[WIP] Bloodlines demake

[Tourist]

Someone on another forum mentioned that a lot of modern 3d games would work just as well 2d, and I wanted to try that out.  Here is a WIP of a demake of the Vampire: Bloodlines video game.  It's the apartment that the player can acquire later in the game.



This is the third version.  The first version was large.  After beating myself up trying to approximate the textures I realized that most of the apartment didn't matter.  There's only about half a dozen things to interact with, and I could chop out the kitchen, bathrooms, etc, without affecting the 'game' at all.

The second version is the tiny version at the top of the screen.  This was too small.  The scale of the stairs was all wrong.

The third version is the one in the middle.  Less complete at this point, but it seems like a good balance.  The nearby figure (NPC Heather Poe) is intentionally oversized because it is a more important aspect of the game.  Most of the apartment is just scenery.


Goals:

1) Explore the 3:4 view instead of 1:2 iso

Overall I like the effect, although it requires a lot of AA work.


2) Explore color spaces, texturing

The second (smaller) version uses colors pulled from the Munsell set, with some interpolation  They look pretty good.  For the third version I used the IPT color space, although some of the placeholder colors are from the smaller image.  This mix contributes to the high color count.  It should probably be closer to 100 at this point.  Overall, I like the IPT color space, but need more practice with textures.


3) Draw a larger portrait than I usually work with

This is the second version of the portrait.  The first was drawn from reference and looked rather bad.  Overall, good enough for a first draft (even though it's a second draft).


4) Design a UI

Didn't get very far on this yet, just some scratchpad doodles on the right hand side.  Incomplete.


Things left to do:

Let's just say a lot.


Lessons learned so far

If I was doing this for a real game, the first thing I would do is build a level editor.  The second thing I would do is create the bitmap font(s).

Also learned that this game is rather poorly designed.  Too many objects that are utterly useless, like the entire kitchen.

I keep getting bogged down in the fine details, which slows progress.  Pushing the boundaries of my current skills is also slow.  If I had to design all of the furniture and characters and whatnot, it would be even slower.

Feedback welcome,
Tourist

[ErekT]

Ooohh, I love this game hehe.

Tried messing a bit with your portrait palette contrast and hue to make it pop more:



One thing I'm wondering about: why aren't you using straight diagonal lines for the grid?
EDIT:
1) Explore the 3:4 view instead of 1:2 iso
Right, overlooked that one..
EDIT 2:
Just saw the part about color space, I need to do something about my attention span for text I think

[Tourist]

ErekT: Thanks, your crits of the portrait were helpful. 

I think the game is ok, it was just the first one I grabbed to try a demake.

The first advantage of a 3:4 ratio instead of a 1:2 iso view is that stairs can go down and away from the screen (depth-wise) and still remain clearly visible.  The second advantage is the steeper view angle means less screen space wasted on walls.



The first disadvantage is the need for a lot of AA work.  The second disadvantage is that half sized squares don't mesh cleanly with full size squares.


Minor update

• Modified the portrait to give it some more pop.  Is this enough?
• Moved some things around to about where they need to be
• Started laying out the buildings, sidewalks and street
• Texture on the main floor, added the vent shaft
• The texture on the main rug is tricky.  In the game it's a bunch of detailed swirls and whatnot, balanced by lying almost out of view on the ground.  Here the rug is more visible, so I think I'm going to tone down the saturation because it's just not important.  Not quite sure how to simplify the texture yet.

Funny thing.  In the game, the outside of the building only has four floors.  The inside has six.  The outside has windows, while none of the apartments do.  Sloppy, sloppy work.

Tourist

[ColonelMustache]

I'm not sure if you wanted critiques on the character, but from the angle she is viewed at, her legs look a bit too long for her body. Extending the torso my work since the arms look to match with the legs length wise. I really like the fine details in the buildings. The angle is nice, though it looks like a lot of work.

[ErekT]

The portrait pops more tho I recommend playing around with the hue some. Right now your color ramps are relatively even both in rgb value and saturation. Areas in shadow usually have less saturation and colder colors than midtones and highlights. Another good thing to remember is that midtones are the ones conveying your object's actual color while highlights are affected by the color of the lightsource.

[HughSpectrum]

Your character is gigantic compared to the rest of the house.  Compare her to the couch, the bed, and the stairs and it's readily apparent.

[Tourist]

ColonelMustache: Thanks.  Any and all critiques are welcome.  I'll see about increasing the torso length.  I guess it would help to add in the figure of the player next, and maybe one hanging around outside for consistency.

I wrestle with the level of detail. Here is an image of Below the Root, circa 1984.  The game is not about vampires, but it includes the same kinds of game elements as Bloodlines.  It doesn't have modern graphics, but it plays just fine.



Since I'm making this image for graphics practice as much as anything, I want to continue to add in the details. But I do have a nagging voice that says Bloodlines would work fine with the simplicity of, say, Knytt Stories.  Someone else can try that demake.


ErekT: Thanks again for the color tips.  I see I have some more experimenting to do.  I didn't get to it with this update yet, but I'll continue to tweak the colors.


KittenMaster: Yup.  She is giant sized.  It's to draw attention to the figure.  You'll also notice that the apartment walls and floors are dull desaturated secondary colors (gren/borwn) while the figure has bright primary colors (red, yellow, blue).  Same thing, although I can't take credit for the color choice.  I'm following the color scheme in the original game.


Another update:


Widened the road.
Raised the outer wall and windows.  the windows took a few tries to get a good shape and size.
Added some more text to get an idea of the size needed for the dialog box

For folks not familiar with the game, the apartment in question is on the 4th floor of the building.  The idea (if this was a game instead of a screen) would be to have the player walk to the elevator at the end of the hall, and then move the floors while holding the elevator and building exterior constant.  The elevator space would only move when the player traveled to the ground floor in order to blend with the outer walls and front door and whatnot.  I added in bits of the next floors above and below to the image.

Tourist

[Tourist]

Just posting to say I've got to set this aside for a bit.  Real life is consuming a bit more of my time at the moment.

Tourist

[StarRaven]

Yup.  She is giant sized.  It's to draw attention to the figure.

There's got to be a better way to draw attention to her than that. She doesn't look like she belongs in there. I honestly can't see that working at all, but maybe I'm not understanding something. Are you going to actually put that sprite in that little room?At first I thought you were just going to put her off to the side or something, but in your latest pic, she's actualy in the room.

As it is, I'll be honest: I don't think it looks like it's on purpose, to draw attention to the figure. It looks like the character is a giant.