Cinematic Game Icons - Character - stefanminning

[klingspor]

Ok, I've got my story and background pretty much layed out: The gamer plays a young girl, Nami, in a place not totally unlike Thailand or Vietnam. She walks around solving riddles, fighting enemies in a non-violent way in search of her friend who has mysteriously disappeared. There's probably more to the story, but I haven't come up with anything yet ;)

To help her master this adventure, she has a "vehicle", the baby elephant Tuks. She can ride him to be quicker and he can also assist in getting to higher platform or taking things from them...

The whole thing will be rendered in a sort of artistic anime way, not the usual cel-shaders... it's hard to explain what I have on my mind but you'll see!
I've opted for this non-photo-realistic approach mainly for the following reason: I can't stand it when games have incredibly (pre-)rendered cut-scenes with high-poly models and superb lighting and then the game itself looks like all the other low-poly games around... I believe that with an NPR approach it's easier to remain coherent throughout the game, as for example in Zelda: The Wind Waker or Unlimited Saga!

I'll post some sketches later today when I got my scanner fixed!

[klingspor]

Ok, here goes! My scanner just crapped out a few days ago, so I'll have to hand in the sketches at later time, probably some time this week.

So I started out modeling the "vehicle". As you can probably see, I'm going for that cutesy look that sells tons of games (and merchandise!) to kids as well as adults!
Anyway this is an early WIP, the saddle and some other props are still missing. The shaders are just for testing purposes, too...

I realize that this is probably not everyones idea of a cool game vehicle, but please let me know what you think nonetheless!

[dominicqwek]

this is something new. I feel the style has gotta be tight betweeen the elephant and the girl. Keep it up. Lookin forward to more updates:thumbsup:

[klingspor]

Here's a little update, as I'm working on the saddle...

[Hexodam]

looks great

how do you get this texture effect, very cartoony like

[klingspor]

Here's another little update:
- modelled the belt
- added dirt to the feet and legs
- played round with subtle bumpmaps, though you probably wont see much of them at this resolution :shrug:

Even though its just preliminery, I'm very unhappy with the colour scheme - I'll have to work that out!

@Hexodam: The painterly effect is achieved mainly through an environment map... I got the idea from this thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52033&highlight=npr) here...

[iC4]

that's great! really cute elephant, can't wait to see the girl!

and that shading is great...I should really test this some time

[klingspor]

I'm somewhat digressing from my original concept here... just started from scratch on the elephant because I wanted to see an older, less friendly version. Also the lack of comments here has lead me to believe that the concept wasn't that well received...

Anyway, here is a new, more evil, elephant! GI rendered, since that's what everyone else seems to be doing :rolleyes:

Eventually he'll be rendered the painterly way though...

[dominicqwek]

its great what you're trying to achieve, its the kinda style less seen but its VERY refreshing nonetheless. CG has reached the point whereby everyone is able to do cool stuff, well..which has also lead to ppl prefering the standard cool stuff..hi poly hi detail hi GI 3D, i admit im one of those kinda ppl.

I think you should push on with what u had in mind, perhaps with a slight change in style. And portraying an elephant in an artistic anime sense would be really difficult!

You have my total support dude :buttrock: I'll be watching this thread!

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