Density

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From the course by California Institute of the Arts

Character Design for Video Games

539 оценки

California Institute of the Arts

Character Design for Video Games

539 оценки

Course 4 of 5 in the Specialization Game Design: Art and Concepts

In this course you will explore concepts and approaches involved in creating successful character designs that can be applied to video games. Following a first week delving into some foundational concepts for successful character design, each of the remaining three weeks are structured as a "master class" where you will observe three professional character designers at work in the studio: Andy Ristaino (Adventure Time), Jacky Ke Jiang (Journey), and Robertryan Cory (SpongeBob SquarePants). Each designer will take on two different design challenges on the fly and address the various issues in designing characters for games, such as movement, expression, and technical limitations. At the end of each week you will have an opportunity to try out some of the concepts from that week's lesson on characters of your own design. This is a fun and engaging class especially useful for students interested in animation in film and TV as well as games, and is suitable for students of any drawing ability.

From the lesson

Week 1: About Character

In this first week of the course, we will explore some of the major concepts involved in creating compelling, unique, and purposeful characters. These ideas will provide the basis for your assignment this week and lay the groundwork for our visits with professional designers in the coming weeks.

Mood & Story3:29

Meet the Instructors

Fran Krause
Faculty, Character Animation
School of Film/Video

A good character design communicates things to your players.

It might tell us that we're about to take a plucky plumber through an adventure with

friendly 8-bit graphics.

A character design might tell us that we're about to play a game that's more

dark and gritty, in a post-apocalyptic world with a character that

likes making outfits out of scavenged materials.

In those two examples we're dealing with two very different characters,

one of our characters is simple, the other has a lot of detail.

One is cartoony, the other's more realistic, one has a light mood,

the other has a lot darker mood.

One has a moustache, the other, maybe, we don't know, there's a mask,

its mysterious.

There's a few concepts that pop up when we compare these two designs,

and I'd like to talk about them in a little more detail.

Density, each of these two designs is very different in their density.

And when I say density,

I'm referring to the amount of visible elements on each character.

Mario has a hat, overalls, a mustache, shoes and a shirt.

That's pretty much it.

Our other character has a telephone, headphones, a road sign, two shirts,

pink hair, a baseball bat, barbed wire, a big old knife,

motorcycle handlebars, a backpack, a gas tank,

a fish hook, stockings, a shoulder pad and various other elements.

What's the effect of density on a design?

Well, the more dense a design,

the more you have to work with to tell your audience about your character.

The denser design can be much more specific.

For instance, we have no idea if Mario's overalls are old or new.

We can't tell how old he is.

We don't know the texture of his skin.

With a denser design we're aware of much more specifics about character.

However, the more elements you add to a design the less important each

elements become.

For instance, if we remove Mario's hat, it would change his design quite a bit.

The change would be a noticeable to a player

Now if we remove the other characters bow the design would be less changes.

The player might not even notice.

Now a player doesn't need to notice an element in order for

that element to be justified in your designs.

Sometimes a bunch of small elements can help contribute to an overall feeling like

in a collage.

The number of elements in the Wasteland 2 character contribute to a feeling that

this is a character that's a scavenger.

Just keep in mind that the player will probably be noticing the effects

of all of the elements rather than any one specific element.

If you want an element to be important in a dense design,

it'll need to visually stand out from the other elements in some way.

Whether that be in color, size, texture, style, or design.

Here's an example.

I'm gonna add a little hat.

Now I know this looks silly, but with a design that's this dense

you have to try pretty hard to get any one element to stand out.

If we add the bright red hat the player might think of this character as

the character with the bright red hat.

If we want this character to be recognizable or

a standout in a group of similar characters,

it's often helpful to have an element that a player can use to identify them.

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