japanese-themed vs. western-themed art style...

[boykin]

el coro inspired me to resubmit my question to the masses again-the last time was at the game test facility i work at.

first of all let me say that i have been gaming since 1987, and i have seen many a game in my 16 years.

there seems to be a very weak stomach for the japanese-themed games in the domestic video game mrkt. why is this?

is it because every time u turn on the television, you see it in cartoons and such?

this is a topic that really bothers me because it seems like the japanese style of drawing is, like i said, not respected ( i feel a lil surliness comin on...lol).

i have seen enough of the western-style to wanna cockbackandblowmyownbrainsout in video games...im gonna face it-some domestic games dont have that great of a style to me...it tends to be more technical than abstract...

the attn to details, details, details, can be almost to the point of analility (not that i dont like western styled artwork, but it limits the artistic style of video games)...

you guys in here do some AMAZING shit with paints and digital programs and other traditional drawing media...but that never seems to make it in the transition to 3D...

so maybe im off on a tangent-is the problem with the artwork, or the 3D modeler?

...for instance, there is a game coming out by the name of Viewtiful Joe for the GameCube-and i believe whole-heartedly that the game is not going to be released state-side...why?

because of the style of the game...i challenge anyone that reads this ridiculous post to name me a domestically developed and produced game that has a unique visual style (in ref. to video games)-i know of some...but i wanna know what domestic or other western-european game players think...

the gmng mrkt seems oversaturated with domestically developed RPGs, FPSs, and Action titles...where is all the artwork that those skilled/creative/intelligent/savvy teams of 30+ artists created? why is the transition between 2D and 3D so damn ruff?

is it because of poor communication? producer/publisher/sr. related milestones?

what is it?

...let me reiterate again that i have never been more impressed and inspired to improve the quality of my work AND my range than i have since visiting this site-all within are talented on levels i have yet to reach...but the lack of a tongue for the taste of the japanese style (im gonna be frank) sickens me-even with professionals

and if there is something that i dont understand...someone needs to seriously educate me...im stepping down now.

[Coma]

Hehe this is a real soft subject with a lot of people, but I'm going to give my opinion anyway.


I think the distaste for anime is born because:

1: What is called "western styled art work" is actually what things look like in reality, not a style at all. But a fundamental value which all artists should reach before trying to create a style.

2: There are many artists that only learn to draw one style of anatomy and never learn realism.


Art based on reality seems most of the time to have more beauty than that which is a formatted style which is embraced and reproduced by thousands of artists.

So drawing something that is realistic is always original where as copying a style is not.

Don't get me wrong I love some anime but I hate it when an artist can't see past a copied style.

[boykin]

now see...i can respect that. and i also know and understand that there is beauty in abstraction...im not the best wit reference-but believe u me, one i get a solid foundation from life studies and photo/real reference-itll be another skill that i have forever to master...i agree about the anime copied style note-its all over the american comic book scene, and it makes me suck my teeth when i see it...

[Evil_Dan]

What I noticed is that western game tends to focus heavily on lighting, rendering, and realism. The japanese designs depend more on line, shapes, and design. US devs, with a few exeptions of course, seem very hesitant to veer off reality. Another thing I've noticed is that many people think japanese video game art is very unrealistic and stylized yet the most realistic games ive seen have been japanese. Games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid 2 pushed the limits of video game realism when they were released. The models are closer to reality than anything seen in a US released game.
Also many artists in the west think of games as a stepping stone to hollywood. Video game artists here don't get nearly the same respect/fame japanese game artists seem to get. The coders get all the babes and fast cars ;)Cool subject I think, as long as it stays civil
:D

[Evil_Dan]

One more point.. I bet japanese artists looking at our stuff must think "ugh it all looks the same. All the guys have huge muscles and what the hell is up with the skin tight costumes?!!?" We come from different artistic backgrounds tahs all. West is all about the Renaissance, impressionism, 20th century illustrators. Japanese art comes from brush painting, woodprints, the japanese landscape, kabuki etc. I say it's all good!

