Infamous Quests
The Games => Quest for Infamy => Topic started by: Lambonius on February 08, 2013, 05:03:47 PM
-
Hello Lonarian Guards! 8)
Jason (aka Lambonius) here, introducing the first of our elite backer behind the scenes development series! In this thread, I will be designing and posting WIPs of the next background on my To Do List. This scene is from the Grass Plains region of the Krasna Valley, an area that has been as yet unseen in the current demos, but will feature prominently in the full game. This area of the game world has pretty much been my baby, and with input from Steve (Blackthorne) and Jeremy (Jerminator,) I've been designing, sketching, and painting it for the past several months (with breaks here and there to work on other, more pressing areas.)
The sketch attached below is an early concept for an abandoned homestead, one of several small architectural features that dot the plains. A number of design changes have been made to the overall area since this sketch was made, and as such, I will be redrawing a new version from scratch to incorporate those changes. I expect to post the new version later tonight, once I get a chance to sit down and flesh it out.
We'd like to invite you elite Lonarian Guards to offer any feedback you like--critiques, suggestions for content additions, etc., and just in general to be a part of the process of conversation that happens around the design of any given background in our game. Don't be shy; I'm open to anything you have to say, both positive and negative, and would love to be able to incorporate some of your ideas in the screen, provided they still fit with what we have in mind for the scene. :) It's all for the purposes of creating a more interesting and attractive gaming experience!
We hope to make this a recurring series, with work from our other artists appearing in the future. So check back often! :)
-
Hey - Bt here.
So, to add - the grasslands are on the Western side of the Valley of Krasna - they're bordered on the West by the Great River Silmahwyn, and on the east by the North Woods (The 99 Acre Woods) and the Volksville River - Both the Volksville river and The Silmahwyn empty into the sea at the Port City of Tyr, in the South. Running through the grasslands is The King's Road - the great road that runs from Tyr to the Castle in the North, Koniglist - which is where the King of Lonaria lives.
The grasslands have many little pockets of life - this, however, is an old abandonded home. You'll discover what this place means to the characters in the game - and how it may hold the key to something you need.
As Jason said - he's developed this area and worked on it based on my writing for QFI and Jerm's Art Direction... it's been a really amazing collaboration, and we've been working on it for months!
I hope you enjoy watching this background come to life!
Bt
-
I am enjoying watching this game come to life.
Up til now, my pre-game activities included a demo (possibly), read a good review, read a poor review then an agonising wait til pay day.
Now the IQ team is bringing the game into my life each and every day, and that to me, an average punter at home, is pretty neat.
-
Oh my God SPOILERS :o
;D
It's great to be able and see sketches like the one above,give feedback and make suggestions!
I really love the concept of this sketch :)
I understand that the QFI world is quite big.
When we see more pictures in the future,could there be some sort of a map or something ,positioning the spot that what we're looking to takes place ?
-
Oh my God SPOILERS :o
;D
It's great to be able and see sketches like the one above,give feedback and make suggestions!
I really love the concept of this sketch :)
I understand that the QFI world is quite big.
When we see more pictures in the future,could there be some sort of a map or something ,positioning the spot that what we're looking to takes place ?
I'm sure that we CAN do that. :) However, we'll have to come up with a way to show you its position on the map without also giving away too much of the game world. Problem with this one is that it's located right in the middle of an area with a bunch of finished backgrounds on all sides. So, it'd be hard to show you its position without also revealing all of those. Really though, if you ask Blackthorne nicely enough, anything can happen! ;)
-
And here's the new sketch. It may take a bit of eye adjustment to get used to viewing black and white sketches at 320x240 resolution, but as you can see, there are quite a few new details here. :)
I'll take a moment to explain a few of the non-spoilery additions. ;) The main plot important elements of the scene were the homestead itself and the two graves, so those have been left in roughly the same positions as before. I made a few alterations to the scale of those elements, mainly because the early concept was not drawn to scale with Roehm's 100% sized sprite. The other changes made to the screen were done essentially to fit this thing geographically into the new landscape that has since been designed around it. The main change of note is the addition of craggy mountainous landscape to the opposite side of the river gorge. It is plot significant that the gorge is impassable to the west of the plains, so the landscape on that side of the river needed to look appropriately treacherous. I also wanted to make the distant scenery a bit grander (I hate to use the word epic) and more visually striking. If you have a keen eye, you may notice some other architectural details in the far distance. These details are all related to other screens in the plains area that you can explore with Roehm. I won't go into specifics, but they will come into a bit more focus once I start painting this damn thing. Consider it another little sneak peak! ;)
As always, feedback is welcome. Hope you guys dig it! :)
-
After seeing that pic I feel the urge to jump the gorge to see what's on the other side.
