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Jonas Tyroller27 Jan 2018

Designing an Art Style for Your Game - in 1 Day: Space!

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Using physical media like play dough and stop-motion animation creates a distinct, biological aesthetic that differentiates indie games from standard digital rendering.
02
The production workflow requires sculpting physical models, capturing sequential frames, and using post-production software to refine assets for game engine implementation.
03
Success in this art style relies on balancing the handmade, organic charm of physical models with precise digital post-processing to ensure cohesion with existing particle and combat systems.
04
The primary challenge of this workflow is the labor-intensive nature of manual sprite cleanup and maintaining model integrity throughout the animation process.
05
Manual masking and cutting in image editing software are necessary to achieve high-quality sprite transparency, as green-screen techniques often fail due to inconsistent lighting and shadows.
06
Procedural noise and cloud textures can be used to efficiently generate professional space-themed backgrounds that complement hand-crafted sprites.

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Transcript

because I can play with I can't really get a smooth surface on this whenever I try to form it it just breaks I have a little sister she will be very happy to

play with this here I start modeling which is the fun part because every second that I'm doing something useful why not sitting in front of the PC is a good second for me working and unluckily with our computer screens very pleasant because I spend pretty much 80% of my day in front of a screen so this is a good alternative just as always trying a couple of different things modeling different stuff and then when all of these models are done I'm gonna choose the best ones and animate them and bring them as sprites into my simplistic strategy video game it's gonna be awesome some things I model our spaceships just creatures I

have don't really have an idea which kind of creature I want to have from the game here I'm modeling a tentacular monster I'm pretty glad it worked with this material okay now we have to choose one [Music] honestly I think I already know which ones I'm going to use it's really cute nothing you want to make explode maybe we can use this as an enemy don't you know to play a character definitely going to be these creatures they look nice and biological and powerful they

give you a cool power fantasy I hope then this for me would also be a nice player character but obviously this is way better so yeah we just have to choose a really good enemy and I think that's gonna be the enemy there's gonna be the player creature very nice very nice starting to take a couple of pictures just to see if they are actually usable not like last time where took hundreds of pictures and none of them had a good quality here you can see the first image this one without probably use so now it's time to start animating and it's basically just changing a little bit done detection taking a picture then changing the model

a little bit taking a picture and then when you play them after each other it looks like the thing is moving all by itself I think you know how stop-motion work so I don't need to explain it to you but I have a lot of time that I need to fill while I do this [ __ ] so why not you know why I have not the spirit entacle thing was pretty tedious yet to animate and I really had to pay attention not to break the tentacles here I'm animating he act just stretching it out giving a nice look so it splits into two halves oh my god this is going way too quickly I don't can't keep up here I'm already importing the images I think we're at 20 or 40 times the normal speed cutting these images all stook literally forever I used a green background so my hope was

that I could just key the color away so just like a normal green screen no making the green transparent so I don't have to cut it out myself here I'm looking at a tutorial how to do that did not work and I didn't keep trying because you know this was not meant to be keyed we can clearly see that the shadows are way too dark on the ground and also we have a bit of depth of field which makes the creature a bit blurry and at some part so this was definitely definitely no good images for using green screens on just doing it manually which takes for ever I don't know if you've ever done that it's a really boring tedious annoying work but it gives you the best results if you do it

manually so that's what I did here you can listen to a podcast while doing this I think listen to the Co optional podcast while cutting all the [ __ ] out then you have to clean it up do some color correction have a look that all images look roughly the same really make sure that the animation will work out in the end and here I finally exploit the animation now I continue with the egg basically the same process just making sure the images are scaled correctly and are on top of each other and then starting to cut everything out by hand just going around and around and around

and this was way faster because the shapes a lot more simplistic didn't take that long and then I wasn't really happy with the yellowish color on the egg so I had to paint over that and make it black and white so I wanted the egg to be really white not this ugly yellow color look just too ugly especially in combination with all the hair stuff that's on top of this egg yeah it's supposed to look a little crappy I mean otherwise I could just render the same thing in in my 3d program so it's definitely supposed to look a bit crappy but not too crappy you know [Music]

doing some color correction and I think the egg is done Larry - now I continue with the enemies same process again cutting it off just using the Photoshop line tool to go around the edge by the way you can't really allow yourself to make any mistakes and doing this one click in the wrong direction and you can almost start all over again I think a mistake like this happens to me very soon area here you can see it mess it up so I had to use a little trick to fix this here are all five

images done now I'm just cutting out a couple more for the projectiles and effects and stuff like that [Music] now I'm starting to design the background this time I didn't have that many problems with the background I already knew what I wanted it to be I wanted it to speak a space background and those are pretty easy to make you just use a noise texture and put on color correction to make it look like stars then you use a clouds texture to create some fog and that's basically it there's about one more minute of footage of me finishing this game will enjoy that with some music

[Music] okay we did it the final art style is done so let's play are you curious yes

this was a lot of cutting sprites out today hmm I kind of hope we don't decide on this one because that would mean I won't have to cut out a lot more sprites and unfortunately this looks kind of good I really like these space creatures it's a pretty unique style I don't think I've ever seen something like this before so that's good but also bad because this was pretty exhausting today pretty boring mundane work I've gotta say this game has a bit of an unfair advantage because it has particle effects you know a lot of particles flying around already especially when

you hit the enemies that feedback makes a huge difference but even without that the the creatures and the eggs are pretty damn cool ISM warning crunch warning with levels too easy who made this level so easy okay finally we get to the interesting stuff but still this is way too easy who made it this easy whoo-hoo [Music]

[Music] the spaghetti monsters they are coming oh god you might forget how can I skip this level it's too easy boring [Music] [Applause] [Music]

willing to live [Music]

I can't loose now [Music] I have never lost it was neck never disclosed how can it be this close but now I want ok luckily Oh so what do you think which art style is it gonna be have a look at all four of them give me feedback to this art style and comments and then we'll have to take a decision that's gonna be a hard decision thank

you for watching have an amazing day make the word you playing on zmaro

Summary

Developing a unique visual identity for indie games can be achieved through unconventional physical media, such as play dough and stop-motion animation. By modeling game assets—specifically player characters, enemies, and environmental objects—in a tactile, physical space, developers can create a distinct, biological aesthetic that contrasts with standard digital rendering. This process involves sculpting models, capturing sequential frames to simulate movement, and utilizing post-production software to refine the assets for implementation into a game engine.

The technical workflow requires significant manual labor, particularly during the asset preparation phase. While green-screen techniques are often attempted to streamline the removal of backgrounds, inconsistent lighting, shadows, and depth-of-field issues frequently necessitate manual cutting and masking in image editing software. This tedious process ensures high-quality sprite transparency and consistent color correction across animation frames. Furthermore, background design can be efficiently generated using procedural noise and cloud textures to simulate space environments, providing a professional backdrop for the hand-crafted sprites.

Ultimately, the integration of physical, stop-motion assets into a digital strategy game provides a unique visual feedback loop that enhances player engagement. Despite the time-intensive nature of manual sprite cleanup and the challenges of maintaining consistent model integrity during animation, the resulting aesthetic offers a rare, organic quality that differentiates the title from traditional digital art styles. The success of this approach relies on balancing the "crappy," handmade charm of the physical models with precise digital post-processing to ensure the final product remains functional and visually cohesive within the game's existing particle and combat systems.