[boykin]

yea...lol. i think its a civil subject...but not a lot of ppl (in/out of the gaming industry) talk about this. i for one (if i ever manage to get hired by a game studio as a coffee boy :)) will try to leak my idealism to the art team (2d and 3d artists) to give us all on the team a chance to boost the visual style of the game.

i think that its a shame to have so much creativity wasted for the sake of whats sold well previously-which will of course dictate the next project undertaking...

i wonder if said domestic developers will ever take that off-beat design idea (the one with abstract style and some innovative gameplay, etc.) and greenlight it...

maybe i wanna be apart of the wrong gmng mrkt...nihongo ga benkyoo o shite iru ne?

[Evil_Dan]

There's way too much pressure to make a buck to try new stuff. There are a few companies here and there that know how do it Retro, Lucasarts, oddworld-artwide anyway,Blizzard, ID software and others.

[Evil_Dan]

Hey boykin, it's Doc from GA, i was wondering where I've seen your web site before. :chug:

[davi]

i believe asains have huge eyes, gelled hair, and have a drop of water come from their foreheads when they are worried.

[Prodigy]

the only thing i can say out of this whole thread is that...... japanese anime (cartoons) is THE BEST :D :) espcially the ones called "cowboy beebop" and "neon genesis envalion"

(not as good as beebop but its o.k)

[gekitsu]

well... the main difference i see between the two camps of game development is the area of focus.

that does not apply to every game development studio in general, of course - there are exceptions in each part of the world.

western games are a lot about being precise.
you have to be able to recognize every soccer player in the team by looking at his face.
gear of soldiers has to look credible, to give everything a solid foundation.
and so on.
typical western games would be like the fifa/nhl/madden/etc series, project igi, unreal series and so on.

in the eastern camp, i see the focus turned a bit more toward the inner values of games.
imagine a game like zone of enders - who the hell cared about credible designs or anything? it was shoot-everything-you-see, no matter if it would work in the real world.
also, japanese studios don't fear putting "unattractive" characters in leading roles like children in xenosaga. who the hell in the western world would make a game for the average adult rpg-player with children as protagonists?

oh well... the fun department of japanese videogames is unequaled in the whole world. anyone knows pishi-pashi special for psx?
dance-dance revolution on a dance mat anyone?
i guess western view is a tad too serious to really make games about shit like that.

[boykin]

hey!!!! sup do-i mean err...evil_dan :chug:

[Evil_Dan]

i believe asains have huge eyes, gelled hair, and have a drop of water come from their foreheads when they are worried.

How is that any different from almost every single american comic looking like a jim lee/mcfarlane/liefeld clone? I mean most of the comics these days are drawn, inked and colored the same.

[boykin]

the fun department for japanese games dont have to be unrivaled...domestic developers seem to be forced to just care about what sold previously, not how they can spice up the genre type game design...(if they do, i never see it-cept for a few titles).

[McNallyism]

Actually, I don't know what you're talking about, Boykin. Japanese games and TV shows are HUGE sellers in the western world. Ever heard of Pokemon? No? how about Metal Gear Solid? Still no? Okay, How about the Super Mario Brothers? Final Fantasy? Digimon? Street Fighter? Robotech? Transformers? Voltron? Speed Racer?..............Not to mention the bajillion other Japanese shows, games, and toys most of us have been raised on.

And if you can't find a domestic game with a unique visual style you're not looking. Oddworld has already been mentioned, as well as LucasArts which has had several games with a strong unique visual language. Check out Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Sam and Max. And we might as well talk about shows and movies. Is Bruce Timm's animated Batman style not unique? Is there not a huge noticeable difference between a pixar movie and a Don Bluth movie? It seems to me that conformity is actually a primary (and necessary) element of Japanese animation and games. there is a nationally recognized visual language which most Japanese game and animation companies adhere to. Which is why many Japanese shows, despite the fact that they have been developed, animated and produced by entirely different studios, look not close, but EXACTLY like other Japanese shows in terms of style.

In fact, I didn't even know that all anime came from Japan (duh) until I got to art school, even though I had watched it all my life. I just thought it was all the product of one very prolific animation studio, that for some reason decided to make the characters in their shows talk really fast!

As far as precision and detail, have you ever played Metal Gear solid, watched The Ghost In the Shell, or an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion? The amount of precision and detail in those titles is INSANE! Thats what makes them so attractive.

True, there is a fair amout of copying and regurgitation that goes on in the West, but no particular style holds sway over western movies, games and television the way the anime/manga style does over Japan.

