DE4401: The Strengths Of Good
Character Design In Videogames
During the process of making a video game, one of the
most significantly important aspects of the development is Character Design.
This is where an artist has to consider many aspects about what a character
should look like. This process will apply when the player is able to clearly
see the character they control, as well as the characters they interact with in
the world they inhabit. Characters like these can take many forms, whether they
are human, vehicles, buildings or inanimate objects acting much like a human
would. [JRT<oA&M1]
A character’s purpose in a game they are designed for is communicate visual information to the player in relevance to the story and setting through their appearance, clothing, equipment and whatever things they can do within the restraint of their world, which makes their designs in this context is so important to immerse you into that world and to sell you on the ideas the artist and developers want to convey. [JRT<oA&M2]
In
this essay I will be taking a focused look into the processes of creating
effective character design, which will be done by giving context and reason to
the contextual and literary examples given by various artists and researchers
who have dedicated considerable time to understanding the intricacies and
methods to designing characters effectively.
[JRT<oA&M3]
LITERARY EXAMPLES:
EMOTIONS:
Conveying emotion in a character’s design is very
important aspect in how a character looks, in order to effectively bring out a
reaction in an observer, which is something that the artist or designer may
desire to intentionally happen.
A published study taken from ‘The Emotion's Effect On a Virtual Characters
Design - A Student Perspective’, by the University Of Trente in the Netherlands
had a group observe a set of different characters drawn by various artists to
see if they could identify the appropriate emotion that was trying to be
conveyed.
“The level of accuracy in identifying each emotion was measured by analyzing
what emotions were correctly identified by the students (extracted from
responses to the multiple- choice question 3). Sadness, anger, and happiness
were the emotions best identified by students. (…) Results also showed that it
is more difficult to identify sadness in ‘Yuriy’ and fear and surprise in ‘Paul’.
Concerning anger, happiness, and disgust, these emotions are equally identified
in the six characters. Question 3 also allows insights into the global misclassification
rate for each emotion (Table 3). Surprise is partly misclassified with disgust
(18.8%) and fear (17.4%) as well as disgust with fear (23.2%) and fear with
surprise (37.7%). Responses to question 4 capture the intensity of each emotion
perceived by the students, over a three-level scale. Surprise (56.4%), sadness
(48.7%), and fear (44.3%) are the most intense perceived emotions.”
Motions is an important facet of design, so that the artists and developers can
bring out a certain emotion that may imprint on the player of a game.
COLOUR:
[JRT<oA&M4] The colour palette for a character is able to
tell a lot about a character’s intentions or personality, as well as setting an
expectation for the viewer and player. Colour is also greatly able to illicit a
response from what colours the player will see. An article from ScienceDirect
details the ways colour can affect emotion to the observer, through looking at
multiple studies.
“The use of colour has long been shown to be able to generate positive arousal
of emotion such as excitement and pleasure. In particular, warm colours have
been found to elicit greater emotional arousal than cold colours. Higher levels
of chroma (saturation) and value (degree of darkness or lightness of colour)
have been found to result in feelings such as excitement; The colour green, for
example, has been found to evoke hope, growth, and success. In some cultures
and contexts, the colour red may signal danger, or, in the context of learning,
failure and give rise to negative emotions. In romantic contexts, the colour
red evokes positive emotion toward females in males.”
With this in mind, colour is a valuable
tool for a designer to help express certain emotions and parts of a story
through their palette, giving the design more purpose within context of its
game’s world.
CONTEXTUAL EXAMPLES:
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
The character designer for Shin Megami Tensei V, Masayuki
Doi, who has worked with Atlus to design the newest main characters and Demons
for the game, has had an interview conducted on him, explaining his design
process about the main character when they become the Nahobino.
“The white curves on the body represent the environment, often used as a motif
in ancient Pre-Christianity religion around the world. (…) The hair, which is
the most eye-catching feature, is a manifestation of Nahobino’s life force.
This is because hair is considered sacred since ancient times, said to be the
source of vitality with transcendent abilities.” Masayuki has taken careful
consideration when creating this character, including the appropriate
mythological significance that is important to this game series.[JRT<oA&M5]
[JRT<oA&M6]
DARKEST DUNGEON:
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike dungeon-crawler critically acclaimed for its
resource management and its narration throughout the game, but most importantly
is the unique artstyle that its characters stem from. An interview from the
lead artist for the game, Chris Bourassa, elaborates on how the visuals for the
game were considered and implemented.
“I designed the art style to reinforce and enhance the tone and design of the
game.(…) Essentially, I wanted the game to look as though it had come from the
time period it was set in. Like you were playing a (horrific) story book rather
than a videogame. Hard lines and edges reflect the uncompromising gameplay,
pooling blacks create the impression of being lost in the dark, and the empty
eyes in the characters help convey a sense of hopelessness and weight, That
said, I wanted to make sure there was just a dash of cuteness in the style to
facilitate a greater sense of iconography, and also to remind players that,
despite all of there morbidity, it’s a game.”
The process in design by Bourassa is evident that the characters were made with
the intent of bringing the viewer closer into the world this game is set in to
deliver a clear theme, and within that, a sense of unease and the idea that
nowhere is safe for your characters, selling the idea and mood he wanted to set
for this game.
