Consistency in Design Between Multiple Artists
Hi guys. How is everyone doing?
I was wondering if a few artists are working together on a small game, what is the best way to establish consistency in art style between them? What is the best way to establish guidelines so that different assets don't have a great disparity between then?
I was wondering if a few artists are working together on a small game, what is the best way to establish consistency in art style between them? What is the best way to establish guidelines so that different assets don't have a great disparity between then?
Replies
Shitty isn't it?
Nothing apart from getting the two of them to sit down and talk about it will help. What will help that conversation go smoothly are some visual representations of things and some notes on the intention/design of the visuals. If you don't have that then you're in trouble.
Once there is one piece the lead is happy with be sure to provide it as a direction for both artists to aim towards. Paint overs and red lines are good tools to show how to change things from your sources in a way your artists will understand.
This was a page from our art doc on Age of Empires Online. The "art doc" was just a series of images in a folder on our network. It was about 20 pages. It was really useful when starting an asset. We had a separate technical doc that explained naming conventions, texture sizes, and poly counts. Both docs were extremely useful when we started working with contractors out of house.
Full post: http://www.robotentertainment.com/blog/detail/Vision-behind-Age-Empires-Online
You write things down as much as possible, and then include some visual examples (which you may just google, but be damn fucking sure they don't end up in the final product).
For example, for the above image of AoE-Online you could note that all buildings look like they have been squeezed in the middle, that the roofs have a very distinct red color while the rest of the brickwork is kind of beige/white. Shadows have a fairly strong blue tint, and details have been scaled up to be readable from RTS perspective.
And of course, it helps to have artists whose portfolios are close to your vision already.
Hire an art director!
seriously, do what's been suggested - compile an art bible. Make rules for artistic and technical quality. Do reviews often. Compare new and old assets - I worked at a place once where during over a year the art style slowly became more realistic by accident. Each character was just a tiny tiny bit more realistic than the last one, and we made a couple dozens of them. At some point someone compared the very first character and the latest one and then we had to update the really old assets to match the new ones hehe.
Put someone in charge (i.e. and art director) who makes the calls what gets OK'd and what not. You could do team reviews too, but it may take longer and only works if everyone is clear on the artistic vision in the first place.
This is good advice. Like everyone else has said:
1. Decide an art style, using CONCRETE EXAMPLES for reference
2. Collect that reference, and any other important decisions, into an art bible that everyone has access to
3. Make it someone's job to make sure all assets fit the art style
4. If the assets don't fit the art style, redo them
Your biggest problems are going to be making sure everyone understands the art style, and dealing with people who can't or won't match that art style. For the former, just make sure you communicate clearly and use reference.
Iteration...Iteration...Iteration.
that's my 2 cents.
2) References
3) Design doc
4) Having an art director or at least a lead artist at your studio (some small studios don't and it can cause a lot of problems - especially if there are no tech artists around as well!!!)
5) Having skilled artists*
* That's where I draw the line actually in regards to what I consider a "good artist". Good artists can study something, learn new techniques and then mimic/copy a game art -style without too much hassle. I had a colleague once who was quite good, had several years of industry experience, etc - but he really sucked at delivering assets that fit the art style of our game. He wasn't a very strong team player
this. if you have a team working together, someone will have to take the lead in defining the style and ensuring it is maintained. you can write fancy documents all you want, people tend to not read the manuals. somebody has to keep the watchful eye.
i find this very important when it comes to say differences in texturing style or in how materials are set up, for example.