-
Very cool stuff Lamb. :D
I'd say the B&W sketch is a definite step up from the earlier one. Even though it has a bit less 'stuff' in it, what it does have seems a bit more focused and draws you to (what I assume are) the main elements of the scene. Nice work.
-
Very cool stuff Lamb. :D
I'd say the B&W sketch is a definite step up from the earlier one. Even though it has a bit less 'stuff' in it, what it does have seems a bit more focused and draws you to (what I assume are) the main elements of the scene. Nice work.
Yeah, good point! Love me some design economy. ;) And thanks!
Actually, in practice, I can tell you that all the additional background scenery will be much more time consuming even with the lack of other fore and mid-ground objects. It'll be more interesting though, definitely. I always want to include distant scenery that feels interesting and intriguing enough to spur the player's imagination. Some of the best Sierra games always had those "damn, I want to go check THAT place out" kind of details. The little mountain village in the scene where Graham is being carried to the roc's nest in KQ5 always comes to mind.
-
After seeing that pic I feel the urge to jump the gorge to see what's on the other side.
Same here, I loved the background so much I had to look away to actually see the house.
So Jason, how do you see this area being abandoned? Has it been 5 years, 10 or even 50?
-
So Jason, how do you see this area being abandoned? Has it been 5 years, 10 or even 50?
That's a good question. Steve actually wrote a bit of side plot around this particular homestead, so I'm sure he's got a specific idea in mind, but I'm not sure exactly what that is. :) The initial idea for an abandoned homestead came from a bunch of sketches of different possible plains "setpieces" that I did in the early concept phase for the area. He picked a few things from that batch that he liked, and had some other ideas already in place, and started reworking the plot and writing to fit the locations we had selected. I'll leave it up to him whether or not he wants to reveal any of that backstory. :)
For my part, I always imagined it being something that had been abandoned and collapsed for some time, probably closer to the 50 year mark, or even longer. Certainly not a recent abandonment by any means.
-
Steve actually wrote a bit of side plot around this particular homestead
OK, now I am looking at that photo with an adventure gamers mindset. What things will be hiding in there, where could they be hidden, and what logic defying puzzle will I need to solve in order to get set item? :P
I should properly go back to just enjoying the pretty picture :)
-
Steve actually wrote a bit of side plot around this particular homestead
OK, now I am looking at that photo with an adventure gamers mindset. What things will be hiding in there, where could they be hidden, and what logic defying puzzle will I need to solve in order to get set item? :P
I should properly go back to just enjoying the pretty picture :)
Haha...you know, I think most of us keep that kind of thing in mind when designing these screens. One of the "tricks" to background design is figuring out how to make an attractive image that also has certain functionality to it. For example, a good background should not-so-subtly clue the player in to the available screen exits, and should (more subtly) visually point the player to important elements and interactive locations within the scene itself.
With this one, the exits are south, east, and northeast (following the path of the cliff behind the back of the house.)
-
After seeing that pic I feel the urge to jump the gorge to see what's on the other side.
See those tombstones? That's what happens if you try to jump the gorge!
-
On the good side, that's another opportunity for sardonic epitaphs!
-
First color WIP. Just basic color blocking to set up the palette. The grassland palette consists of yellow-green sun-beaten grass, dry cracked dirt patches, pale grey rocks, etc. I picture the homestead as cracked yellowed plaster with a rough thatch roof. The lightness and vividness of the colors should decrease noticeably as you go further back in space (atmospheric perspective.) This helps separate the foreground and background visually, and creates more of a sense of distance. The paler you go, the further back in space objects will appear.
You can pretty easily color a black and white sketch like a coloring book by creating a new layer in Photoshop or GIMP and setting the layer mode to Multiply. That allows you to color underneath the black lines, as if the original black and white layer was a transparent overlay.
The next few phases should see the textural details and lighting really start to come together.
-
Looks very nice. If I might make a small suggestion, I think the foreground grass would look good with a slightly darker green, to accentuate the 'misty' effect of the BG scenery. Though those probably aren't exactly the final colors anyway.
-
Looks very nice. If I might make a small suggestion, I think the foreground grass would look good with a slightly darker green, to accentuate the 'misty' effect of the BG scenery. Though those probably aren't exactly the final colors anyway.
Yeah, definitely. Once the grass has been properly texturized, there will a much fuller range of light and dark variation to it, as well as warm and cool variation with patches that are a bit more brown, some a bit greener, etc. I have a system I usually like to follow when doing grass. For the basic color blocking though, I just pulled a color sample from one of the adjacent screens that was already finished. The color that's on there now is probably one of the brighter highlight shades from the complete grass texture.
