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I also would like to discuss how to bring these products to market in this thread if the OP is agreeable to it!
Yes please! I feel like we almost have to create a market. SO many of the people who love the kinds of games made in TyranoBuilder and Ren'py have such.... fixed expectations.
But for now, here is some art. This is the kind of thing I'm struggling with right now: making presentation decisions. I should instead be implementing with placeholder art but I fret so . I'm not sure I was meant to be a pioneer :-)
Anyhow, this is the model I was using for my protagonist as of yesterday, and the same model combined with today's Mika, to once again poke at how Big Eyes affect presentation.
ETA: one thing I'm learning is that even if a character would have no makeup in the world of the story, eyeliner, at least, is KEY for renders destined to be NPR-filtered....
Well that can be used to serve the story...both look great. The first image she looks disheveled. After you do your side mission to help her sort her life out, she looks great again! In fact, I think this is useful to show various emotional states of the characters!
I would love to have discussion of graphic story telling. First the fact that people are turn off by idea of creating GST using Poser/DS could be because is so much bad art is turn out using Poser/DS that it gives that art a bad rep. Second a lot of people feel that a render must contain all 3D model and the whole thing must be rendered all at once. Here’s an example where part of it is rendered and part is painted.
I've played around with comics and VNs in daz. I also play a fair bit of them, as well as anime styled 3D rpgs. Visual novels that don't look like anime do exist and look good (well, imo, anyways!)
some examples:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/409920/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/293680/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/303310/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/317280/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/269030/
Even anime visual novels have a knee jerk reaction as well. There are many VNs out there that feature explicit content, even ones that may appear SFW at first glance. There are plenty of good explicit VNs out there, plenty bad ones (like any piece of art). There is a difference between deciding on an art style you want/love/can produce, and picking an art style based on what will sell your game best. What I mean to say is, how to market your game from start to finish is different than how to make a game you are happy with. There is a reason that games/movies/tv/books have tropes. The familiar content and themes creates instant recognition with the reader/watcher and helps set their expectations for the rest of their experience. However, the good thing is that more and more VNs with varied styles are coming out each year. Like any market, it expands and requires risk on the part of the creator to move the genre forward. That said, this thread is currently _about art styles that look good/interesting/that the creator likes_ not about how to make a VN that will sell well in the current market. But, as always, worth thinking about the greater context.
Between Linerender 9k and Sketchy, I've made a few images I'm really happy with (and would use in a visual novel). I have also experimented with blending in Toon Generations 2 to stylize the models (the moira and enny pics, for example). The issue with that using any percentage of toon gen 2 can make some clothing items warp strangely or not fit. A good example of warping is the Reyna hair in the anneka bundle. The one thing I've struggled with Aiko is she blends well into most everyone, but Kenji tends to just look weird. I can't get a consistant male and female style using them.
I have yet to combine lr9k, sketchy, and toon gen, mostly because omg no time send halp.
@algovincian samples continue to shock and amaze. Several of your screenshots would fit right into "western" styled VNs! BTW is your name a portmanteau of algorithm and da vincian?
Why? Is it because it wasnt actually created by the VN illustrator or whatever you want to call it? Ive seen similar reactions to software such as Game Maker, etc. Noses turned up because software inovations have made artistic creation more accesible?
Eh, if algo wants to disguise 3d because thats what he wants (regardless of the reasons) it's a cool goal. just like how, when I do photorealistic or semi realistic renders, I try to do evertyhing in engine and never do any post work. it's not because i think post work makes a render look chintzy, i just like the challenge.
@dreamfarmer eyes are something I get hung up on (re: big eyes, small eyes). I've found toon gen 2's eyes look nice on other stylized figures. I don't have star, though, so I don't know how her eyes compare. Eye size of females vs males is another thing I get hung up on. It looks wrong to me for the males to have thinner? is that the right word? eyes, but that's also how almost every art style I like does it.
Thanks for the links to a few things currently available on Steam. That reminds me, I picked up Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Developer (on Steam) plus all of the exporters as part of a bundle for cheap (<$15):
http://www.clickteam.com/clickteam-fusion-2-5-developer
Piscesdreams tipped me off to it in their thread about Anathema (game on Steam - they used Daz to create the art assets):
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/117226/anathema-video-game-made-using-daz
Played around a bit with Clickteam Fusion, but didn't pursue it further once I found out it didn't utilize mip-maps. This is a must for line art and given the wide variety of device resolutions, imho, but for other styles it may not be as much of an issue. Those who found Unity intimidating may like it better. It did have multiple platform support, a fairly easy to use event-driven system, physics, etc.
- Greg
Oh, and glad you like the NPR lain - you nailed the origin of the name:
Well, sure. I just dont understand attitudes (in general, not here) that frown on cg in VN's. If I wanted to make a realistic looking vn, which I have considered before, why wouldnt I use something like daz to try and achieve a realistic look?
Sorry, I didnt mean to come off as pointing fingers accusingly, I was just trying to figure out why attitudes towards cg in vn's are what they are.
Star's eyes are weird because they work by hiding the built in eyes and installing a new (glowing) socket and new floating eyes. They can look good in a non-Star model but they're still flat.