Ugh...too..much...typing...

-Sean

[Jason Manley]

i will stay out of the anime area...except to say this. It is a niche market...there are plenty of games in that niche market now and any more would hinder the others abilities to sell games from that same publisher.

THIS IS BECAUSE THERE ARE VERY FEW PUBLISHERS LEFT IN GAMES...and they tend to not compete against themselves. you most likely wont see vivendi releasing a warcraft 3 style game while WC3 is still selling. (vivendi owns blizzard). They do not tend to release games that fight with each other for market share.

However, they will compete with another publisher at the same time...Interplay released IWD on the same day as Diablo2 (blizzard/vivendi) for example. IWD was released MONTHS prior to Baldurs Gate 2 though...even though they could have shipped them closer...IPLY would not ship IWD against their very own BG2.

personally..i dont want to work on an anime title. Im doing my best to bring my work to the 3d arena.

THE reason you see so much getting lost from 2d to 3d is because of the technology that is currently being used. I cant make a character with the most detailed armor you have ever seen...all individual plates...chainmail...splint..you name it...i can not because the video cards and systems are TOO LOW SPEC to develop an engine for. These low end machines of the masses simply can not run a game like that...the same goes for consoles (too little processer power etc..).

Game developers will make games and will most times set a low system spec so they can reach a broader market(most games on pc at the moment tend to be shooting for the minimum machine specs of about a single 400 with a gforce 1 or less) PC still kicks ass over the consoles in many ways...but even the xbox can not push the amount of polys or textures that I would paint in a 2D painting. Perhaps 5-6 years from now you might see a smoother transition between 2D and 3D but not yet.

A 3D game can only allocate so much space for MODELS...so much space for LIGHTS...so much space for TEXTURES....if you want the best high res textures than your lights or models will suffer. (for example...doom3 is insane right?... their environments are not populated with prop geometry and their levels are fairly low poly...THIS is because they allocate so much of the system memory to LIGHTING. Ive seen doom 3 and seen how many lights are in their scenes...its maddening.


Ive seen another similar engine before and they do less allocation in the lighting area and more in the area of high poly characters and high res textures...hypothetically, instead of ten lights in a scene and low poly characters they will have two lights and more poly allocation.

Im not the most technical of game artists...I tend to lean toward the creative side...but this is my impression of the way things are..on a very vague and basic level.

one other thing to consider is cost of goods...every cd costs the publisher money to burn...if a publisher can ship a title on one cd then they will. Ive seen levels get cut out of a game just so the publisher wouldnt have to spend another fifty cents a unit on cost of goods. Then I saw that publisher get reamed for having a game that was too short. Did they listen when they were told it was too short..NO...it was all about the dollar...and in this economy it has to be or they wont survive.

sorry for the horrid grammar.


jason

[boykin]

ur grammr is forgiven...and im my frustration does not come from east-yonder...it comes from the developers-some who i may soon work for. i just dont agree with the commonplace genres (ok lets name them...action and sports) that have managed to strangle the domestic game development mrkt...yes i know and love oddworld and a slew of other domestically developed titles with original art style and some type of unique gameplay...i had this discussion with one of my mentors, and he and i were discussing what type of style i was going for with my works. i wound down to the idea that i was not going to try to define my style any more. i want range more than i do a defineable technique or style.

and dont get me wrong...im not saying theres anything wrong with the technical and precise style of western art-i like it...but [in games] there is almost no room for it for me with some design docs. artists (2D/3D) talk about color, lighting, line, volume, shadows..etc-and thats fine. but wheres the abstraction? where is the creativity in creating a realistic 2D concept to be transferred to a 3D model?

the video game is a work of art in itself (course we all know this so theres no need for me to expound). the character design, level design, damn near everything has the potential to be abstracted, or strayed from in terms of realism-and still be enjoyable...MGS2, loved it ridiculous amount to detail/realism-but that game has more style than any domestically developed title of its kind, period.

wheres the life of the character that you slaved over at ur work desk for 5 hours, then gave it to a 3d modeler-or modeled it yourself? what happened to that being's spirit, their style? did they have to be anatomically correct in every proportion of the term? did the physics of the key frames have to be chosen as they were?

if u ask me-which ur probably not, most (not all-pls dont flame me) character design i see from this country's top talent nowadays feels and looks boring, lifeless, generic. there is nothing special about them-outside of their initial creation.

i guess within all this mess im trying to ask, where has the soul of this man/woman/beast/mech gone? all the creativity you poured into it-as u worked the design of their mouth, the crook in their finger, how their back would arch when they hunched down, how their toes fanned out when pressed to the ground before a jump, how they stood melancholy, or shuddered under a blow...where is it?

i look for some of these answers when i create my own work, and yet many more a trench i still have to dig...

[Jason Manley]

perhaps you could show me some concepts of yours that back up the "high art" you claim to be shooting for?

you said something about the way toes fan out before a jump....I dont know of any games where the characters has toes...feet tend to be done in as few polys as possible. If I had every characters toes modelled out and animated not only would I not have time to work on cool stuff later in the project (small stuff takes development time) but I would also have less polys to put in the head and face...If I put polys in the head and toes I would not be able to have as many characters on screen at one time.

part of the art of making games is working within the restrictions and boundaries that that entails.

you know very little of what is actually going on in games at the moment. you are seeing the fruits of concepts that were spilled out two or three or four or five years ago. Have you seen any of androids critters from metroid?? have you seen anything I did that is not at least a year and a half old? have you seen anything that puddnhead has done over the past two years? dont worry..you will...and I dont consider myself a top guy..I dont consider any of us top guys...but we are trying.

go to this site... www.justinsweet.com take a look at his character design...can you tell me those are not good? no..you cant...and those are older too.

you are very very romantic in your ideas....that is understandable considering you have very little idea what kind of restraints you must operate under in order to make a game that not only looks great but plays great.

you see...a game is NOT about how the characters toes move...Id go see LOTR for that....a game is about GAMEPLAY...and the object is to get that FUN GAMEPLAY to look as good as possible. Considering where games were just a few years ago I would say we have come a long way.

oddworld was a great looking game...yet it was not that fun to me...command and conquer is not a huge artistic endeavor yet that title was...I picked up a copy of splinter cell the other day based on looks...yet when i got it home it was a chore so I shut it off and will sell it on ebay.

for every couple visually bland games there is a fantastic and beautiful title that knocks it off the shelf. for each of those games sometimes the fun games fall on both sides of this same coin....some fun games are ugly as hell (the sims)..others are drop dead gorgeous (metal gear solid).

you see...some companies thrive on making mediocre games...they will NOT make a game that takes more than two years and will not spend much money on the title. They get it to the point that it is decent and ship it. they make money..keep pushing...and hope to get a big hit that will let them make the game they want. yet..some of these companies dont want to risk bug budget titles that could flop...(your dream game may not be fun when it gets done right?...marketing might drop the ball...sales...late shipping dates...etc...) there are a number of things that can rain on your parade. the safe route tends to be the only route in video game publishing.

you will be hard pressed to find a LOT of titles that have budgets over 4 million and a two year cycle in this day and age. (at least in the pc realm). you can not make a title like you are describing with that kind of budget and timeframe.

it is a business after all...its not the fine art world....yet..some of us are trying our best. I squeeze every bit of goodness i can into the art for my games.. I know how to work within the restrictions of a game engine and also how to make those restrictions as invisible as possible. We push...trust me on that.

if you were to ever get a job doing conceptual stuff (and that is a few years away considering it seems you still need to study much of your studio foundation yet) then you wont get to only do your ideas anyhow.....a concept artist plays second fiddle to gameplay and story design in most cases. I tend to work hand in hand with the designers but even then I end up illustrating (their ideas) just as much as creating my own.


your points are understood....I am an idealist too...I was VERY MUCH a romantic idealist on my first title....but now I am a realist too because I learned what can be done with the given tools and in the given time.

I am not making the jason manley game. The cliche is that there is no "I" in team...right? well another aspect to consider is that most companies can only afford to hire a few top tier people...one or two in 3d...one 2d...one or two animators...one or two top designers....programmers...etc....the other half gets filled with entry level people or a pure production staff. Doing this not only saves money on salaries..but the entry level people tend to have more energy and new ideas...and the production people who dont care about the fine art are the ones who get a LOT done. fortunately this balances out...but on the ideal level each position would be filled by the right person. right people are expensive...usually double what an entry level person would cost the company. If you want a full team then you cant have all the top people. simple as that.

its a balancing act...its a business...you can not forget that.


jason

[Jason Manley]

ps...i put a LOT of abstraction in the titles I work on. I put as much as possible within the given time and restrictions.

in a production cycle...lighting...modelling...texture application..etc...all ride above abstraction simply because in many cases it is expendable (sadly).

