Well, this is a somewhat difficult question. I (programmer) and a friend of me (beginner artist) are still in search of some resources on art styles. One major focus is the work/effort you need to model and texture 3d models. I just don't know how much work you need to do different art styles. From my personal, but unprofessional, artistic point of view making photorealistic models is most expensive and doing toon art is the "cheapest" way to go. But to be honest I really can't rate it, because I'm just laking any experiences making different art styles. So, is anybody able to tell me from his or her personal experiences or knowledge which art styles do more or less work ? What art styles other then photorealistic, toon, manga are possible ? Have you any examples, tutorials ? I will start with my personal view: - photorealistic (crysis,unreal): most expensive in modelling and texturing - semi realistic(WOW): medium (any tutorials ?) - semi toon(team fortress 2): medium (any tutorials ?) - toon/manga(?): cheapest Any other tips ? -- Ashaman

Are you talking about a toon/manga style of 3D model, or are you trying to compare 3D and 2D?

Art is always easy to do and difficult to do well, regardless of what style you use. Realism is expensive to pull off because of the ridiculous level of detail required to compete on that front these days but at the same time cartoony styles are tough because it takes a lot of finesse to pull off something on the same level as TF2 (hint: no one has. Also, their shader setup for characters is very complex). A manga look sounds easy but is actually pretty tricky to translate well into 3D and you may find yourself struggling to figure out why it doesn't look good.

The best advice I can give you is just to keep it as simple as possible. In general this probably does mean going with a cartoony look. But instead of "style" you should be thinking "stylish". Give people something striking to look at -- something really clean and well produced -- and even if it's very simple they'll be impressed.

(although it's 2D, check out my games for an example. I use a silhouette style that is extremely quick to produce and can look pretty sharp if you do it properly. Not necessarily going to work in 3D but it can get you in the right mindset)

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Are you talking about a toon/manga style of 3D model, or are you trying to compare 3D and 2D?

I'm talking about 3D models. I could think about a style between WOW and DiabloIII. I want to avoid unproportional models, but using more simple textures (painted, without normalmap etc.).

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Art is always easy to do and difficult to do well, regardless of what style you use. Realism is expensive to pull off because of the ridiculous level of detail required to compete on that front these days but at the same time cartoony styles are tough because it takes a lot of finesse to pull off something on the same level as TF2 (hint: no one has. Also, their shader setup for characters is very complex). A manga look sounds easy but is actually pretty tricky to translate well into 3D and you may find yourself struggling to figure out why it doesn't look good.

The best advice I can give you is just to keep it as simple as possible. In general this probably does mean going with a cartoony look. But instead of "style" you should be thinking "stylish". Give people something striking to look at -- something really clean and well produced -- and even if it's very simple they'll be impressed.

High end realism seems to be too expensive and manga/"pure" cartoony look is not our goal, btw. your game art style looks cool, but we are making a 3d game which limits the art options in my optinion.

So I'm are stuck between realism and cartoon style, leaving atleast two ways to go.
1. Modifying realistic textures/photos to your look.
2. Painting all the textures yourself.

The second option seems to be too work intensive (my guess), so modifying a photo or realistic looking texture to a more WOW/DIII like style would be our goal.
Is it really easier or faster to modify a photo too your look than to paint it yourself or to sculpt a highlevel model and generate a base texture ?
Are there any tutorials or filters to assist in making WOW/DIII style textures ?

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Ashaman

Blizzard has a positively massive art team. Don't think that just because WoW is low-poly the art for it is easy to make. I'd seriously question a game that needs that kind of art being made by a team of two, neither of whom (from what I can tell) are skilled artists.

What I'd recommend for "simple" art would be something along the lines of Katamari Damacy. Simple, stylized models with straightforward flat-shaded textures, animated crudely because the models themselves are pretty crude. This works for two main reasons: one, the style is consistent (inconsistent styles are very jarring), and two, the models have a lot of charm in their crudity. If you can make your players laugh at your silly little Lego-people, then you get a lot of leeway for the fact that they are Lego-people in the first place.

Hey.

I'm thinking what art style to use for the first few graphics for a hobby (Few animations to do and also a little bit for games). I just stuck with awe in the fact that some of the sprite designers can create really good looking, detailed and colourful sprites (Name of the game I'm thinking of, escapes me. Top down alien shooter). Also, you've got the look of something like the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, dirty, grimey and nasty, with blood and brutalness abound. Very good graphic styles.