I have observed that anime boy eyes are much thinner than the girls unless it's a younger boy. I keep telling myself the existing models are ok. (And now I have to pick up kid and buy materials for Pi Day so back in a while.)
It's actually an interesting thing, the whole bias against certain art styles/genres in games. Or, rather, the expectations based on those art styles and genre tags. I've seen it with RPG maker (eespecially stock assets), comipo manga maker, (ofc) daz/poser, tyranobuilder/other vns (for their stock UI design), and if VN Maker by Degica has any sort of character generator, they will fall prey to it too.
Some of it stems from general snobbery thats present everywhere, and some of it stems from the sort of "old guard" attitude, combined with nostalgia, in some cases. You see it in MMOs as well. "back in my day, we had to grind one camp of enemies for 100 hours to get our horse and now you just get it for free" etc. This same attitude is also why you see lots of games in the app store that feature beefy yelling men. Because clash of clans makes a ton of money and if you can entice people in with a similar icon then it's worth doing.
A lot of the complaints about various expectations and biases come from forums, for example. Forums make up a tiny fragment of the userbase of any product or media, and they are often the loudest. People rag on RPG maker games, but the majority of the users aren't there, they are out buying and then playing those games. Granted, it's so hard to tell how much a dev needs to make to be successful, and how much that complaining affects things. At least in the gaming industry, there's almost never such a thing as bad press. Even terrible articles about how the game did something terrible more often then not boost sales.
uh so that answer got really long. Also back on topic! Feel free to message me if you want to chat more about gamers and other consumers and their views. My husband, myself, and my brother in law all work (or in my case, worked) in the game industry so we have a lot of experience.
the way you describe star's eyeballs is super creepy, hehe.
For me, the short answer is because I'd like for this to be more than a hobby some day, and 3D rendered comics don't sell. I'm not trying to compare my work to any of these, but go to the following sites and count how many 3D rendered comics you see displayed front & center:
http://marvel.com/comics
http://www.dccomics.com/comics
https://www.comixology.com
I've got some theories why, but I've got to go dig out my car from the snow that has piled up here so I can get home!
In the meantime, maybe @divamakeup will spot this mention of her and chime in (she works in the comic industry as a colorist, is a talented DS user, and is active in the forums).
- Greg
Step 1: sell me your npr filters
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT
I think there may be more 3d-rendered comics than we can detect with the naked eye. I'm sure I've seen some artist who does his stuff that way, but (just like with CG anime) it didn't look anything like the stuff in the Daz gallery.
I put together a couple of test comic pages here:
http://exstarsis.deviantart.com/art/Page-1-664029846
http://exstarsis.deviantart.com/art/Page-2-664030123
I don't think they jump out as rendered CG models. Photoshop, yeah, sure, but all art goes through Photoshop these days. But I may be pretty biased at this point. I look at my own filtered renders above and I think they look pretty nice, but then I look at most of Lain's links and I want to pull my hair out because they almost all still have a look I just can't achieve via Daz Studio. Yet. Though there was that one game... Solstice? It gave me heart.
--
On the subject of reasoned stylistic choices that aren't based around audience expectations, I keep wanting to claim that big eyes help in expressing emotion. I am not actually sure if that's true. Probably if I'd picked up that art degree in college I'd know.
That's the actual reason anime eyes are so prominent. They picked up on American drawings characteristics and the way they emphasized expressions by exaggerating certain traits (we are talking Disney's eyes, here--just a quick look at Bambi should serve as exhibit A) and then ran away with it. Strange that nowadays it's one of the most criticized aspects by people who like "old-fashioned" cartoons, but oh well, that's how things go.
Also, there's the other thing about a bigger head making things cuter because the proportions are closer to a baby, but said reasoning makes me feel a bit queasy when I remember those are the same exact proportions rabbits have. And rabbits are delicious. Yet cute.
Regarding art styles for a visual novel, I think it mostly depends on what you are trying to convey. Many purists will want an anime style (disregarding how incredibly diverse that actually is) while newcomers to the genre won't even know about its roots; but one of the most interesting almost-yet-not-quite visual novels I ever played was Hotel Dusk for the DS and it did its own thing, using a sketchy style of animation that brought to mind noir film more than anything else, and it was brilliant not only for the great visual impact and its memorable uniqueness, but because it actually set the tone for the story masterfully. Each game may demand something different: high fantasy will obviously work better with vibrant colors while urban fantasy may like gritty streets and some stories may benefit from photo-realism while in others it will just break willing suspension of disbelief. As a rule of thumb, I believe a modicum of stylization is quite beneficial to any immersive narrative, as it primes the player to overlook certain flaws that may otherwise be glaring.
Edit: Just checked your comic experiment. Outstanding work! The narrative sucks you right in.
You make a really good point, re: genres and art styles. I remember hotel dusk! I always screwed up and made people mad at me...
Something I want to play around with more is bringing in my own textures to sketchy. I think there's an untapped potential there to change the style of the render just by changing the textures. Actually, I'm pretty sure the sketchy render I posted (pink haired girl) uses a watercolor texture I tried to get working and had some success with.
