Design Resolution

[manikus]

Originally Posted by olivier_leroux We should hold a FRUA-ite/DC-ist reunion in NWN some day. I already met Ben S. and Kaz Keith in-game and I know others (like Nol Drek) are still involved with NWN, too.

I've played in Ben Sanderfer's game a couple of times, but I haven't been able to play online much lately. I'll have to see if I can rectify that.

I know that DC lost Ziroc to NWN and then NWN2. I played in his game a few times - it's a massive Undermountain romp, which is hosted on his site here.

If only CocoaSpud had gone to NWN instead of WoW. Then, maybe we'd get him back around here once in a while.

[manikus]

Originally Posted by olivier_leroux I had arguments? I had a point? I thought I was just rambling as usual... Actually I voted for "Don't care, just make it good" because if you ask what resolution I prefer PLAY designs, that's it. I don't care as long as I think the style looks consistent and the space available has been put to good use. And yes, you guessed that right, uatu's style is very much after my own heart. Hope to see a design by him someday.

It's funny, I was just checking back in to edit my post to apologize for rambling.

I had noticed that everyone has voted for "Don't care" except for me. It's because I prefer the square viewport and the larger viewport to screen ratio.

As I mentioned, I was mostly looking to stir up trouble. But, I do think that some important issues were brought out, such as bigger does not necessarily equal better, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, er, maybe not so much on this?

[Dinonykos]

Originally Posted by olivier_leroux And yes, you guessed that right, uatu's style is very much after my own heart. Hope to see a design by him someday.

Yes! Go, Uatu, go!

Interestingly, for my AGS project (sleeping since 2005), I used a style which is very similar to Uatu's (at least, I think so). I am still wondering if I should start another project with this kind of art for DC once "Helmetlands" and the related stuff is completed.


By the way, this was for 320x240 resolution...

[Uatu]

Hey, that game looks a lot of fun, too! Looks very reminiscent of the old VGA-era adventure-type games, very, very nice work! I do think it is similar to my own stuff, but more "soft" and fairy-tale like, perhaps (even with the PC there!).

In part, since the whole screen is graphics, it looks perhaps better than some things we can do with DC (although as it was 320 x 240, you were able to do more in less time, I guess )

Guess it is time for me to do more graphics (and walls!) so that I can get to work on my mod, too (The more time I have, the less cartoony my work looks... (I.e., I can use more colors and shading )

[olivier_leroux]

Those look very nice, Dinonykos! You've just risen in my esteem even more, showing versality in art style and outing yourself as a disciple of the Blue Cup.

Apart from UA, NWN and now DC, AGS is another of my favorite game 'engines'. I adore playing AGS adventures and would love to play yours one day!

[Dinonykos]

Originally Posted by olivier_leroux Apart from UA, NWN and now DC, AGS is another of my favorite game 'engines'. I adore playing AGS adventures and would love to play yours one day!

Unfortunately, I see no chance that this thing will emerge from the demo status in the near future. I would need 3-4 weeks of completely free time together with another guy who developed the story together with me - but this is illusionary at the moment.

Hmm, again I caused a distraction from the original thread topic! I apologize... For those who do not now, Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is an editor for games like Monkey Island, Loom, King's Quest, Legend of Kyrandia (the latter made by Westwood, who also were responsible for the superb art of Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2 [I guess it was Dan Huling who transfered the respective walls to DC] and Lands of Lore) and so on.

This is not totally off-topic, though, since the situation in AGS is quite similar: You can chose between resolutions from 320 to 800 (1024?) px width, and in the beginning, I played around with high resolutions, but realized that the effort is (naturally! ) 4 to 8 times higher.
And, in my opinion, those adventures I have seen made in high-resolution do often not look better, since the authors often were not capable of using the hi-res in an appropriate way.

Thus, to come back to the main topic, as long as the hi-res is used in a nice way (Manikus' 3-D-model based art is a good example), I would of course prefer to play a hi-res DC game, as long as nothing else is different!

However, some designers may get lost in the process of producing hi-res art and come up with "empty-looking" designs, although they would perhaps have been capable of designing a nice 640x480 design.

[manikus]

Very nice art there, Dinonykos. I don't believe I've ever played any of the AGS family of games.

Dinonykos, please finish Helmetlands (and related stuff) before you go off on any forays into another style and (possibly) resolution. But, then when you are done with it, go for it!
Uatu, more art please. I would like to see more, because I like you work and I want you to finish your design.
Olivier, it's time for you to start doing some more graphics as well. I quite like the modifications you made in 'The Lesson'. As of yet, there has been very little modifying of artwork in DC. I've often felt that if some of Steve McDonald's walls wee lightened up a bit and/or made a tad less grey, that they would rock (but I guess that's something for me to work on).

I think we're all in agreement - if it looks good, then any resolution is fine. But, if it doesn't look good, then making it bigger doesn't help.
Hmm, now I feel like I need to go rework some of my stuff...

[Uatu]

Blargh. Did a bit of work on the "other" (downward) stairs today - now it is at about 5% finished (Seems that the first few will always take a lot of time ...hope I get used to doing this kind of thing quicker soon!)

[manikus]

It took me about 3 hours to do the upward stairs for my design. Considering I use the second attempt, I would say 6 hours total.
But the way I did the downward stairs was very simple because the perspective didn't let you see any of the stairs themselves, just a 'hole' into the level below.

It does get quicker - at a point you will get a feel for the perspective walls. Really. It will happen.

[olivier_leroux]

Originally Posted by manikus Very nice art there, Dinonykos. I don't believe I've ever played any of the AGS family of games.

If you refer to the titles Dinonykos listed, they're not related to each other or AGS except for being graphic adventures. AGS is more like a game creator than a simple editor, a great freeware tool that allows everyone to create their own freeware graphic adventures without requiring knowledge of programming languages. Much like DC, but even more dependent on the vision of the authors, two games created with AGS could look and feel completely different and unrelated. I like it because it's another of those powerful editors that offers creative people a chance to share their stories and ideas for free and without censoring. Like with UA and NWN there are some very professional custom made games created with it. The difference is you don't need to buy a commercial title or download the editor to run the game, they all come with a run-only interpreter like DC. Let me conclude my eulogy with the obligatory link before they're going to take me away for going OT again: AGS - Adventure Game Studio community.

(Don't click on it though, succumbing to the temptation might result in losing precious DC time!)

Ahem.

Originally Posted by manikus Olivier, it's time for you to start doing some more graphics as well. I quite like the modifications you made in 'The Lesson'. As of yet, there has been very little modifying of artwork in DC. I've often felt that if some of Steve McDonald's walls wee lightened up a bit and/or made a tad less grey, that they would rock (but I guess that's something for me to work on).

You'll probably rather see me darkening walls than lightening them up. Anyway, all I did was load them into IrfanView and mess with the Brightness and Contrast settings. But I don't really like how some of them turned out (maybe they were flawed from the start, but darkening them revealed some ugly lines in places I wouldn't want them to be). And the walls I created myself are all front view only, without the side views - I wouldn't know how to complete them and make them look good and I fear I'm also lacking the patience for such work... Not saying I won't do any graphics stuff, just don't expect it to be top quality and available very soon.