Shooterplant

[Quintus]

Going through the SMC forums reveals interesting stuff. This enemy has complete SVG and just needs code: http://secretmaryo.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3903

Valete, Quintus

[Bugsbane]

While the thought of free graphics is tempting, I think we can do better. Right now TSC is a real mix of very high quality graphics, and some very poor quality stuff. I would like towards replacing all of the low quality graphics, starting with the SMB based stuff, so TSC can make a better impression than SMC did. Achieving this would helped if we started by being selective with the new graphics we add in.

[datahead8888]

We will eventually have to decide to do when someone who is new to art comes along and wants to help out. Someone who is a beginner won't be able to generate high quality artwork, but at the same time, we will have the question of how to make them feel like their work is getting used. In some cases, we can enhance their artwork, though it's not an easy issue. It would make sense to at least keep different drafts on file.

We also might want to start thinking about what enemies we do and don't want to include (at least in the near future) out of the forums before investing programming / more artist time in some of them. Creating tasks makes sense, though, or the content will be buried in secretmaryo.org.

[Bugsbane]

I'd say that it begins with getting the style guide on the wiki. That will help give new artists guidance on some of the basics. At the end of the day though, to try and put this in a coding analogy, it's a bit like unit tests. It can catch some of the most common and obvious problems, but not every piece of code that passes them will make for a better application.

I guess we need some kind of "junior jobs" for art / music, too. Generally speaking, characters, mosnters and anything that needs animation frames would not be classed as a junior job, in my opinion, as they draw on a wide range of skills (especially as Inkscape has no animation tools). A better place for beginners to start, is probably non-tiling background objects, particle images, icons etc. These are fairly small, don't require frame animation or tiling, don't require any special skills and only appear when a level designer chooses to use them. I'd be more careful about allowing changes to assets that are already heavily used. That's not to say that people have to be a team member to contribute to these, just that we need to carefully consider changes to pervasive assets. If the quality isn't there, then we can point people to either the style guide if applicable, or to the junior jobs list.

By the way, I thought you mentioned something about sending me an invite to become a team member or something a couple of days ago. I'm not sure if I misunderstood, but I haven't seen anything in my notifications, so I'm not quite sure how to accept. Afterwards, I can go through, and label art issues as junior jobs (or whatever we decide to call it - "junior" is a bit condescending)

PS If we could get a link to the wiki added to the Readme.md, that would be great. I'd like to start on the styleguide, but can't find where you posted the wiki link for me.

[datahead8888]

I guess we need some kind of "junior jobs" for art / music, too. Generally speaking, characters, mosnters and anything that needs animation frames would not be classed as a junior job, in my opinion, as they draw on a wide range of skills (especially as Inkscape has no animation tools).

Having these tasks posted is a good idea, but I don't see anything wrong with letting someone pursue their "dream enemy" or something more aggressive if they want. We'd just need to find ways to work with them in this case.

Quintus had said he intended to add you as a github contributor, I think. I am not the owner of this repository, so I doubt I have the access level to do it myself.

[Bugsbane]

"I don't see anything wrong with letting someone pursue their "dream enemy" or something more aggressive if they want. We'd just need to find ways to work with them in this case."

Absolutely. I don't think we should ever tell potential new contributors they can't try anything. I think we do need to encourage and guide them to improve their work until it's a standard where including it will at least, match the quality of the current visuals.

If, for example, some new coder showed up and submitted patches that made the game buggier, I'm sure we wouldn't just commit their patches. We'd guide and encourage them until their patch was reasonably stable compared to the rest of the codebase and then include it. Reducing the visual / auditory appeal of the game is the equivalent of a bug on the art side.

[Quintus]

Quintus had said he intended to add you as a github contributor, I think. I am not the owner of this repository, so I doubt I have the access level to do it myself.

I’ve already done so. @Bugsbane needs to accept the invitation; you should have received an email about that.

Reducing the visual / auditory appeal of the game is the equivalent of a bug on the art side.

Sounds reasonable. I am glad we have someone like you who keeps an eye of our visual identity. I would probably not notice if an unfitting graphic was added.

Vale, Quintus

[Bugsbane]

you should have received an email about that.

I just checked, and don't see it... Is it possible to get it sent again? Or to tell me what the email subject line would be? I have a lot of Github / TSC notification emails that it could be lost amongst.

[Quintus]

I just checked, and don't see it... Is it possible to get it sent again? Or to tell me what the email subject line would be? I have a lot of Github / TSC notification emails that it could be lost amongst.

According to GitHub’s help, you can just go to the following link to be presented with an "accept invitation" button or something like that:

https://github.com/Secretchronicles

Vale, Quintus

[datahead8888]

I think we do need to encourage and guide them to improve their work until it's a standard where including it will at least, match the quality of the current visuals.

In some cases it may come down to someone not having the drawing skills to produce the work or not realizing where their work really stands. It can actually be difficult to tell someone this -- in my experience new artists can easily be put down if they're told this. Telling them to make some different changes to the work in some cases won't give it the overhaul it needs. This has the capacity to become a hot button issue, especially if it comes down to the quality of older submissions on the project if old artists rejoin. It's just something to be dealt with carefully and in an encouraging manner.

I may go through something like this myself if I contribute some art eventually. I have had a small amount of art experience in various places but do not really know how to "draw" with my imagination, not referring to a photograph or something like this.

Absolutely. I don't think we should ever tell potential new contributors they can't try anything.

Yes, I just think it's important. The junior jobs list is not a bad idea at all, though.