One art style I'd love to emulate in 3D is one I've seen to emerge from fantasy/sci fi webcomics. The cloests analogue in the games I linked is Cinders.
http://namesakecomic.com/comic/the-journey-begins
http://www.tryinghuman.com/comic/chapter-1--09 (a few pages in since the first few pages has either a) no people or b) people get shot....)
http://sigeel.deviantart.com/art/its-behind-you-329228777
http://skirtzzz.deviantart.com/art/Spring-Time-Neko-Tink-and-Alice-668882207
You mentioned Disney and looking at these it's almost like an indie disney look hehe. Cinders does an excellent job of giving you the vibe before you even open the game. Rich, detailed, vibrant fantasy.
This is interesting...so I assume Tyrano Builder handles some sort of game logic that allows it to be a little more than a choose your own adventure? Does it remember choices, like did you pick up the key in scene 1, which allows you to open the door in scene 3, for example? I have always had to do this using multiple branches of html pages.
This product looks like it solves pretty much every problem I have been dealing with over the last few years. I know there are complaints about it, but they look minor, especially if development is robust. I feel like a new day is dawning! Seriously, thanks for this thread. Motion artist is powerful, but not capable of doing everything.
I'm at work and tyrano is blocked. Can you give me a run down of the import options for graphics? Thanks so much!
My first idea was to create a Visual comic of sorts (A mix between the visual novel and a comic book)
My idea was to create an ongoing comic series if still art where throughout the comic, the reader would have choices on what the hero would do. Depending on the choices made, would affect the eventual outcome of the comic and where the next comic would pick up.
The major problem with this is that I would have so many paths to keep track of that by the time I got a few issues in, it would be difficult to keep track of all the different story arcs. Not to mention it would have been published on google play and most devices don't have a huge chunk of storage space so keeping an ongoing series would have been difficult for a reader.
That doesn't even include the exponensially growing time and images needed to complete each issue as the story grew.
While it isn't designed for art the way ren'py and Tyranobuilder are, Twine is a really good way to write branching HTML fiction and I know it's also used a ton to prototype stuff that ends up in other engines because it allows for a really nice top-down view of the tree structure. https://twinery.org/
This is an interesting article on how to handle multiple choices without having a crazy sprawling tree. https://www.choiceofgames.com/2011/07/by-the-numbers-how-to-write-a-long-interactive-novel-that-doesnt-suck/
(Being able to tag content for branches in Twine is also an assistance handling that.)
*
My brain is blank. I don't know myself about TB import options because I've never made it that far in. I feel certain I was going to respond to something else above but I can't remember what. Here, have an unfinished piece of art while I get kids ready for school and maybe my brain will come back.
I am very happy to see someone start a thread like this! I am also trying to work on some illustrated novel/graphic novel projects, and I see that other folks are experiencing some of the same issues I am, both in terms of what software/styles to use, and other people's reactions and assumptions (NO I am not doing adult games or hentai dammit!). I will post something longer as soon as I have time. I am impressed by the artwork that has been posted!
It supports a lot tbh, however the FAQ does suggest specific file types for maximum compatibility for whatever platforms you might want to export to:
TyranoBuilder allows a variety of files to be used, but what can actually be displayed in-game may vary depending upon the platform in use.
For maximum portability, the recommended file types are:
Images: jpg, png, gif
Audio: .ogg and .mpa
Movies: .ogv and .webm
Mouse pointer / awaiting click icon: gif
It used to support .mp3 and .mp4 files for audio and animation but that functionality was removed on th eoff chance you create something that earns mega bucks and puts you in the firing line for having to pay for the mp format usage. (This only irked me initially as all the work I had done included .mp3 for music and spent 40minutes after the update trying to figure out why I had no sound - always helpful to read the update notes it seems!!)
Animated gif is an awesome inclusion...i'm picturing some particle effects transparently laid over the background...i.e. weather, falling leaves, smoke, soot and ash.
I started out on Ren'Py years ago and don't find its learning curve daunting.
Pros: free licensing with no strings attached (freeware or commercial), simple syntax to learn, compact runtime, extensive audiovisual effects, dev kit for Mac/Win/Lin able to crossplat build to all and Android, predictively caches assets to prevent lag at runtime, baked-in multiple language support, extensible through Python, friendly user community able to answer questions. The first VN on Steam was made with Ren'Py and I believe most of the ones there currently still are. Most extensively tested platform for visual novels.
Cons: no GUI SDK or drag-and-drop anything, not a general purpose video game engine. No direct 3D support but then this medium doesn't really demand it (it can however use rendered 3D video assets). Occasionally obtuse documentation but as mentioned before, Lemmasoft is full of posts asking and answering these types of questions. You would no more start out in Ren'Py without being registered there than start out in DS without being registered here.
I looked at TyranoBuilder and did not like that it's HTML5-based yet does not support embedding custom fonts. That, and no examples of Mac-based games made with it (one project made for a TyranoJam actually punted and ported their project to Ren'Py halfway through).
Maybe Tyrano is better suited to short projects at this point. I'm thinking of a weekly serial!