TORIYAMA:
The character designs in works by artist Akira Toriyama are a distinct
highlight in design because of how vastly different each of his characters and
monsters are, filling in very different categories of monster to make each series
he works on varied, full of life and energy to create a believable world. Some
of these monsters are so iconic, that asking a person in Japan to draw a ‘slime’
will usually result in the blue gumdrop shaped monster from these games.
In an interview with Akira Toriyama, he has given insight on his design
philosophies when he designed each of his characters.
“My process for drawing characters is basically that I start with their
personality, and decide on their face next… then once the face is done, I can
come up with their clothes. I try not to settle on any specific design concept
ahead of time, because that takes all the fun out of it. I guess it comes down
to whatever’s influencing me at the time. And when coming up with new
characters, I try to go with types I haven’t drawn much before.”
He also outlines some rules when he draws other characters.
“I suppose I do follow a few specific rules,(…)Like when drawing bad guys, I
won’t make them so devious and underhanded that it leaves a bad taste in the
reader’s mouth afterwards. Not because I’m particularly concerned for the
readers, because rather I personally hate drawing that kind of stuff.”
His philosophies show that he goes through many concepts to make something look
the way he intends, not settling on one single concept, which is one great
strength to designing a character; Considering many different routes of a final
design is very important.
POKEMON:
Currently, there are hundreds of different Pokemon that have been designed by The
main Pokemon character designer, Ken Sugimori, who has had to consider many
real life animals, objects, concepts, and mythological creatures and figures to
draw inspiration from for each Pokemon game’s roster. Each game has a mix of
older and newer Pokemon for the player to find, and each Pokemon’s evolution
has to be considered in each design, which can help to enhance the idea conveyed
for each creature.
An interview taken by Ken Sugimori in a translated article
from Nintendo Online Magazine, shows the various ideas and processes that he
had to consider when working on the first games. He explains his design process
originally when starting out with designing the Pokemon for the first games,
Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue."
“It started with designs of dinosaurs and monsters. Then we started out
designing cute Pokemon. As the games development progressed, we added the ideas
of ‘types’ to the game system, and so we added in changes like the flame on
Charmander’s tail, or having a plant growing out of Venusaur’s back.[JRT<oA&M7]
(…)”Initially, we talked about a game where you made kaiju fight each
other.(…)I realized I had never drawn monsters like that before. I was honestly
pretty lost, but I managed to create 20 or 30 different designs. Rhydon and
Nidoking were two of the designs that survived from those first drawings.”
Sugimori continues to elaborate on the purposes of these Pokemon that were
considered during development.
“Our original idea was for Pokemon to live alongside humans and assist them in
useful ways. So the earliest Pokemon had well-defined functions – like ferrying
people across the sea or carrying things. I also created Pokemon like Clefairy
who were basically cute pets.”
Sugimori’s thought processes here
Overall, the methods and practices used to create effective character design
are substantially varied, where one can
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Chris Bourassa, Kirill Tokarev.
(2015). Red Hook Studios Talks About The Creation of Darkest Dungeon. [Online].
80LV. Last Updated: 9th June 2015. Available at:
https://80.lv/articles/red-hook-studios-talks-about-the-creation-of-darkest-dungeon/
[Accessed 18 November 2022].
n/a. (2016). Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary "Super History
Book". Japan: n/a. p.n/a.
Jan L. Plass, Bruce D. Homer, Andrew MacNamara, etc. (2020). Emotional
design for digital games for learning: The effect of expression, color, shape,
and dimensionality on the affec. Learning And Instruction. 70(70),
p.n/a. [Online]. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475217304139
[Accessed 21 November 2022].
Marta del Valle-Canencia. (2022). The Emotions effect on a virtual
characters design- A Student perspective.etc. Madrid: Frontiers In Computer
Science. pp.8-9.
M. del Valle-Canencia. (2022). The Emotion's Effect On a Virtual Characters
Design - A Student Perspective. University Of Twente, Netherlands:
Human-Media Interaction. pp.8-9
Nintendo Online Magazine. (2011). Interview: Sugimori & Masuda on
Building Gen 1. [Online]. LavaCutContent. Last Updated: December 26 2020.
Available at: http://lavacutcontent.com/sugimori-masuda-developer-interview/
[Accessed 18 November 2022].
'Reggy'. (2021). Shin Megami Tensei V In-Depth Interview About
Character Designs, SMT V Was Originally Targeted for 2020 Release.
[Online]. PersonaCentral. Last Updated: September 30th 2021. Available at:
https://personacentral.com/smt-v-character-designs-interview-originally-2020/
[Accessed 21 November 2022].
[JRT<oA&M1]Rather than trying to cover everything it would be better to express an approach to character design. Some questions I have are does this apply to an FPS where we do not see the main character or a racing game where the main character is a vehicle. My advice is to be tight in your introduction.
[JRT<oA&M2]There are stories without characters. It might be better to phrase this as what a character does in a game? Why is their design so important?
[JRT<oA&M3]Avoid stating the obvious (art has many approaches) and you are taking a focussed look not an extensive look/inspection
[JRT<oA&M4]Is this a published study? If so reference it. If it has not been published then it is not a literature reference.
[JRT<oA&M5]This is not a literature example but a contextual one as it is an interview
[JRT<oA&M6]Is this contextual? What is it showing? You should be more focussed on what the study is saying in terms of process.
[JRT<oA&M7]Finally! We get a little insight into a designers process but we need to know more about this and it is not a literature reference.
