Defining a style of stylized game art (TF2)
polycounter lvl 6
I'm currently in the process of pinning down "my" stylized style in a game project I'm currently working at. Before posting some WIPs I want to talk about defining a style, which seems to be quite hard.
Computer games as medium, like a peace of paper, has some characteristica which are quite unique (polygons, shaders, resolution limits etc.). The hardest part about defining a stylized game art style is the missing of styles. What I mean is, that when we try to make photorealistic game art we have reality as reference, but when we try to make stylized art we only have art references which targets an other medium (canvas, paper). Many games tried to copy a special art style from one medium to the game medium (i.e. cell shading), more or less successfully. This is not a bad thing, digital painting is an example where the transition from tradiontal painting to digial painting seems to work quite good.
But there're only a handful of games which seems to create a new unique style which fits perfectly to a computer game and is not an attempt to copy it 1:1 from an other medium. The best example is TF2, although it has its roots in illustrative art, its visual appearance is very distinctive to illustrative art (phong shading, AO in textures etc.).
Well, the typical way to define "your own" style would be to experiement with different approaches. The question is, what could help to narrow the search for your style, if there's is any help at all ?
Atleast there should be a core of game art you most probably need to meet:
"Perfection is archieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
With this in mind, even if art is in the eye of the beholder (and therefore everything would be possible), what would you mean is essential in a stylized game art to be visual appealing ?
Computer games as medium, like a peace of paper, has some characteristica which are quite unique (polygons, shaders, resolution limits etc.). The hardest part about defining a stylized game art style is the missing of styles. What I mean is, that when we try to make photorealistic game art we have reality as reference, but when we try to make stylized art we only have art references which targets an other medium (canvas, paper). Many games tried to copy a special art style from one medium to the game medium (i.e. cell shading), more or less successfully. This is not a bad thing, digital painting is an example where the transition from tradiontal painting to digial painting seems to work quite good.
But there're only a handful of games which seems to create a new unique style which fits perfectly to a computer game and is not an attempt to copy it 1:1 from an other medium. The best example is TF2, although it has its roots in illustrative art, its visual appearance is very distinctive to illustrative art (phong shading, AO in textures etc.).
Well, the typical way to define "your own" style would be to experiement with different approaches. The question is, what could help to narrow the search for your style, if there's is any help at all ?
Atleast there should be a core of game art you most probably need to meet:
"Perfection is archieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
With this in mind, even if art is in the eye of the beholder (and therefore everything would be possible), what would you mean is essential in a stylized game art to be visual appealing ?
Replies
it could be said that's why alot of "realism styled" games fail in visual regards because it's hard to be thoroughly consistent in their assets to the realistic style, you see some small piece rushed or poorly executed and it kills the immersion or falls into the uncanny valley, breaking the style by being out of place.
If your style is awesome then errors n junk should still fit into the style lol. mask the errors by keeping them consistent lol. Well you can sort of understand what I was getting at.
Okami & JetSetRadio are two of my favourite stylized games. They are both by tech definition cell shaded games but the outcome in styles are vastly different and very consistent.
In TF2, the size of the character is indicative of how many HPs they have, and how fast they move.
The same could be said for Valve's other game: Half-Life 2. Not necessarily stylized per se, but when you think of how many bullets it takes to kill a headgrabber, a zombie, an antlion, or one of those tripod strider thingies, or hovercraft killer whale things... then you realise how much of the gameplay is incorperated into the character design.
In WoW at level 1, you start with a naked character silhouette. At level 20 you get shoulder pads, at level 40 your helmet gets horns, then later you get the capes, and huge gloves, and crazy boots, and epic gear.
You can instantly differentiate a level 10 from an 80, which has all kinds of PvP implications (along with the feeling of visual progression which adds to the addictive factor).
Same could be said for the enemies.
There's also a lot to be said about saturation of colours, and what those colours mean in the diegesis of video game visual language, and pathfinding for environment artists, HUD elements etc.
There's a lot about this topic that really hasn't been covered.
The most important part about art, stylized or not, is communication. All this talk about strong sillhouettes, color schemes and consistency have one common goal in mind and that's readability. And the more you can communicate with a piece the more distinctive it is. If you can define what it is you want to communicate with your art assets, then the style is more or less defined already.
Visualize, draw, experiment, make something cool.
Quality?