too cliché?
ReplyDeleteSaying that, it may negatively impact the clarity of the vector-look which I'm fond of - which should look lovely when animated.
Actually there was already some very rough model I've made and tried in Unity some time ago, which was using the ideas you've described. The mane was using a particle system, and it looked pretty cool and magical. We are not sure yet if we want to use that effect for some more powerful creature though. Things about 3D implementation can still change some, as we experiment putting the concept looks into something using polygons.
DeleteI'd say the black background and mostly monocolor of each creature is the most important style to stick to.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, go wildin.
Personally I think low poly and nontextured is an underused style that can be retro yet modern and might apply very well here.
Is there a visual way of telling which wizard each creature belongs to, like coloured clothing, or is there just going to be some sort of floating tag?
ReplyDeleteThere was options of coloring the creatures to the wizard's color, or using some tag, and right now the second option is more likely.
DeleteThe lion looks great, can't wait to see it in action.
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you or Julian thought about making raised creatures look different from regular ones? For instance, this would be a normal lion, but if it were to die and be raised from the dead it could have chunks of flesh missing or something like that. Of course that means twice the work, but I think it would look wicked cool.
This could work with a simple decal system using the same model mapping. The decals remain invisible unless the creature is raised, they are then simply switched on. I have used this to inflict damage to vehicle skins and it works rather well. :-)
DeleteI love the angular stylized look. It somewhat reminds me of Journey and looks great on my PC.
ReplyDeleteHowever looking at the lion on my iPad mini it's about a centimetre and a half in size. The pixel denisity combined with the small on-screen size mean that the face dissolves into an amphorous blob in front of a mop of a mane. I can't see the eyes or mouth at all.
How big are these designs going to be in gameplay compared to these examples? If the animals are going to be smallish perhaps some stronger more contrasting colours might make some of the smaller details clearer?