Rendering

I'm getting a fairly clear idea of the kind of setting that would work well with this aesthetic and, so far, I've a pretty good image of the protagonist in my head. In the end, there may end up being more than one playable character, but for the first release I'm looking at something that's really quite short, so chances are she's the only one that will be around at the start.

As big a challenge as the art will, of course, be the process of creating the engine and toolset. Moreso the latter than the former, I think - in terms of the rendering pipeline, the setup will be relatively simple. However, I'll need to orchestrate complicated sequences of sprite-based animation in 3D, set up interaction, events, puzzles and dialogues. As such, I think, the main initial push will mostly be focused on features and less so on content.

In the meantime though, I'm still working on the initial proof of concept renders. First off, I've come up with a draft character sheet for the protagonist:

The end result is still a bit too baroque, I think, to use as the end result of frame-by-frame animation, but I think the best course of action will be to work her through a few draft animations and let the style evolve naturally. The black outline in the colour version is meant to be evocative of a paper cut-out. I don't like white edges on cut-out characters, so this one's drawn on black paper, simple as that. Will have to see how it ends up looking though.

I've also finished compositing the Photoshop scene in 3ds Max, although working with Max on a laptop is a pain, so the end result is even shoddier than before. Still, I think it's a nice first result and gives a good feel for the kind of atmosphere and style the engine would be capable of.