AlaCarcuss
Arbiter
SCO said:Another tragic case of good programmer, bad artist.
Ha, yeah. Still, better that than the other way around?
SCO said:Another tragic case of good programmer, bad artist.
Can one replace the entire UI too? And can one replace everything else that the person responsible for allowing those portraits and those art assets to make their way into the game either directly created or allowed to be put in, including but not limited to: the names, the story/plot/quests/writing, the animations, the game mechanics, and so on?Mangoose said:So... who says you can't replace the portraits in Frayed Knights? I bet you can/mondblut said:As for Avernum, first, its idiotic portraits are instantly replaceable in its bmp resources
A properly done cartoonish look demands a graphics budget comparable to any other look really. If not the budget, at least a comparable (or, to be truthful, likely higher due to the relative complexity of animations) level of competence of the artist(s).PorkaMorka said:Indie developers seem to have this idea that going for a cartoonish look will cover for the lack of a graphics budget, but I'm not real convinced it works.
I dunno, maybe aesthetic taste isn't tied to design ability? For example, you have good aesthetic taste, but you are probably a shit game designer.zeitgeist said:If they can't even recognize how horrible this looks overall, how can they be capable of making any part of the game good enough (except maybe the extremely rare parts for which you don't need any sense of aesthetics at all, in which case they should rethink their choice of career)? What kind of a person can a game developer who doesn't look at that screenshot, look up to the sky and ask themselves, "What am I doing? How has it come to this?" be?
You can claim all you want, but anybody with an inkling of rationality can see that there is no logic behind your claim. By your logic, Vogel, who while has better aesthetic sense than RampantCoyote, still lies on the bad-aesthetics side of the spectrum, and thus is a crappy designer. There is no correlation between artistic sense, a sensory ability, with mechanical design, which is purely a logical/intuitive activity.I am, however, claiming that someone who thinks any game is supposed to look like that strongly enough that they can in fact actively choose to create a game with such visuals, can't design a good game.
Well, it isn't, at least not directly. Quality is not related to taste. Competence is not related to taste. Something can be both competently designed, and still not be to someone's aesthetic taste. Tastes differ.Mangoose said:I dunno, maybe aesthetic taste isn't tied to design ability?
That is absolutely correct.Mangoose said:By your logic, Vogel, who while has better aesthetic sense than RampantCoyote, still lies on the bad-aesthetics side of the spectrum, and thus is a crappy designer.
You can disagree all you want, but all you will do is sound like a blowhard. You haven't made any supporting arguments besides "I claim this" and "I disagree with that." And, no, circular arguments don't count.zeitgeist said:Or are you trying to say that understanding basic visual design concepts isn't at all tied to understanding basic concepts of other forms of design? If so, I have to disagree.
Uh huh. Please explain how Geneforge's overall design is bad. I can wait a few days for you to actually play the game instead of deriding it out of graphics whoredom.That is absolutely correct.
Mangoose said:So... who says you can't replace the portraits in Frayed Knights?
Pretty sure you can use custom portraits in BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, NWN, NWN2, Kotor, Kotor 2, Wizardry Gold, Wizardry 8, Avernums, Arcanum, Freedom Force, JA2, ToEE, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age. Basically any game with portraits. Very uncommon, indeed.mondblut said:Mangoose said:So... who says you can't replace the portraits in Frayed Knights?
Who says you can?
A built-in ability to import one's own graphics in a gaming product is pretty uncommon, and storing the default graphics in an unpacked form and generic file format even rarer.
Mangoose said:Pretty sure you can use custom portraits in... Kotor, Kotor 2, Wizardry Gold, Wizardry 8, JA2, Dragon Age.
Basically any game with portraits.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wizardry+8+custom+portraitsmondblut said:Mangoose said:Pretty sure you can use custom portraits in... Kotor, Kotor 2, Wizardry Gold, Wizardry 8, JA2, Dragon Age.
WUT?
Basically any game with portraits.
Mangoose said:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wizardry+8+custom+portraits
Woops I'm wrong about one of my examples, I guess that means my whole argument is invalid!mondblut said:Mangoose said:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wizardry+8+custom+portraits
Like, this?
http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ub ... Post186256
Well, if having a personal hacker chained to your bedpost debugging a game's resource storing and custom graphic encoding algorithms, coding utils and editors to extract and convert them to generic format and back, and writing instructions on how to use them equals "the game allows custom portraits", then every game allows them, indeed. Including those without portraits at all if you are lucky.
Mangoose said:Woops I'm wrong about one of my examples
Excommunicator said:I would actually not buy the game based on his chosen art style.
Clockwork Knight said:A new low for the Codex, lots of baaawing about character portraits not looking grittydark enough and only a few snarky comments on the spell mechanics.