Regarding the style guide, we probably need to have a series of discussions on this (outside this ticket). Given that we're trying a new style, going for a new identify, and are throwing around the idea of being a little more realistic in some places, it's worth discussing these standards.

Likewise even things like Inkscape are good to discuss - are there other good open source alternatives? Could people use image formats that can be loaded in multiple editors? I fully agree we should not use proprietary formats (some of those companies charge a FORTUNE).

I would like towards replacing all of the low quality graphics, starting with the SMB based stuff, so TSC can make a better impression than SMC did.

@Bugsbane - @Quintus and I reverted the waffles before you came on board again because they were being mistaken for coins. I fully agree this needs to be addressed.

Similar issues will come up with story integration with new art / mechanics ideas -- we may also have to work with the contributors to achieve reasonable story consistency.

[Bugsbane]

In many ways, once you have an agreed upon style, the changes are pretty formulaic. In my experience, most people are much more willing to make changes when they can see that the changes are based on a set of guidelines that are impersonal, apply equally to everyone and have been mutually agreed on in advance by the team. This makes it much less about one other artist disliking their style, and more about everyone needing to achieve consistency. This is how animation studios like Disney and Warner Brothers get a consistent look in a film with hundreds of artists working on them.

Where people tend to get very heated, is when it becomes a personal battle between a new contributor and an established one over which version of something is "better" (as opposed to which follows the style guide more accurately).

Personally, I'm less concerned about low quality artwork, if it is at least consistent in style with the other artwork.

Given that we're trying a new style, going for a new identify, and are throwing around the idea of being a little more realistic in some places, it's worth discussing these standards.

Yes it is worth discussing more. "more realistic" needs to be more accurately defined, too. Somehow I suspect we're not thinking about making this a game where the player looks like a video of the average officeworker on the street, so it's still stylized. The question is where, how and how much. Examples of other games which are as realistic as our goal would be helpful.

[datahead8888]

Personally, I'm less concerned about low quality artwork, if it is at least consistent in style with the other artwork.

Yes, style conformance probably is less contentious.

I was going to suggest we might be able to improve artwork iteratively in some cases like we improve code, though this might amount to redrawing graphics in some cases. There might not be an easy answer for everything.

I see some style discussion has already started at: http://forum.secretchronicles.de/topics/93

Style helps determine visual presentation, which is probably going to be our primary means of story telling. Thus I'd like to be engaged in this discussion. I'm not going to have much time for about 1.5 - 2 weeks, unfortunately. I'd also have to see pictures to understand some of the style decisions better.

Yes it is worth discussing more. "more realistic" needs to be more accurately defined, too. Somehow I suspect we're not thinking about making this a game where the player looks like a video of the average officeworker on the street, so it's still stylized. The question is where, how and how much. Examples of other games which are as realistic as our goal would be helpful.

No, I did not mean to make the player look like an average office worker on the street. I would be interested in discussing the sprites used for [Maryo], but we will need a separate discussion thread for that if we discuss it.

I was basically interested in a style that still looks relatively cartoonish but doesn't hesitate to use more realism (or something in between cartoonish and realistic) in some cases when it seems appropriate. I had reasoned this might work well with a villain who quotes Shakespeare and uses physics and computer science to solve problems. We will of course want to get everyone's opinions, and we will have to find a good style together. I suspect the best answer will be a combination of cartoonish and semi-realistic elements in some places.

[Bugsbane]

I did not mean to make the player look like an average office worker on the street.

I get that. I was using an extreme case to demonstrate that "realistic" is relative, and that we need to define where and how. "Realism" is not a single setting which is increased and decreased objectively. It's a composite of many stylistic decisions, each of which needs to be defined separately. For example, whether to use outlines (and how much) is a realism decision. How close body proportions follow real world people / creatures is a realism decision (and even then the choices may vary, such as being more commonly proportioned on the body and less on the face). Use of colour, shading, highlights and shadows, stretch & squash, animation followthrough, visual detail and more are all places where choices can be made.

Usually talk of "realism" becomes a bit to vague to be useful. It's like talking about needing the code to be "better". Better how? Better where, specifically?

Usually the fastest way to come to an understanding and agreement is to avoid talking about being more or less realistic, but to show examples from elsewhere and mention where they have the level of "realism" desired, eg completely made up example:

Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Uses less stylized body proportions than our goal, especially on the faces, but has a similar level of cell shading that we should strive for including the shading, shadows and highlights. It uses less outlines than our goal. It's animations follow physics closer to reality than our goal. They use a similar level of exaggeration in their animation to our goal.

Note: It's more useful to point to areas in other games that do match the ideal, than just where they don't (as there are usually many ways to be wrong, and only 1 of being right).

Where we want things to stay the same, the conversation is easy. SMB / TSC is right. Anything different is wrong. Where we want to change things, we need to define how, preferably with an example to follow, so our artwork follows a consistent and explicit style throughout.

I know that this probably sounds like a lot of work compared to just saying "make it more realistic", but this is what creates consistency where it is currently sorely missing, helps new artists to contribute better work more easily by showing them what's needed and reduces a lot of misunderstandings and disagreements in conversations about visual style.

[datahead8888]

@Bugsbane - I'm sorry if I upset you with the previous discussion. You are both correct that we need quality standards for new artwork that is submitted and that we need detail in a style guide. At the time I was trying to avoid rejecting artwork because it is "not cartoonish enough", but I created the opposite problem by saying it must be "more realistic". Also, everyone should contribute to the style guide; I had not intended to dictate what will be in the guide, but if it seemed like I did, I apologize. If my style suggestions won't work out, I can just drop them; your artwork has been very good and shows a good style philosophy.