I fight tooth and nail to get idea development in the title...for me it is always about visual content...visual development...some managers/publishers understand that...some do not.

tis the primary reason I left Interplay...management there was forced to cut a lot of the idea development focus and jump into pure production...that is what happens when a company needs money right? they still turned out a well done game with IWD2...yet there was less of an idea focus on the visuals. strangely it was the most fun of the infinity engine titles...and it was completed in the shortest development cycle. like i said...fun does not always mean "beautiful". there are many ways to see "quality and creativity" in a title. sometimes a game is carried by the design...and not the visuals.

when i worked there I teamed with five other concept artists all on my second title. There were more people focusing on visualization and idea development on that project than I have ever witnessed...yet how many of those people still work there....the economy and the publishers money is short for the most part...the bigger companies gobbled up the smaller dev teams...it has become a production focus again because of this.

There will always be that one great game...or two...but then the rest will be mediocre or worse...people will buy them...and companies will continue to survive by making them. fortunately a few of these games manage to be fun.


goodnight

jason

[boykin]

finally...someone comes from down high to break it to me. yes i am amateur-i keep mentioning that...no my site doesnt have "high art"-my shit sucks right now....its just somethin to keep me in the mode of creating. ive been gaming for 16 years...please dont insult me by telling me about the modeling process-that toes example was not something i would expect to be carried over to a model, particularly if it was a low poly model. thank you for breaking down to me how it is on the other side. i will definitely take your insights and use it to further my limited skill set. im glad that i now know (had an idea of it) that there are other constraints when working on a title. i was working with a dev team on a game that probably wont be released in the next 3 years. i was doing plenty character design and game design concepts-because we were small and our resources were limited. so i know a little about what kinds of sacrifices i will have to make. and boy do i ever know that my basic foundations and studio skills need practice-but then again...some artists get jobs in the industry and i am more than capable of doing the work they do in my sleep (im not arrogant and i regret that last comment, but for the sake of the moment...) dont think for one minute that im not going to improve...dont think for one minute that im not inspired by you guys...and dont think for one minuute that i know my "ideals" are gonna get snuffed...on the last project i was working on, i put my heart into the character designs i created, gave them all away...and then told the othere artists that i dont care how the style is translated, these are our characters-to be interpreted by whomever of us will do the final concept and then move them to 3d for us to reference....im cool with that. and ur right, SOME companies thrive on making mediocre games...and what game is it that im talking about that has to big of a budget? it can be a side scrolling shooter for all that matters.

but anyways (i had my flame suit on) to reiterate...my work, probably even my site is the worse design and some of the poorest use of lines ever to be witnessed. boundaries and restrictions aside-i know there is a way...maybe not where u work...but there is. and if u couldnt hold on to your ideals even through the shit that ur team or your company gives u, im sorry-because i know im going to have to go where u have been in terms of stifiled creativity. but i will never lose my ideals. i will never lose my desire to see this gmng mrkt "grow up" and go head to head competitvely with our neighbors east-yonder (some of their games are incredible, and their budgets are not always blockbuster-ish).

i cannot thank u personally enough for educating me on some topics that i hadnt been able to analyze. trust me when i tell u that i will pay more attention to my studio skills (one of the reasons i frequent this site-so much talent here), and other artistic abilities that i have been neglecting. and i am looking forward to the day that i work with any one of u, or all of you.

p.s. ive seen justinsweet.com before and i did mention that his work was interesting...hes definitely put in more work than i have-and it shows. and if i came off disrespectfully-it wasnt on purpose. i am just disappointed with publishers/producers and the other higher ranking industry "move makers". but i cant get at them...they dont care about the artists work for them, so why should they care about some amatuer artist/gamer?

i told my mentor last night that i havent had an itch like this in my whole life...but its a very hurry up and wait process...and hes been in the industry 10+ years now-so he schools me often. but revolutions usually start with a few ppl, then it blows up into something bigger-and the biggest ideals i have are not reserved for the concept creation, but the follow through into 3D and into the game's engine...i know u guys are talented boss (i keep seeing it, and i keep saying it)...and im definitely gonna be looking for ur names in the creds when i purchase titles now...

but know that this topic will never go away, anywhere- because i believe its underaddressed, and i wont let it (when its appropriate to discuss it). we are planning on attending e3 this year-so ill be looking for yall...

