Wow, I'm shocked to hear that 2D games are more expensive than 3D.
You can model a character or scene once in 3D and then display it from tons of different angles and distances for free. When you do a 3D animation, you set a few "keys" and let interpolation take care of the frames between the keys.
Every angle (and for extreme distance changes) you want to draw a 2D character or scene at, you need to do a new drawing. With 2D animation, you have to draw every single frame by hand.
Let's do a little thought experiment. For a character, we'll want to be able to see them from 2 different heights (side, 3/4 overhead). We also want to be able to show them facing 8 different directions. For each direction, we want to be able to show them idling, running, walking, talking, grabbing, using, and jumping. Let's say that each of these actions is a 1 second animation (possibly looping), and since we want to compete with 3D we'll run 30 frames per second at minimum.
That means we'd need 3360 hand-drawn frames of animation for each character in the game. I assume we want to support HDTV resolutions without everything getting all pixel-y and jagged, so we'd need characters to look good at full screen height. That implies 512x1024 textures. Of course we want full 32 bit color and alpha, too. So the uncompressed (in-memory) size of a single frame of animation would be about 16 megs. Using lossless compression we could probably reduce that to 1 meg per file. There will probably be a few characters in a game that need a library of animations this large, so you could see 10 gigs of data just for 3 characters. Yikes!
But here's the worst part. One of your designers just decided that the character should have something like, oh say, a poxed hand. Now you have to change 3360 frames of animation by hand instead of 1 texture.
This is why you see a lot of games with 2D static rendered or hand-painted backgrounds, but 3D characters. We like the freedom of 3D backgrounds so we can do closeups and stuff when our characters talk, though. Everything in life is a trade off I guess!
This took me probably a full week to make. Which is all the hours there is in one week, so it took more than a week I guess.
I got tired of just reusing the graphics I obviously stole from MI2 as well. Making a working command system wont be easy, and I will probably go with a simpler one, like the 3 verbs one in Monkey 3 and an inventory.
I hope to go with cell shading (2D flash cell shading that is). Cell shading and 3d graphics have the same pros and cons it seems to me. It makes it easier when you get into it, to make more animations. But it the limiting stuff is making various animations. One example is Monkey 2, there is an animation where a leg gets pulled off. Something that needs to be done frame per frame to look good. In 3D I guess it can be done, but takes some work. So in 2D the artists arent as hesistant to make those kind of advanced animations, but in 3D its easier to go with other stuff. Changing point of view, changing the outfit of characters. You can use the same animations (or whatever its called in 3D, on several characters. I guess a game like unreal tournament can be a good example. Once the model and textures is done, then it can move all the ways the other models can move if they have the same "bone structures".
For episodic games like ToMI and Sam n Max, that is a huge advantage. Since you can go reusing the same models in many different scenes and outfits. You dont need to redraw a whole set of frames to make a new outfit.
My brother makes 3D, and since he is pretty good he could probably make a character with bone structure in about a day or two. Then its there and the bone system in place. Then its just about making it move, and those might already have been made for another model with a similar bone structure.
When I made the flash games I realised how long it takes, making a 2D character where every movement or gesture takes several frames. Today that is usually something we would expect to see in full HD with at least 28 frames per second. Changing outfit, that is alot of frame to redo. Not just a few textures and maybe some remodelling.
Nice reply, Yare! Really illuminating...
I know, there are many people here who bother about the game....
If u listen to them you'll finish to make a different game for each different player...
Personally I think the game is excellent. I played A LOT of adventures, but today only TT can assure such high quality level of anything, from animation to gameplay. Today no other brands can compete with you about quality (aside old Lucas - and that's a huge compliment to you!).
I'm very pleased with the new interface, with the style (i think it's perfect) and with the game.
You really work hard, but create masterpieces.
And... Thank you!!!!
Comments
You can model a character or scene once in 3D and then display it from tons of different angles and distances for free. When you do a 3D animation, you set a few "keys" and let interpolation take care of the frames between the keys.
Every angle (and for extreme distance changes) you want to draw a 2D character or scene at, you need to do a new drawing. With 2D animation, you have to draw every single frame by hand.
Let's do a little thought experiment. For a character, we'll want to be able to see them from 2 different heights (side, 3/4 overhead). We also want to be able to show them facing 8 different directions. For each direction, we want to be able to show them idling, running, walking, talking, grabbing, using, and jumping. Let's say that each of these actions is a 1 second animation (possibly looping), and since we want to compete with 3D we'll run 30 frames per second at minimum.
That means we'd need 3360 hand-drawn frames of animation for each character in the game. I assume we want to support HDTV resolutions without everything getting all pixel-y and jagged, so we'd need characters to look good at full screen height. That implies 512x1024 textures. Of course we want full 32 bit color and alpha, too. So the uncompressed (in-memory) size of a single frame of animation would be about 16 megs. Using lossless compression we could probably reduce that to 1 meg per file. There will probably be a few characters in a game that need a library of animations this large, so you could see 10 gigs of data just for 3 characters. Yikes!
But here's the worst part. One of your designers just decided that the character should have something like, oh say, a poxed hand. Now you have to change 3360 frames of animation by hand instead of 1 texture.
This is why you see a lot of games with 2D static rendered or hand-painted backgrounds, but 3D characters. We like the freedom of 3D backgrounds so we can do closeups and stuff when our characters talk, though. Everything in life is a trade off I guess!
http://www.zshare.net/flash/68140679a0b6bd/
This took me probably a full week to make. Which is all the hours there is in one week, so it took more than a week I guess.
I got tired of just reusing the graphics I obviously stole from MI2 as well. Making a working command system wont be easy, and I will probably go with a simpler one, like the 3 verbs one in Monkey 3 and an inventory.
I hope to go with cell shading (2D flash cell shading that is). Cell shading and 3d graphics have the same pros and cons it seems to me. It makes it easier when you get into it, to make more animations. But it the limiting stuff is making various animations. One example is Monkey 2, there is an animation where a leg gets pulled off. Something that needs to be done frame per frame to look good. In 3D I guess it can be done, but takes some work. So in 2D the artists arent as hesistant to make those kind of advanced animations, but in 3D its easier to go with other stuff. Changing point of view, changing the outfit of characters. You can use the same animations (or whatever its called in 3D, on several characters. I guess a game like unreal tournament can be a good example. Once the model and textures is done, then it can move all the ways the other models can move if they have the same "bone structures".
For episodic games like ToMI and Sam n Max, that is a huge advantage. Since you can go reusing the same models in many different scenes and outfits. You dont need to redraw a whole set of frames to make a new outfit.
My brother makes 3D, and since he is pretty good he could probably make a character with bone structure in about a day or two. Then its there and the bone system in place. Then its just about making it move, and those might already have been made for another model with a similar bone structure.
When I made the flash games I realised how long it takes, making a 2D character where every movement or gesture takes several frames. Today that is usually something we would expect to see in full HD with at least 28 frames per second. Changing outfit, that is alot of frame to redo. Not just a few textures and maybe some remodelling.
I know, there are many people here who bother about the game....
If u listen to them you'll finish to make a different game for each different player...
Personally I think the game is excellent. I played A LOT of adventures, but today only TT can assure such high quality level of anything, from animation to gameplay. Today no other brands can compete with you about quality (aside old Lucas - and that's a huge compliment to you!).
I'm very pleased with the new interface, with the style (i think it's perfect) and with the game.
You really work hard, but create masterpieces.
And... Thank you!!!!