FreeGameDev

Currently the art for this game is incredibly vague as to the expectations of the final result.

So, lets define exactly what the game should look like here. Of course, there is a lot of choice as to the detail levels and style of art itself.
Things to be defined currently states as:

Generic Art:

• Style of art [Cell shaded/Realistic/Borderlands/etc]
• Examples of art style
• Level of detail
• Influences of Humor

Faction Specific:

• Generalization of style [Sharp/Smooth/Colourful/Dark/etc]
• General personality of faction
• Proportions and sizes
• Faction banner or logos to help influence the concept art further

Models:

• Maximum poly count
• Preferred size of texture per model

Creature Specific:

• Personality
• Quirks
• Brief

Now, I know the creature list is basically finalized, but I'm having trouble understanding what they are needed to look like. I originally thought there was a free reign on it, but the halfling concept proved there are a fair few loopholes to jump through.

To start off, I'd like to discuss the faction specifics of Humans.
So, they are supposed to all be nobles and knights who dwell in the dungeons to fight off their foes and obtain the valuable resources.
Their personality will be one of snobbery and ignorance, as decided before I joined. There are two variants I can see for this.

• One could be where the more powerful humans are incredibly noble and the lesser humans are extreme peasants - this will help emphasize the nobility of the higher humans. The peasants would need to have a lot of woeful personalities and very empathetic and entertaining facial expressions, with the nobles having very upturned noses and always looking down on everything.
• The other could be that they are all perfectly noble, showing the ignorance of the race in itself. The personalities would then all need to be blank, nothing but the snobbery and ignorance, so covering their eyes with hair, hats and helmets would help show they are nothing but tools.

I'm personally in favour for them both, its mainly up to how the race itself is to be displayed. Dungeon keeper went for more of the second option by always having each human very clean and pristine all the time. But do we want to follow the same lines?
Talking of cleanliness, it would be near impossible to stay clean down there! Though, this could be to the favor of the personality display. Nobles always being clean would produce a contrast showing them to be even more snobbish. If they were dirty and grotty, they'd fit in more and look more robust. Again, I can't decide which would be better.

This is a lot for one post, so I shall break there and wait for input.

Ok here goes my expectation to these guidelines:

monobi {l Wrote}:Style of art [Cell shaded/Realistic/Borderlands/etc]

something in between of Dungeon Keeper 2, Evil Genius and Overlord. So fun but still somewhat realistic like DK 2 where.

monobi {l Wrote}:Examples of art style

I really like the art of DK2 and Evil Genius.

monobi {l Wrote}:Level of detail

Same as DK2 and Evil Genius. You will look at the units from above most of the time anyway.

monobi {l Wrote}:Influences of Humor

I like Mike Meyers allot, so Austin Powers and Waynes World humor is nice. Also No One Lives Forever had a really nice humor. Adam Sandlers humor is also nice.

monobi {l Wrote}:Generalization of style [Sharp/Smooth/Colourful/Dark/etc]

I am not sure about what you mean here.

monobi {l Wrote}:General personality of faction

monobi {l Wrote}:Is the backstory not useful for this?

Proportions and sizes

If you mean the proportions and sizes compared to other creatures then we can just scale the concept art so they fit in size compared to each other. If this is not what you mean then what do you mean by proportions and size?

monobi {l Wrote}:Faction banner or logos to help influence the concept art further

I am not sure all of them would have banners, e.g. the Mercenaries are not really a group which have a hierarchy of control, like the humans, undead and corpars does. I consider the Constructs to just know what to do so I do not imagine that they have a hierarchical power structure. Maybe some sort of telepatia.

monobi {l Wrote}:Maximum poly count

We have a limit one these some time ago, I will see if I can find them, I think it was around 2000 triangles.

monobi {l Wrote}:Preferred size of texture per model

I think we use 2048x2048, but use rescaled versions in the game for performance reasons. But always keeps higher resolution versions around so we can bump up the graphics quality later (development of this game will take a long time, so we might as well have high quality textures around).

monobi {l Wrote}:Creature Specific:

• Personality
• Quirks
• Brief

We have not really thought much about this yet, since we are still in the phase of making up the creature lists, at least for the remaining factions; Corpars, Constructs, Mercenaries, (Dark) Elves.

monobi {l Wrote}:Now, I know the creature list is basically finalized,

Only the creature lists for the Humans and the Undead are finalized.

monobi {l Wrote}:but I'm having trouble understanding what they are needed to look like. I originally thought there was a free reign on it, but the halfling concept proved there are a fair few loopholes to jump through.

To start off, I'd like to discuss the faction specifics of Humans.
So, they are supposed to all be nobles and knights who dwell in the dungeons to fight off their foes and obtain the valuable resources.
Their personality will be one of snobbery and ignorance, as decided before I joined. There are two variants I can see for this.

• One could be where the more powerful humans are incredibly noble and the lesser humans are extreme peasants - this will help emphasize the nobility of the higher humans. The peasants would need to have a lot of woeful personalities and very empathetic and entertaining facial expressions, with the nobles having very upturned noses and always looking down on everything.
• The other could be that they are all perfectly noble, showing the ignorance of the race in itself. The personalities would then all need to be blank, nothing but the snobbery and ignorance, so covering their eyes with hair, hats and helmets would help show they are nothing but tools.

I'm personally in favour for them both, its mainly up to how the race itself is to be displayed. Dungeon keeper went for more of the second option by always having each human very clean and pristine all the time. But do we want to follow the same lines?
Talking of cleanliness, it would be near impossible to stay clean down there! Though, this could be to the favor of the personality display. Nobles always being clean would produce a contrast showing them to be even more snobbish. If they were dirty and grotty, they'd fit in more and look more robust. Again, I can't decide which would be better.

This is a lot for one post, so I shall break there and wait for input.

You probably right that a mix of the two is the best way to go.

Regarding the "keeping clean" part, you should remember that it is only the diggers/kobolds that actually dig out tunnels, so the creatures should be reasonably clean. Of course no one can completely avoid dirt. But the more noble units should be pretty clean.

I hope this reply is satisfactory, if not you have to poke me some more.