[Strawberrysauce]

hi, ive just started a project in uni about games design, in particular character design.

i know a lot of people that use this forum are games artists and i was wondering if i could get some advice on how to go about the process of designing a games character.

part of the brief also states that we should contact a games company or freelance illustrator to talk about the project, so if any of you guys are currently working for a games development company i would appreciate some details about yourself / company / what you do there etc.

thanks

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----- SHAMHEAD ----

[faustgfx]

do i count? we do realtime 3d tech, engines, software, products, and so forth, basically games without the game part. :P

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sky high with a heartache of stone you never see me 'cos i'm always alone/ministry
the law of lead now reigns!@#!/earth crisis

[email protected]
icq#35983387
http://faustgfx.0wns.org
webcam trend

[Strawberrysauce]

yeah cool, you mean 3d engines? have you worked on any popular games that i woud know?

i may have to produce a 3d model of the character so low - polygon modelling would be a research option.

what is the company's name?

[faustgfx]

games, no. and not just 3d engines.

and guess the company's name......... of course i have to commend you on asking all the stuff here instead of e-mail which would be a 10 times better option. are you going to ask the deep down to the core questions here too? =)

and yeh, i do enough low poly modeling here to keep me full of it for the rest of my life..

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sky high with a heartache of stone you never see me 'cos i'm always alone/ministry
the law of lead now reigns!@#!/earth crisis

[email protected]
icq#35983387
http://faustgfx.0wns.org
webcam trend

[frostfyre]

Hi!

Character Design for games is like character design for television, only with more restrictions

If you're using a 3D engine (producers seem to insist on this, I don't think it really adds that much) then you have to consider how much geometry the machine can push around, how many textures, etc, though this really shouldn't be the primary concern at the design stage.

If you're using 2D, it's more a number of colors and frames of animation that you're allowed to have that willlimit you.

In both cases, you have to consider the screen size that you'll be working with. Uniques to games is a generally configurable screen resolution, which can range from ridiculously low (ala an old gameboy handheld) to moderate (Dreamcast, PS2, N64, a very few PS1 games)

When designing this way, its important to remember that some features, no matter how cool, may never be displayed at certain resolutions. Extremely thin joints, for example, would be a bad thing.

Other than that, its fairly straightforward, like designing a character for any other purpose. Consider who they are, what their motivation is, be sure that they have good gesture and silhouette, and that all important appeal, and you done!



Hope this helps-
Frostfyre http://www.slip.net/~pforest/frostfyre

PS. relevant contact info, where I work, etc, are on the webpage

[This message has been edited by frostfyre (edited March 20, 2001).]

[Strawberrysauce]

thanks, thats just the kind of info i need.

cheers

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----- SHAMHEAD ----