The role of Art in Visual Novels

[Auro-Cyanide]

Haha, who saw this one coming...

At least I am in a slightly better position to talk about this than writing. It's something that I think about a fair bit, and it has briefly been brought up in the writing section in regards to balance. It also probably has some relation to the expanding of the knowledge base as well.

Art holds up its end of the bargain in Visual Novels by providing visual communication. I'm using the term art rather loosely here as the visual communication aspect includes not only the sprites, backgrounds and CGs, but also animations, special effects, GUIs and even what typeface you choose. All of these visually say something to the reader and the creator is in control of what it is that they are saying.

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The arts side of visual novels can be difficult for a number of reasons, especially for those that are not artists.

- If you are looking to pay: Art can be expensive, and you tend to pay for quality and reliability. Even then there are stories of flaky artists. Art is generally expensive because a) it's a skill not everyone has and b) its can be very time consuming. Costs can add up quickly meaning that visual novels produced through this method often have smaller resources and are sometimes commercial to make up for the costs.

- Using a free artist: Can be perilous as they have very little reason to stick around. It can also be difficult to find artists of high quality willing to work for free for obvious reasons. Working with a free artist often requires compromise to the story, especially in longer projects as the artist needs to feel engaged to continue. If you aren't being paid, there aren't too many reasons why you would continue to do what another person says if you are not that interested.

- If you are the artist: Visual Novels are a lot of work, period. It's time consuming, requires a wide range of skills, requires you remain moderately consistent and everyone is going to judge the work by what you produce. It's not the easiest job in the world.

For these reasons, being more ambitious with VN art, or even changing the way it's done, could prove challenging.

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I won't be the first person to state that art for visual novels can be a little on the static side. It is something that bothers me, even though I am reasonably happy with what I produce. However changing that is easier said than done, for the above reasons. Often you have to compromise a lot in the visual department because of the time and effort that would be required to do something better. Most indies simply do not have the resources for that type of thing. Unless you have several experienced and reliable artists working on the same things, lengthy AND visually expressive works are probably off the cards.

I fully intend to experiment more in the visual side of things with a smaller VN project, but for something the scale of BCM? I can't even afford the time to do secondary poses because of the amount of redrawing that would be involved and the time consuming nature of that particular style. I love the project to bits, but I don't want to be doing it for the next 5 years, there are other stories to tell.

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But on to the solutions! I have been thinking a fair bit on how to do visually interesting things that are still reasonable efficient in being used in Visual Novels.

One thing that strikes a chord with a lot of people, especially those visually inclined, is the Floating Director style in which comic panels are used. Still lands in the time consuming side of things, and the art would most likely have to lean towards the simplified in order to be reproducible quickly, but it is a lot more visually interesting to look at. More difficult to code though and would require a lot of different elements, possibly increasing file size, especially for longer works. This technic was achieved in Lucky Rabbit Reflex by using multiple PNG screens, which would be the way I would do it since I don't have a clue how it would be coded. This is something I want to possibly try out with Red Snow.

And then you have THIS http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Knite- ... -151132545 It doesn't contain the interactive elements of a VN but it has a lot that can be learned from it. The integration of type into the visuals for instance is DEFINITELY something I want to try out.

The other day someone suggested the use of side sprites only, which got me thinking. No one said VNs have to be comprised of a background with a sprite over the top and a text box at the bottom. While it would be silly to just use side sprites and waste so much space on nothing but background, it could be very interesting to use if the layout was different, especially if it involved a concept. I think there is a lot of opportunity to play around with the visuals a lot more than most people do. I have seen some interesting examples of playful graphics that wouldn't be too time consuming to achieve. It would possibly involve creating a concept and GUI before the other art assets, but I think it's worth looking into.

There are also a number of other things I want to try out, like creating large images that can be panned, or using layering to create effects of space.

I think being more experimental with graphics, creating designs that fit with the story, will create more variety and interest in the visual novel field. I think it is something that will have to be involved when considering expanding the audience.

