2018-09-06, 11:32 AM
Well, an SVG can be as detailed as a bitmap. It just needs more effort put into it! Consider how much time their environment artists might have put into these pieces, and consider doing the same, if not double for each. (We are fans after all!)
But, if you can make these very fast, then it might be good to do them all quickly, so that an entire game can be played, and then after, go back and redo the whole thing! It might be more work, but at least there will be a complete demonstration. And after we determine how cool this new KF2 is going to be, you can decide how much time/attention you can afford it. If you want to, you can make a "Kickstarter" to make money for yourself, and offer the basic job as an enticement.
Here are my feelings about these. BTW, just post PNG files is fine. Just to share. These look correct for the most part. The stars seem a little blurry perhaps... I don't want gradients in the first batch. The colors are different too. Although they look the same to me. The stars especially have quite different RGB values. (And they are missing the brightest color in the heart of the stars.)
I like the flame.... especially the part on the bottom right that makes it look like stained glass, or a handmade mosaic. It is missing the bright white highlights, and the deep red behind it. That said, think of each one as a painting to hang in a modern fine art gallery, and decide for yourself what looks best. I personally like it when there is an artificial element. Maybe other people will disagree, but I feel that the medium is an opportunity to get outside of the confines of everyday reality. And so I like it that it is not cartoony, nor is it precisely realistic, but is merely suggestive. Imagine that all of your SVG files will be hung on walls in an art exhibit, and consider how they will look outside of the context of the KF2 experience, and consider if they will still be worth looking at or not by themself.
I am not certain that every file appears in the game. So if you don't recognize something from the game, maybe save it for later. And look out for duplicates.
I think that the stone/marble texture is very central to KF2's identity. So I I think that it must be given great care, and should be immediately recognizable as marble/polished rock, and not something amorphous that can be anything else. If necessary, it might help to take the original and smooth it out with a filter, and overlay it onto the SVG so that it has more high frequency elements.
The green cave wall is also very critical. It cannot look like the kraken's skin, or anything else. It needs its own identity. Even if that means painstakingly reproducing it in a giant SVG file. Sculptors chisel away for days on end, so it's not too much to go over an entire file for these major pieces. But in due course, and ultimately it's up to the artist's own judgement. I don't recommend approaching it like a copy machine. Try to figure out what is the soul of the image and pull it out.
P.S. I do not like that flame in the game. It's something I would change in a new edition. It will probably have to move, like flames do in SOM, and I think others do in KF2 also. So if we do a flickering flame, it will need several other versions, or animation frames, but that can wait! Still, on the other hand, if it is the "magician's flame" it might be unnerving to see a flame that is frozen. If we make it a frozen flame, it will have to use an all new particle effect that can make it look like 3D fire. But I like your take here. I like how it is chopped up as if made out of hand carved pieces, and that the pieces are sometimes flat/geometric I like too. I think that this approach will complement the very precise and low-detail polygon geometry.
The polygons are going to look better than any game because of the do_aa extension I've developed for SOM. It may be something that no one has ever discovered/used before. It doesn't use the game's resources, and so works on inexpensive computers. And I've never heard of a game that uses its technique, even though it's perfect for low system requirements, therefor I think people who make games don't know what they are missing. (I've tried to publicize the technique, but no one actually cares, which is not surprising, if you look around and see how bad things are in our world, because of how people are by nature.)
But, if you can make these very fast, then it might be good to do them all quickly, so that an entire game can be played, and then after, go back and redo the whole thing! It might be more work, but at least there will be a complete demonstration. And after we determine how cool this new KF2 is going to be, you can decide how much time/attention you can afford it. If you want to, you can make a "Kickstarter" to make money for yourself, and offer the basic job as an enticement.
Here are my feelings about these. BTW, just post PNG files is fine. Just to share. These look correct for the most part. The stars seem a little blurry perhaps... I don't want gradients in the first batch. The colors are different too. Although they look the same to me. The stars especially have quite different RGB values. (And they are missing the brightest color in the heart of the stars.)
I like the flame.... especially the part on the bottom right that makes it look like stained glass, or a handmade mosaic. It is missing the bright white highlights, and the deep red behind it. That said, think of each one as a painting to hang in a modern fine art gallery, and decide for yourself what looks best. I personally like it when there is an artificial element. Maybe other people will disagree, but I feel that the medium is an opportunity to get outside of the confines of everyday reality. And so I like it that it is not cartoony, nor is it precisely realistic, but is merely suggestive. Imagine that all of your SVG files will be hung on walls in an art exhibit, and consider how they will look outside of the context of the KF2 experience, and consider if they will still be worth looking at or not by themself.
I am not certain that every file appears in the game. So if you don't recognize something from the game, maybe save it for later. And look out for duplicates.
I think that the stone/marble texture is very central to KF2's identity. So I I think that it must be given great care, and should be immediately recognizable as marble/polished rock, and not something amorphous that can be anything else. If necessary, it might help to take the original and smooth it out with a filter, and overlay it onto the SVG so that it has more high frequency elements.
The green cave wall is also very critical. It cannot look like the kraken's skin, or anything else. It needs its own identity. Even if that means painstakingly reproducing it in a giant SVG file. Sculptors chisel away for days on end, so it's not too much to go over an entire file for these major pieces. But in due course, and ultimately it's up to the artist's own judgement. I don't recommend approaching it like a copy machine. Try to figure out what is the soul of the image and pull it out.
P.S. I do not like that flame in the game. It's something I would change in a new edition. It will probably have to move, like flames do in SOM, and I think others do in KF2 also. So if we do a flickering flame, it will need several other versions, or animation frames, but that can wait! Still, on the other hand, if it is the "magician's flame" it might be unnerving to see a flame that is frozen. If we make it a frozen flame, it will have to use an all new particle effect that can make it look like 3D fire. But I like your take here. I like how it is chopped up as if made out of hand carved pieces, and that the pieces are sometimes flat/geometric I like too. I think that this approach will complement the very precise and low-detail polygon geometry.
The polygons are going to look better than any game because of the do_aa extension I've developed for SOM. It may be something that no one has ever discovered/used before. It doesn't use the game's resources, and so works on inexpensive computers. And I've never heard of a game that uses its technique, even though it's perfect for low system requirements, therefor I think people who make games don't know what they are missing. (I've tried to publicize the technique, but no one actually cares, which is not surprising, if you look around and see how bad things are in our world, because of how people are by nature.)