Learning the Nintendo style

bitinn

I am learning how to model/texture using a consistent art-style, what I am aiming at:

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U)



Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Nintendo Switch)



Some information:

- My current toolset: Maya LT, Substance Live, Photoshop

- My background: a programmer and game designer (not an artist, but I am learning).

Problems I am facing:

- I used Substance's procedural workflow a lot more than handpainting in Photoshop, because of my background. But I had a hard time achieving Nintendo's more stylised feel.

- I would like to hear some suggestions on how to exaggerated the cartoon-ish feel.

- I did download the Captain Toad character model and textures to study, it only uses 3 maps: albedo + normal + specular. Does this more or less confirm it's using a PBR workflow? If so, I should continue with the Substance approach right?

bitinn

perna said:

Where you're going wrong is in approaching this as a technical exercise. You talk about tools, workflow, PBR, and so on... none of those are relevant in the least. It's an artistic issue, not a technical one.

You have a point but still I haven't seen much examples using Substance tool for stylized asset.

It's hard for me to see it purely as an art issue because my brain has been wired that way, artist will see it as tone and hue but I see them as values

PolyHertz

Looking at the screens above, the aspects that stand out to me are:

-Large, bold, and simple shapes throughout. Avoid creating excess detail that could obscure core shapes (ex: grass blades)
-Models with any sharp angles will normally have them beveled/chamfered away.
-When possible, avoid using textures and rely on just basic materials (especially with highly reflective surfaces)
-Textures are almost always tiling, high saturation, and low contrast.
-Texture detail should be kept simple and non-realistic, with each relying on a small variety of smooth/simple shapes and noises.
-Very dark colors, both in terms of texture and lighting should be avoided.
-Depth of field should only affect very far away areas, and should never intrude on the player area.

bitinn

PolyHertz said:

Looking at the screens above, the aspects that stand out to me are:

-Large, bold, and simple shapes throughout. Avoid creating excess detail that could obscure core shapes (ex: grass blades)
-Models with any sharp angles will normally have them beveled/chamfered away.
-When possible, avoid using textures and rely on just basic materials (especially with highly reflective surfaces)
-Textures are almost always tiling, high saturation, and low contrast.
-Texture detail should be kept simple and non-realistic, with each relying on a small variety of smooth/simple shapes and noises.
-Very dark colors, both in terms of texture and lighting should be avoided.
-Depth of field should only affect very far away areas, and should never intrude on the player area.

Thx for your breakdown! I think this is the styleguide I was looking for

JordanN

If you're interested in technical detail, SEGA released an in depth article about how they made Sonic on 360/PS3.

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/series/3dcg/110682.html

Of course, it all comes down to art style in the end, the above is just one way they combined the two.

If anything, if you're stumped on ideas on how to make stylzied assets, why not look at older games? A lot of my references still comes from PS1 and PS2 games just because the cartoony style they did back then is closer to what I want to work with today.

bitinn

JordanN said:

If you're interested in technical detail, SEGA released an in depth article about how they made Sonic on 360/PS3.

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/series/3dcg/110682.html

Of course, it all comes down to art style in the end, the above is just one way they combined the two.

If anything, if you're stumped on ideas on how to make stylzied assets, why not look at older games? A lot of my references still comes from PS1 and PS2 games just because the cartoony style they did back then is closer to what I want to work with today.

Wow that's a pretty great article! I will give it a read soon.

On the reference material, do you happen to have some games in mind? I was mostly using a few 3DS games (like Animal Crossing New Leaf), because their models are easier to find and they are designed for a specific camera angle that emphasise the "miniature cartoon" style.

But as far as I know they don't use normal map like Wii U / Switch games. I believe they only use a diffuse and a specular map (latter has a suffix _s and is grayscale).



A sidenote: Nintendo use some very thin and subtle normal/specular on the Captain Toad model. I am not certain I can do that within Substance Painter (might need to create a tile-able normal map elsewhere and import...)

JordanN

bitinn said:

Wow that's a pretty great article! I will give it a read soon.

On the reference material, do you happen to have some games in mind? I was mostly using a few 3DS games (like Animal Crossing New Leaf), because their models are easier to find and they are designed for a specific camera angle that emphasise the "miniature cartoon" style.

But as far as I know they don't use normal map like Wii U / Switch games. I believe they only use a diffuse and a specular map (latter has a suffix _s and is grayscale).


A sidenote: Nintendo use some very thin and subtle normal/specular on the Captain Toad model. I am not certain I can do that within Substance Painter (might need to create a tile-able normal map elsewhere and import...)

Wellllll.... they're mostly Looney Tunes games so the artstyle might be slightly different from what you're looking for. But if you still want, you can check them out.

I really like for example Looney Tunes: Space Race and Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures. 

The first example I find very good as a modeling reference. Trying to get 3D cartoon characters to match their 2D counterparts is something I take very seriously. The ed, edd and eddy game I really like because it has a very warmish color palette, and the developers also tried to mimic the show's "jittery lines" and toon outlines.

As for the normal map/specular map, I'm not use to substance painter but I know you can create both maps like that in photoshop. I would just create a simple pattern (either by hand painting it or manipulating a photo texture like a shirt close-up) and repeat it. For the specular, I would also paint in those details using a hard/soft round brush.

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pior

Just get started. Get your design/concept done in such a way that it is indistinguishable from the Mario stuff ; then build the corresponding assets so that they are indistinguishable from the ones in the game screenshots.

You have access to a great art guide already, since you have access to a full game showing every facet of it !

"A sidenote: Nintendo use some very thin and subtle normal/specular on the Captain Toadmodel. I am not certain I can do that within Substance Painter."

None of that would need to be done in something like SP -  It's just a very, very, very simple tiling picture. Green channel is vertical, Red channel is horizontal, Blue channel is largely not needed.

Also just to clear things up : the fact that an asset is "PBR" absolutely does not mean that it requires Substance tools to be created. All you need is your model with clean UVs (that you will most likely want to edit on the fly), Photoshop, and a way to preview the model in realtime.

Good luck !