Kifflom humans

Hello everybody, i'm Noltras!

I've been following this project for a long time and I'd like to participate.
I can draw very well, and I'd like to develop some concept arts, especially for the Society Stage.
I'm also going to compose something...I already have some ideas...

So, good work everybody!

Kifflom :star:

I'd love to take a look at some of your art, if you draw so well. 

Hmm, is kifflom on deviantart you? If so, I'd say you're alright, but there isn't much to judge.

As for what you can contribute, I'm not too sure what art we absolutely need right this instant (as that's the stuff we would love you forever for if you drew); but since we're not even thinking about society stage right now, society stage art isn't it. 

This is the point when most aspiring art contributors leave, but please don't go yet. We, sadly, have no concept artists around right now who are interested in drawing things up to illustrate people's suggestions. This is what concept artists are for, but since we are an open-source project, artists draw what they want to draw, and we have no (well, one I know of, and he's the music team lead, so he's quite busy) artists who want to read current design threads and draw up what different proposals would look like. 

If you did, we would love you forever, and eventually when we get to society stage and you really get to flex your creative muscles, your art, being useful, will very likely end up in the game. 

If you don't want to be constrained to helping illustrate peoples' ideas, though, then I won't force you to stay. 

Interested? (please say yes please say yes)


EDIT: Oh you also make music? Well we always like ourselves some good themes. Awesome

Sorry but I'm not on deviantart, anyway, why don't you try describing me a creature so then I can send you a drawing?
Just to see if I'm qualified, because I'm interested.

...The only problem for me is time, but i think i can handle it...

Welcome Noltras! :D (or whould you prefer to called Kifflom?) 

It's nice to see you. If Kifflom's your deviantart name, it's som nice art you've made. I'd be glad to have you on the team.
I'll also look forward to hear what you eventually compose! :D 

@moopli:
I'd gladly do that, but what specificaly, do you mean like for the stuff being talked about here?

Oh hehe my mind is kinda all over the place. I was convinced I'd asked around before for concept artists available to do that sorta thing I just described, but as it turns out, I asked around for concept artists to do something else. 

Yes, the GDD thread is exactly what I mean -- I spent a week proposing that osmoregulation idea and then another week trying to take it all back and propose something else; but I think, if I, or a better artist than I, drew up what each proposal would look like in-game, the whole discussion could've resolved much more easily. Right now, in the Microbe GUI thread, we're discussing a whole bunch of things, things we'll have to look at all the time, and there are still disappointingly few pictures. There are a lot of pictures, sure, but there aren't enough variations on any particular point of any particular design for us to make many informed choices.

No worries Noltras, time is a problem for everyone, and we don't set deadlines (okay technically we set milestones, but they're not strict, and they're only for programming). You could disappear for a few months (I sure did), and we'd welcome you right back. Now, for proving your worth, I'm not sure a creature will work, since we're not doing anything with them right now. 

How about this: Draw a couple eukaryotic cells, how you imagine they'd look in-game once we have some great graphics. One of them is the player's microbe, maybe there's some extra UI (like a HUD) displaying some information about it. If you want, sketch some GUI on top -- I'm partial to some of the earlier ones in the microbe gui thread, and RabiesGuineaPig might be interested in seeing someone else's take on his current direction, but if you want to try your own design go ahead. The background can include some tiny bacteria swimming around and strings of cyanobacteria and clouds of different compounds, if you're feeling ambitious. Maybe one of the cells is undergoing mitosis, how would that look? Maybe one of the cells is dying, bursting open, spilling out its guts, how would that look?

Come to think of it, do all of that and we'll have a great picture to point to which contains pretty much all the visual effects we might see in Microbe stage. It'll be invaluable. 

@ThrivingCheese, I exhausted my supply of art ideas with the above, but since you're team lead I figure you probably want to know what to direct your minions to do too (:P). As it just occurred to me that I didn't really have a source (other than experience, anyway) for my conceptions about what concept art should be, I did some lazy googling and found an article. It's really good though, and highlights well what's wrong with the current concept art thread. By the time we get to working with the OE, we'll need loads and loads of rough sketches -- real concept art for parts, for how they'll go together on organisms, and so on.

Edit: Oh, Noltras, something just occurred to me -- if you're drawing what I suggested, when you're done could you provide a version without a GUI? That would be useful too, for people working on GUI at the moment to draw their GUIs on top of instead of using Spore pictures

I would indeed prefer to not use spore pictures :p

@moopli: EDIT: From what I've understood from how the OE's suppossed to be, the patrs'll only be skeletal and organs, right? Should I/we then draw concepts for how these organs and skeleton parts could look? I'm not really sure how advanced the organs would really need to be, since they won't be seen outside of the editor, right?

SO I just drew this since I still felt like drawing somthing... 

Spoiler:

Concept art for the steps of creating your creature (OE) with an arm as example: Vertebrate/Skeleton(1), Muscle(2), Fat(3), Circulatory/Blood vessels(4), Procedurall Skinning(5), Coloring and Texturing(6).

I think, for aesthetics sake, the organs should be detailed. What if, for whatever reason, players wanted a transparent creature?

@TheRabiesGuineaPig: Good point.
EDIT:

TheRabiesGuineaPig wrote:

I would indeed prefer to not use spore pictures :p

Me neither.

Yeah, that's a good start @ThrivingCheese

The plan would be, for anything like that, to generate many variations at a similar level of effort put in (so, mostly thinking, with a few quick sketches); get them up on the forum, discuss the merits of different variations, other people can pitch in their own versions, we pick a few, draw them in more detail, etc. We could even post public calls for concept art on reddit or something, explain what we're looking for, and iterate on the results. That though, would probably wait until the strategy stages, since until then it's unlikely we'll need so much concept art (or get a great response from fans).

Organs outside the editor would be for a more realistic damage so if you cut open a creature its organs will start falling out. If it's a big enough cut of coarse.

@giffman8 That's sufficiently unrelated (We're talking aesthetics and concept art, you're suggesting a game mechanic tangentially related to a side comment earlier) that I think you're better off talking about it on the miscellabugs thread. Either there or on reddit.

Your choice though c: