I Second that Emotion
31st January, 2009 - Posted by MashPotato - 4 Comments
Well, here we are a week later, and already I’ve fallen behind my pseudo- schedule of updates ;) Part of the problem is that while I’ve made my site more blog-oriented in order to be able to keep development entries, I’ve realized that I don’t really know what goes into those! While I figure it out what to do, here’s a small update (which I know belongs here) and spiel (which I suspect belongs here ;D) about talking portraits.
One of the things I wanted to do with Hatmaker is to make the characters memorable, and one of the key visual ways I’m trying to accomplish that is to have them show emotions that complement their dialogue. It’s mainly for this reason I decided to go with the Sierra-style of having a large talking portrait rather than the Lucas-arts style of dialogue appearing above the sprites, even though LucasArts is more near and dear to my heart. When sprites are only about 50 pixels tall (including antennae), and their face occupies only about 8 of those pixels, it helps to have more space to work with.
Another good point I find about the talking portrait is that it allows the player to read conversations easily without having to shift their focus to another location when another character starts talking. However, this good point also highlights one of the best points of the LucasArts system: that the player follows the action. By being able to place dialogue wherever you want on the screen, it gives a more comic-book, lively effect, whether it be the back-and-forth nature of regular conversation, or placing dialogue in a particular space. For example, a voice from off the screen can be put to the screen’s side, clearly indicating where it’s originating from. In the system I’ve chosen (which is also limited by my lack of scripting expertise) this wouldn’t be possible, and would have to be conveyed more subtlely (eg. the character turns toward the voice), or perhaps more hamfistedly ;) (eg. “Someone’s voice is coming from my left!”). It’s a tradeoff.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone read all that ;)
Anyway, after that long ramble, here are some talking portraits to pretty up the post!
Tom neutral: 
and Tom sad: 
Note that these are not exactly the same animations in-game, but they’re made up of the same frames which I mocked up quickly for the purposes of this post.
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4 Comments
SSH
February 6th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Pff, moving your RSS URL. Just because you make awesome games and graphics you think you can toy with us. Well, you’re right, but still…
Administrator
February 7th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Someone is actually following the RSS?! Yaaaaay :D
Hehe, hi and thanks SSH ;)
Buckethead
February 16th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
oh man these are cute! I hope you aren’t going to use that sad animation for when you try to close down the game. I wouldn’t ever be adable to stop playing then.
MashPotato
February 18th, 2009 at 12:31 am
I plan to use them only for good, not evil ;)
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