One thing I haven't really discussed is styles. I would love to see a wider range of styles facilitated in VNs, and I think it's another aspect to appealing to a wider audience. Hybrid styles tend to be more popular than straight out anime inspired styles when considering groups outside of those fandoms. Plus, I can't speak for them, but how many western males would play a VN with a moe art style on their ipad while on the train in public?

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So please, share your thoughts on the role of art, especially any suggestion you might have in improving and creating more interesting visuals

*Why yes, I do have too much free time at work sometimes. Why do you ask?

[DaFool]

[Auro-Cyanide]

[Angra Mainyu]

[Jake]

[sake-bento]

For the superhero project I'm working on right now, I tried to make the layout read like a comic book page, so instead of sprites over backgrounds, it's different panel art and side sprites in the box on the bottom. Still not sure if I want to make the text box look like a speech bubble or not, though. I tried animating the sprites when they change position, but it fell into the Shira Oka thing mentioned earlier. I animated blinking sprites in Kansei, and that was fairly well received, however. Almost put lip flaps in Winter in Fairbrook, but it didn't look very smooth or attractive, so we nixed that idea.

[Archer]

[Hime]

For the use of screen space, I think one way to approach it would be to go from the direction of the text/textbox. If I had more Ren'Py skills (or time to learn them), I'd have quite a few ideas to try out on how the text could appear on the screen in a fashion other than the traditional "one text box at the bottom".

(Some of these could make the VN slower to read, which reminds me of the fancy fonts debate mentioned. I haven't read the original debate, but I suppose one point would be that it also slows down reading speed. One thing though is, is reading the VN fast itself a virtue? The community has been obsessing over wordcount, but maybe instead of a fast-consumed pile of text, we could do more with the little text we produce, make it matter, make it be slowly digested and not chomped in great quantities? Just random thoughts, I can't get sleep, but anyway.)

As an artist, I value first and foremost expression. I feel that my job is to make the story get across better, and perhaps add a bit of flavour to it. For this reason, I take perhaps the greatest joy of all in drawing expressions for characters. I feel that the expressions have a great power to tell the player about the character and their mind; I aim to capture the spirit of the character. As a result of wishing to express the story better, I also pay great attention to two things:
Atmosphere; I want the graphic style to suit the game and make it a better experience. Visuals can, at best, make the player feel the story more and add to it this way. As an artist you can show the player in a single instant both details and larger impressions that would be difficult to write and time-consuming to read about. A screenshot should be able to say something about the VN as a whole.
Consistency; it's important to me that I contribute to the coherence and wholeness of the work. If the player doesn't know what to expect when a new sprite or CG comes up, this can be a distraction that takes their attention away from the story, the very thing I want to contribute to as an artist. The art has to be consistent both with itself and with the text, and clashes with the latter are unforgivable (unless they're part of some clever plan for the story, of course).
Overall, VN art is an illustration for the story rather than a standalone piece, and as a result I feel that these factors are even more important than the level of technical skill shown. It's not for your portfolio, it's for the story. The story isn't so much a limit as a fruitful ground to build upon, though. Some of my fondest memories of projects are the times when my art has actually inspired the writer to go back to the script and add something.

Regarding faithfulness to the project, I think one of the reasons I've always ended up staying on board (even if I've sometimes taken a horribly long time to finish stuff, sorry for those who have been victims of this bad habit of mine ^^;), besides having had awesome collaborators, is that I've always fallen in love with the stories and maintained that love. It isn't always as strong, and sometimes I'm busy and frustrated, but it always makes me come back to the psds in the end. So for writers, I'd recommend that you give your artists a chance to get to know the story/script so that they can get more committed to it. Other things, that fall under the umbrella of having good collaborators, are artistic freedom (your artist is not a hand for you to use, but a creative human being capable of expression that might have something to contribute to your vision) and making sure that they know you appreciate their contributions (doesn't mean giving them credit for more than they deserve, but rather being honestly grateful for their efforts and understanding if they run into problems/delays). Make them happy to be working on the project, I guess?

[Jake]