WorldBuilding/Visual Style/Research
From TDN
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Visual Style Research
So you want to define a visual style for your game or want to create a specific type of level based on reality or fiction. You will need to prepare work and samples not only for your own guidance but to help your artist place objects and visuals in this world of yours. Work out a plan that fits with your development agenda and follow it. Typically this type of research is performed at the begining of the development stage to get an idea and requirements of the visuals. Remember, your aim here is to develop a visual stimulus for the player to react to; the classic example of this is the defference between red and blue bases in a fortress-like game such as Quake3Fortress or any team based games. The player knows he's in the red base because of the 'signs' the painting, the walls, etc... Take this concept and push it where the geometry defines the visuals and don't forget about supporting these visuals with strong audio.
Aim
Set out clear goals for yourself, essentially asking yourself a set of questions that should help guide your vision-You can find a sample set below. Since developing a game is essentially having a blank slate on which to create anything in you need to redefine all the properties of your world. Is it real? Are people bipeds? A large part of these questions will be defined through the narrative constructed by your designers. Further preparations can also include keywords that will help give you short and strong visuals cues that allow people to pickup your concept with speed.
Questions
Is it real?
How does sun react in this world?
What type of weather effects are needed?
What type of colors are you going to see in this level?
Do the colors have a meaning? or purpose to something in the game?
What type of particles will be needed?
Will my visuals require normal mapping or other shader techniques? Cartoon vs. Realistic style textures.
What time of day is it?
Does time or weather affect the game?
Will objects be desctructible?
etc...
Tools
This section covers the tools that you can use to really find the right amount of information for your game. These are only a handful to help you get started.
Library
Whether at university or not, your city library is a great way to find out information about your visuals. You may not get images for every case, but you will learn about the reasoning for example on the construction of weapons, which will affect the way you create your models. This is a vital resource that should not be ignored!.
Google Image
This little beauty helps with a lot of things-After keywording your game, you should be able to pick and mix these to get the best result. You will be able to find large and small images. Don't limit yourself to Google's search, other engines might provide you with different outcomes. Try different spellings and formating of your keywords, these might result in some good image references. For firefox users, add google image to your search engine.
Traveling
Nothing beats being there and seeing it for real. Why do you think most WWII game developers always travel to Belgium or France? Simple, nothing can give you a better sense of the feeling and atmosphere than beign there plus the opportunity to take a lot of pictures!
Games
Other games may have touched on your style before - Check these for references, see if their lead artist did any interviews and gave away some nice tips. Do not copy styles, built it to learn and push your own concept.
Presentation
You need to give the research over to your designers and a lot of other team members and presentation is key here. Clarity of concept is what you need to show. You want to convey your research in such a way that a style appears and creates itself from your images and references. Many lead artists will have different takes on this area, but you can use photoshop to make some easy contact sheets or simply make a powerpoint presentation with some key research. The rest of the images and references should be kept in a very organised data structure.
