Weekly Update - Visual Novel Look Dev

This week I focused on making progress on my graphic novel with April and other anthro characters.

Originally I'd imagined using flat backgrounds and character portraits that changed during dialogue, sort of like how it's done in Forest of Love. This approach is often used in dialogue-heavy games to get maximum mileage out of each asset (especially the character portraits, which get reused again and again). It can result in a more abstract feel since characters are only loosely affiliated with their surroundings, which can be a good tool to highlight the drama in their interaction without distracting the audience with environmental noise or camera movement.

[Screenshot from VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action]

But having the characters painted into the backgrounds themselves can make the game feel more like a comic book or frames from a movie. This approach would require making more frames (too many to draw by hand) since every frame would be uniquely contextual, but I think it'd be a more immersive experience, especially if I can bring the actors, cameras and environment together to tell a better story. For example, I could have an underwater camera, worm's eye POV, or a camera looking down from atop a roof.

[Screenshot from AI: The Somnium Files]

The nice thing about working in 3d is I can take either approach!

I can design the 3d scenes Blender or Unity. I picked Unity because I already have stylization tools ready to go; being limited to a game engine constrains me in a good way (can't noodle for hours on tiny art details); I can use scripting and prefabs and other Unity tools to automate various steps of the process; and if I can achieve a desirable look and feel using game shaders only, it may be possible to introduce animation and camera transitions into the game.

So I'm currently working with these constraints:

AND

The game's story happens in several locations: the mall, the beach, a house and apartment, and the pizza parlor. Last week I catalogued which assets I already had and which ones I still needed to find or make. (I had to collect more beach, pizza, and mall-arcade assets to be able to build believable environments for those areas.)

Next I went into Unity and did some "Look Dev" (what is Look Dev?) with some pre-made 3rd party mall assets to explore ideas for look and feel. I am currently shaping the style around clean lines in a bright and colorful videogame-esque world with a few shadows, lots of gradients, and occasional textures, planning to use the highest contrast & most vibrant tones for characters. This prototype style will keep evolving as I finish filling out the mall and building out the other areas. An important part of Look Dev is establishing design consistent throughout the game -- this is easier to do when most of the design elements are present!

I also did some quick study on anime stylization, which will continue next week. There are some design elements here like bold, toony shadows that might improve my game's look and feel. Shoutout to this incredible video for art analysis, technical process and some cool design ideas.



In other news, I'd wanted to do a monthly project and work on something for Valentine's day. This month has been unforgiving so far, and as buried as I am with other work, I hesitate to take on another project. I'll aim for a sketch page at least, maybe a short animation loop if I can be very economical. Will try storyboarding on Sunday and Tuesday (Saturday, half of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are booked for other work.)

See you next week! :}