Here's a bit of a texture sample of a patch of ground from one of other scenes in this area to give you an idea of what it'll end up looking like. There's a bit of tree root, stone, and some nice pretty flowers in there, too. Ha! ;)
-
I've thought of a small idea, considering that this has been abandoned for some time, could there be hints of something living in the hole of the roof, like a nest or something?
-
Here's an in-progress look at the addition of value and texture. Nothing is final here, obviously--I'm still cleaning up and adding texture. I tend to work very sketchily, picking at different areas bit by bit, polishing as I go, etc. One of the things I love about digital painting is the ability to just quickly rework areas on a new layer on the fly, without having to worry about ruining something if it doesn't end up working out. Cast shadows and such are pretty much the last major thing I take care of, so elements like the fireplace and chimney will end up more realistically in the shadow of the rest of the house.
I like to do nearly all my painting with a one-pixel hard brush. It's great for applying detail and texture by swapping between low opacity blacks and brighter colors. You want the hard brush because of the edge it creates--it avoids the characteristic "fuzziness" that happens with a lot of amateur digital painters.
My day job has been kicking my ass these last few weeks, so I haven't had as much time as I would like to be able to work on this. This next week should be a bit lighter for me though, so hopefully I can get more frequent updates in here. Anyway, more to come! :)
-
So, I had a big chunk of time today, and actually ended up finishing this sucker up. ;) I may have a few more in-between states sitting around my desktop if you guys are interested, too. I'm happy to answer any questions about it, or about painting techniques or whatever. Let me know! :)
Also, I'm open to feedback or any suggestions for additions/improvements. Hit me if you've got anything! :)
-
Nice! That was done impressively quickly.
Since you asked for comments, let's see...
It might just be a trick of my eye, but the perspective/angle of the fireplace in the cabin looks a little weird to me. Kind of hard to tell w/out seeing it in game though, and I didn't notice it in previous version so it's probably nothing.
One thing I liked in the early sketches was the misty look of the far background elements -- it'd be cool if you could restore a bit of that to the final version, where things seem a bit more clear. Of course, it depends on the atmosphere you're aiming for with the scene.
Otherwise it looks really good.
-
I'm hesitant to comment on this series at all, on the chance that critique would get you second-guessing yourself, Lamb. After reading Lupin's comment, I also noticed something odd with the hearth and chimney. The angle is in line with the back wall of the home, which makes sense, and were it facing into the home, we'd not see the inside of the hearth. So, it makes sense logically, and looks really good by itself, but is conspicuously standing out, and I can't put my finger on why...
Also, I'm really enjoying how the mountains are coming together! On the far side of the gorge, it looks like moss and other hardy vegetation is beginning to appear on the craggy cliffside... awesome. The red flowers coming up the side of the farmhouse are a lovely touch, a nice splash of bright color drawing the eye to details of the crumbling walls and sagging roof.
The regularity of the updates & refinements is highly welcome. I look forward to them.
-
I think what's creating that effect with the fireplace and chimney might be the highlight on the wall to the right of the fireplace. I was trying to go for the light that would be coming through the whole in the roof, but I think I need to reposition the highlighted section a bit, because it does give the effect that the wall of the house is at a different angle than it should be. If you look at the bit of wall to the left of the fireplace--that wall is the correct angle, and corresponds to the angle of the fireplace. The highlighted wall to the right, however, seems to protrude a bit. It's a trick of the lighting that should be pretty simple to fix. The pile of debris inside the house is further confusing things, I think, because it blocks any view of where the wall meets the ground. I'll fiddle with as soon as I get a chance. Good eyes, people! ;)
-
Yes, I totally see what you're describing... and I think you're right. It kind of makes it look like the highlighted section to the right of the hearth is actually an external wall facing the cliffside, resulting in it looking a little like the hearth & chimney are located outside of the house proper.
I was just looking back, after showing it to my wife, and we noted that if you like, you could also build up the ruined wall attached to it just a little more. That might reinforce the fact that it is truly inside the house. I don't think that would damage the sense that the hearth is stronger than the surrounding structure, which you're portraying.
Edit: If you'd be willing to share those other in-between states, I'd be interested in seeing them! If possible, it would be most interesting if you could number the filenames, or somehow otherwise indicate in which order they occurred. I must say that the time-lapse art videos are some of my favourite parts of this Kickstarter experience. This particular thread is great because it's like one of those videos, but with in-depth "director's commentary" 8)
-
Yes, I can certainly post a few others. I'll see what I can do later on today when I get back to that computer. I was thinking about adding just a bit of the door frame, like in the original old sketch, but was concerned about it blocking the fireplace (which is the important interactive feature here. I have a few edits in mind and will post a tweaked version soon. :)
-
Here ya go. A quick look at the others.
http://youtu.be/sHLBQPdOn9k (http://youtu.be/sHLBQPdOn9k)
Bt
-
Nice! That's perfect, Steve. Yep, those are pretty much all the various places I had saved and sent Steve WIPs. I don't have anything else other than that. It's a fun way to watch the evolution of the screen, definitely.
