Art Update+
Added 2017-10-08 10:06:46 +0000 UTCJust a quick art update for today, tomorrow I'm going to post about what I'll be working on in the immediate future. Also, we're going have the name poll the day after that for the currency name, and we'll hopefully have a faster release schedule for the next month or so as I work on a bunch of smaller pieces toward getting us out of the prologue. ^-^
Art. Art? Art!
So we've confirmed 3 artists working on a trial commission for the NPC portraits. The original plan was to show you all the results on the 20th, but that might be a little delayed based on one artist in particular having a busy commission load at the moment. All the commissions are of the same scene, so we'll be able to make a fair comparison.
Artists With Commissions:
- AlexW95
- Arteria
- JustinianKnight
Digital Assistant of the Future
Right now, digital assistants like Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google's nameless variant are just a voice, but how much longer do you think it'll be until our digital assistants also have an avatar? Japan already has it, so it probably isn't too much longer. I've intended some of the menus in the game--like the status and contacts view--to represent the player character's mobile device. There isn't a rush on making the stylized background for the menus, but I do want to make the PC's digital assistant something of a minor character.
And that brings us to Lithras. He's a hobby artist that's enthusiastic about Accidental Woman, and offered his artwork for free. He doesn't do commissions, and wasn't up for a larger set of work, so putting a face to the (currently nameless) digital assistant seemed like the perfect use for his talent. The image above are 5 variants of the digital assistant avatar, the player will be able to pick their favorite in-game. Originally these were done in black with a white background, but because the final versions will be transparent, I thought it'd look better as a demo this way, and played with them a bit. (So basically, the weirdness of white line art is my fault.)
Arteria's Lily Sketch:
I posted the full-body uncensored version on discord, which you can check out, for now I'm just going to put the face here.
I'll be sharing things on the art front as they progress, but that's all for now!
Comments
I suppose some art for the character wouldn't hurt, but as someone who likes to play text based games, it's one's own imagination that's far more important. Having said that, the only adult text game that gave me total control in each phase of intercourse was Lilith's throne by Innoxia.
Ai dude
2017-10-09 19:12:44 +0000 UTCIt's a good point, I can definitely see Apple in particular take on a Pixar-esque look when marketing considering the strong ties between their companies. And thanks to Halo, we already have a good idea what Microsoft would do with Cortana. Regardless of what you decide to go with it's good to see you're establishing a "lore" for it.
R
2017-10-09 12:11:58 +0000 UTCthe public release can be found on the Dev Blog
ThaumX
2017-10-09 11:13:02 +0000 UTCI agree that the anime style would probably not be the first choice of developers. However, I'm also not one to turn down free art, and on that note it's likely justifiable. The most likely scenario for an avatar would be pre-rendered, to avoid issues of compatibility and to lower the performance costs of live rendering. Companies would also be very likely to avoid anything too realistic, because of the uncanny valley, and would likely take one of three approaches. Using techniques popularized in the video game industry, using the cg animation style popularized by Pixar, or using a cartoon style. Assuming that screen real estate in an issue on a mobile device, they'd likely want to stick to one of the last two for a lower scaling cost. Another factor will be readability of motion and expression in a small image. Assuming the avatar takes up a smallish space, and that the company will have to work on lower-quality devices, they may assume that the avatar needs to be "readable" perhaps 1" (2.5cm) square on a phone screen. In this situation, animation would be superior due to the higher readability of expressions and motion. (kind of like how emoticons are still relatively simple images, instead of more complex meme-like expressions.) There's been a distinct mixing of western and eastern animation styles, but probably more prominent in the picture is that far more animation work is being exported to china. Lower expense of creating avatars in an animated style would also likely prove to be a benefit to localization. Companies will need numerous variants of their avatars just for localization, due to cultural differences in expressions and mannerisms, and to make the avatar more similar to it's users. On top of that there will likely be some motivation for providing customization, at first possibly just choosing from one of a couple avatars. As people become attached to their digital assistants though, they'll desire more customization, and there will be developers who support that. Unlike voice which is more difficult to change from a technological standpoint, customizing the appearance of avatars is relatively simple. It's completely feasible that the player character likes/liked anime, and customized his digital assistant to have that style appearance. It's also possible that he has an asian device with poor localization changes.
ThaumX
2017-10-09 11:10:43 +0000 UTCWell there won't be a lot of art, certainly not much compared to a lot of other games, but I figure that what art there is should be done well. I was actually originally planning on starting with location art for the small images of each map location, to set the theme of the area. Polls showed a pretty overwhelming level of support for character art first though, so that's what I've started with. :)
ThaumX
2017-10-09 10:42:31 +0000 UTCwere do you find your game???
Matthew Warnke
2017-10-09 02:16:10 +0000 UTCok
ArthurHuge
2017-10-08 15:28:26 +0000 UTCpoint health clean bath, clean health, spiritual, ...
ArthurHuge
2017-10-08 15:28:12 +0000 UTCvirtual point on the map and time
ArthurHuge
2017-10-08 15:25:54 +0000 UTCbecause difficulty text.
ArthurHuge
2017-10-08 15:24:39 +0000 UTCi want you make similation image and animation time, sleep, sex, flexibility, ...
ArthurHuge
2017-10-08 15:23:13 +0000 UTCNot too hyped about the anime style, tbh. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate anime as much as the next person, but the context is wrong. If the game is set in the foreseeable future in a western society, any interface/digital assistant developed by a big company like Google / Apple / Microsoft would not integrate anime into their products/branding. Heck, even most japanese international brands don't do this outside of Japan. If they were to add a personification of ie. Siri or Cortana, they would most likely go for either a professional look, a cyborg/robotic look, or allow users to select from a set of presets, but still keep it within a unified "theme". (Kind of like how you can switch Siri's voice, but the only thing that really changes is pitch and accent.)
R
2017-10-08 14:45:54 +0000 UTCAs a life simulation text game, the arts don't need to be super detailed and even colored. What you have currently is actually good enough to be used.
Ai dude
2017-10-08 14:05:26 +0000 UTCGreat news buddy. Excellent sketches. We will be happy to wait. ^-^
Terebonkoff Game Studio
2017-10-08 10:10:21 +0000 UTC