If you are willing to spend a little bit of money and plan on rendering the images for a 2D game, why not looking into Poser. You can do all sorts of really cool stuff with Poser and poserworld has a flat fee for downloading as many clothes and props as you can in your membership period.

Then you just have to worry about your scenery. Of course, I always find creating people the toughest and Poser makes that easy.

John

I think Derakon made several good points. You can actually probably achieve more by aiming for a crude or more primitive aesthetic. Look at Castle Crashers for instance. I realize that it's 2d and not 3d, but even by the standards of other 2d games its art style is relatively crude, yet it has a certain appeal to it.

I would look at striving toward a similar model but in 3d. I think doing a stylized game such as Team Fortress 2 requires much more artistic talent than you may realize. Even a game such as WoW demands a high level of artistic proficiency, though arguably less than TF2.

With apps such as Mudbox and zBrush available now creating realistic looking characters is not as difficult as it used to be but if you're going to up the visual quality of the models then gamers are also going to expect a higher level of quality in animation, shaders, physics, game mechanics, etc. Basically, you'll be creating more work for yourself in the long run going this route.

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Blizzard has a positively massive art team. Don't think that just because WoW is low-poly the art for it is easy to make. I'd seriously question a game that needs that kind of art being made by a team of two, neither of whom (from what I can tell) are skilled artists.

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I would look at striving toward a similar model but in 3d. I think doing a stylized game such as Team Fortress 2 requires much more artistic talent than you may realize. Even a game such as WoW demands a high level of artistic proficiency, though arguably less than TF2.

I know that WoW or TF2 really got good artists, it is not my intention to copy their grafics work. I search for a style which is "easier" than the rest of art styles but still "good looking".

From my opinion a professional artists needs less work to create WoW art than to create photorealistic art. So, even if I'm not a professional artist, I'm hoping to be able to create Wow style art more easierer and much faster then to create photorealistic art.

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With apps such as Mudbox and zBrush available now creating realistic looking characters is not as difficult as it used to be but if you're going to up the visual quality of the models then gamers are also going to expect a higher level of quality in animation, shaders, physics, game mechanics, etc. Basically, you'll be creating more work for yourself in the long run going this route.

That's an additional reason I'm trying to avoid photo realistic art :) The problem is, that todays photorealistic art, not looking like crysis or unreal, will be looked at as sh**. More toon like art like Wow,TF2,DIII is not received as well as photorealistic art from many people, but is looked at as being "good looking" by the same amount of people as well.

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Look at Castle Crashers for instance. I realize that it's 2d and not 3d, but even by the standards of other 2d games its art style is relatively crude, yet it has a certain appeal to it.

Yeah, I really like this style. It is not me, but my friend doing the artwork, who wants to create photorealistic art . Even if he is capable of doing really nice art, it will be hard to keep a consitent level of photorealistic artwork when you are not a professional artist.

I'm trying to convice my friend to choose an other art style, which is easier to create and easier to keep a consistent level of quality and look'n'feel. I'm looking for arguments, style examples, tutorials which help me to convince him.

I've started to create WoW "like" art to create a proof of concept and I'm quite surprised how easy it was, even if it is not of WoW quality. But I'm open to other art styles appliable to 3d. I already tried cel-shading, but he don't like it, so my hope is Wow, because he really like to play it.

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Ashaman

Quote: Even a game such as WoW demands a high level of artistic proficiency, though arguably less than TF2.

Less?! And you can judge this due to what qualification? Do you know their poly limits, texture size limits, shader capabilities?

Can you imagine how hard it is to do facial expressions with as less polys as WoW models consist of? Because one thing isn't arguable, the fact that Blizzard wouldn't accept less than the best artist for their teams.

Regarding the topic:
Most artist struggle to stay within boundaries if they seem pretty low for current graphics standard. Any decent artist today can use Mudbox, Zbrush, etc. as for modeling, but if you ask them to do low poly stuff, so you can provide an experience for a broader audience, you give many of them a hard time.

And there's no such thing as easier or harder art styles, there's good and bad work. Good work needs more time, bad work needs less, period.