Like I said, I am planning one more pass to incorporate some of the feedback and ideas given so far. So stay tuned for that! Thanks, everyone! :)
-
You GUYS. Wow. That's exactly what I wanted, but was unwlling to ask Lamb to spend time on (because... hell, it's enough of a distraction listening to my bullshit, but "please craft a lovely time-lapse montage... oh, and nice score teaser would be great too" seemed beyond the pale. ;)
Because these tend to be very focused and short videos, I was able to share it with my little kid, and she adored seeing it come together. Mrs SD ("Lurker") also wanted me to pass on the message to Bt that she likes you more every day, and to Lamb that your talents are highly appreciated and your work is incredible. :)
-
Aw, it's nothing. You asked for something, I had the materials to put it together. No biggie.
Bt
-
Here's a new (I think the last) version incorporating a few various tweaks based on the feedback here. They're pretty slight, but you can pull this version and the last version up in Photoshop or GIMP on separate layers and flip back and forth between them to see the changes more clearly.
Added a bit of door frame, back from the old concept sketch. Made a few adjustments to the angle of the front wall of the house to make it a bit more lined up with the fireplace. Adjusted the highlight from the opening in the roof on the debris in the house to (hopefully) lessen visual confusion with the back wall angle. Made a few small adjustments to the top of the chimney to make it look a bit broken. Added some suggestions of more debris in the house, and a few other cracks and details to suggest that the house is in really bad shape (obviously ;) .) And added just a few hints of haze to the backdrop--really don't want to fuzz the details out any more though, because this is pretty consistent with the way background details look on all the other screens in this area.
Anyway, I think we can chock up any other wall/house angle issues to dilapidation. ;)
Any other questions or thoughts, let me have 'em! :)
-
Damn, I think you nailed it, buddy. It's incredible how much of a difference those small, subtle changes make... the hole in the roof has depth now, where before it was some missing tiles. The cliff-side wall is only stubs of beams and a couple of plaster panels, but in the mind's eye, it frames out the house. Great work, Lamb, and thanks for letting us inside! I imagine it's not the most fun thing in the world to share something you feel is unfinished with a bunch of strangers (especially being an artist, so there's the whole perfectionism and emotional investment thing).
It's appreciated by at least this Random Internet Person (and his family).
-
Damn, I think you nailed it, buddy.
Yep, what he said.
I am not an artist, I actually hated art, what you have done is inspired me to want to play the game even more. All this behind the scenes stuff is fun to watch.
Keep it up, and can't wait to sneak a peak at what else you are working on and BT allows you to share.
-
Thanks, guys! Glad you guys enjoyed it. I'm always happy to discuss my work, and it's fun to get new feedback on it from a different set of folks. :) I would have drawn it out a bit longer, but those big chunks of time come along so rarely, so gotta make use of them! Most of the other states in Bt's video were done in the same afternoon.
I'm not sure what we've got coming up next for the art production series--we'll have to have a chat and decide what to do. In the mean time, I'm busy chipping away at my next set of tasks, and our other artists are posting new stuff daily--this game really is coming along at a nice pace. :)
-
If it's much more drawn out then you lose the "fresh eyes" aspect of sharing it with us... then we get too close to it. I'm thinking the art team might consider this the proper/correct length.
Start with a concept sketch (or better, the Steve Sketch that kicked it off, if one exists), followed by the first-pass "penciling". After that, we saw four iterations in-progress, and Bt animated it for us. Lastly, we saw the final version.
Depending on how much re-work goes into it, this seems like a great template for another art series to follow.
I hope more folks chime in, though...
-
Hey everyone. I wanted to post the "final" final version of that background. This one has been tweaked a bit based on feedback from Jerm and my own observations. Just a few little changes to make it fit better with the screens around it on the map. The most obvious change is the brightening of the grass color (this is the standard, yellow-green color of the rest of the plains screens--I inadvertently made it a bit too dark before.) The other major change is the softening and pushing back of the mountains with a bit more bluish atmospheric haze, and brightening up the sky a bit. The result, I think, is a bit of a greater sense of distance. Anyway, this should be it--just wanted you guys to see what we consider to be the final version of this piece.
I'm currently in the process of doing a "consistency pass" over all of the screens that have been done from this area thus far. There's always subtle little differences, even when the same artist is doing an area (as in this case), and we want to make sure the art style from screen to screen feels as consistent as humanly possible. So anyway, that's that. :) I have some other fun stuff I'm working on, too, but I can't reveal anything more for now. Suffice it to say that work on the game's art resources is coming along nicely. :)
Thanks again for all the support!