[gekitsu]

everyone mentions metal gear solid 2 as the game of japanese origin and ultra-realistic gfx...
of course, they put lots of polies in it and yoji shinkawa talked about the loss of simplification they had compared to mgs1. (just about that snake's face in 1 was a hand full of polygons and a blurred texture on it that could be interpreted as mouth opened as well as mouth shut while snake's face in mgs2 is modelled out to a very high degree)
the fun part starts where they still retained theyr level of abstraction - the protagonist. raiden.
didn't you notice that the whole design is about creating a chara saying next to nothing?
he could be male as well as female, his face is a very general type, not a character face as solid's or otacon's faces are.
it still is a very abstracted game - just not as obbvious.

[Jason Manley]

I said this: "perhaps you could show me some concepts of yours that back up the "high art" you claim to be shooting for?".

until you can do this, your ideals will get you nothing. if you can not apply them to your own work...how can you apply them to a huge multi year project like a video game? If you dont do that in your own work you cant show others how to do it.

the art staff will NOT respect your ideals if you do not show them that you are capable of those same ideals in your own work.

arrogance leads to problems within a team. beware.

ideals not grounded in reality are purely romantic and not practical in most cases. You can push toward them...but it is a struggle. Trust me on that...Ive been doing it for years now...and that is the primary reason I get hired on different projects. I learned how to put those ideals into use..am still learning...but i am aware of what can and can not be done in a given schedule on a given title...I also know what can and cant be done with my own work on a title.

the main thing i learned in regards to this is that if you want to see all your ideals in a title then you will be working a minimum of 100 hours a week...and even then you wont get them all in...to top it off you better have a crew that is doing the same...burning the candle at both ends has its adverse effects though.

If you want to make a difference than you need to do all this yourself...IN YOUR OWN WORK.


until then...



jason

[MindCandyMan]

If you could do it over Jason would you go into video games still or would you try to push forward in fine art? Just curious...

[Jason Manley]

I like making games...I like games...I like the regular paychecks...

I pushed toward fine art for six years...but it was not for me...at least I wasnt ready for it....

perhaps in the near future I will push toward fine art...which I think in the end will be where I will find myself. After all...one can only paint so many knights and mutants before nausia sets in. I want to paint what I want to paint too...

j

[MindCandyMan]

Interesting...thanks. I am starting from rock bottom so i was curious to see if you enjoyed the path you went down. I'm glad to hear that you did because I also have a passion to one day paint knights and monsters till I become nauseous hehe...but the siren of fine art calls as well...ready to strip you of all your cash and security hehe. But for now I can't do either anywhere near a professional level so I don't need to worry about it quite yet hehe. Thanks for the reply.

[boykin]

jason, i hear ya. im workin on some stuff now...so whenever i get finished a piece, ill post it in this thread-or somewhere else, cool?

and in terms of the concepts...i have some of my old 2d work displayed on my site (if you havent seen it already). i hope my message wasnt misinterpreted to seem as though i thought that game artists' 2D concept work was generic...im talking about the post conceptualization-when the actual 3D models are created-its at that point that everything seems to take a generic turn...

i know there is a way to create a model with an acceptable poly count that still rings tru (somewhat) to the original creation-im workin a model with maya 4.5...

in between projects seems a prime time to me to "leak" a game design idea to the "move makers", and if its rejected-ill still keep trying when the chance presents itself. but dont worry im not just all talk-im trying to get my portfolio together so i can get in the door and get own3d for at least the first year or so of my career... the current state of affairs in the domestic mrkt is only gonna change when the ppl making games change (here i go gettin romantically ideal again)...if the ppl making games dont believe that they themselves can start the ball rolling on some type of change (gameplay, design, art), then why are they in the business to make games?-save the paycheck...

[boykin]

http://theboykinphilosophy.net/dargus.jpg