Currently, the word count on this draft is above the limit as standard, but this will change with the final draft to make it more concise.
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]
Designing
effectively for charactersis a vital skill for creating games,
In this literary review, 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.”
Emotions are 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. If
the designer is able to convey that concretely in this exercise, this shows
that they have a firm grasp on how to show the player(or viewer) what they want
to convey in order to create a certain mood or scene.
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, such as red to represent anger and
passion, yellow to represent cowardice, or blue to represent a feeling of
freedom or speed. 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, along
with 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, a strong use of 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. Furthermore,
this can greatly elevate the use of a character’s design for the purposes of
storytelling, making that characters inclusion in a game much more justified
with no words needing to be spoke.
SILENT PROTAGANISTS:
A character that the player controls is a very important aspect of a game;
Giving them a personality and dialogue to interact in the world they inhabit
can be tantamount to player’s experience. However, having a character that does
not speak can also be a vital tool to delivering the appropriate experience to
the player, which can also aid in immersing themselves in the fictional world
as opposed to a character who fills that need. A study taken by Bria N. Mears
discusses this in their own literature essay.
“Projective characters are also useful in increasing identification with the
Silent Player Character, allowing the player to fill in a role they prefer,
rather than providing them with a predefined one. Customizable projective
characters used in combat-based games support a very large span of possible
characters, adding a sense of personalization to the game experience.
[9].Contemporary examples of projective Silent Player Characters are the
protagonists in Dark Souls [11] – used to provide embodiment within the dark
would (sic), while giving a feeling of solitude and loneliness; and Journey
[21] - used to allow the player to fill
in the blanks of the anonymous character’s life journey.”
The former contemporary example helps to immerse the player in their game’s
world by letting them decide how they look, their job is to effectively design
the weapons and armour of the player to help communicate the character they
want to play, whilst the freedom of choice comes from the design options
proposed to the player, all of which need to be designed strongly in order for
the player to feel satisfied with how their character will look.
PSYCHOLOGY:
AN EXAMPLE OF PROCESS:
The character design process itself is important to learn from many examples of
veterans in their respective industry in order to understand what will make
another persons design process equally as effective. This process can be seen
by Cady-Lee Devon, who published an article discreetly describing the process
taken when designing one of their characters for an assignment. This first
quote is about setting boundaries.
“This is often the hardest step for me, Without the rest of the game to show
anyone, a single character provides a lot of information about the world I’m
trying to create, so first impressions are key. Some boundaries from the
assignment are that she be(sic) a young, female character with a fantasy-steampunk
edge, and she has a pet.”
The next quote is about creating a theme.
“I end up with a dark character with a wide brim hat, and a pet that looks like
a bird, I want to design the costume to reflect the animal. A lot of this idea
comes from theming around the weapon, which I need to start drawing! ?>(sic)
CONTEXTUAL EXAMPLES:
US ANIMATION:
While western animated movies do not necessarily include characters designed
for games, it is still important to consider the works of the pioneers of the
industry who set the standards of many different animation trends and methods.
A quote from the International Journal of Organization Innovation delves deeper
into this process.
“Disney characters begin with a model sheet of the character, and it is a
visual overview of the design. In 1928, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks jointly
created an anthropromorphic mouse with large ears, red shorts and yellow shoes.
The character, Mickey Mouse, became one of the most iconic animated characters
of all time and the face/mascot of Disney. Mickey Mouse embodies all the
character design principles of the Disney Style, including geometric
modelling(sic), silhouette identification, symbolization, and representing
color.”
The beginning of this industry succeeded greatly with their design choices when
creating an iconic character such as Mickey Mouse because a character like him came
from many different creative tactics coming together in order to create something
that inherently had mass appeal. Pixar follows on with this intricate process
when designing characters to such a strong degree, such as in Toy Story, where
every character must go through a long process before becoming final.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Masayuki Doi is the character designer for Shin Megami Tensei V, who has worked
with Atlus to design the newest main characters and Demons for the game. Doi
has had an interview conducted on him, explaining his design process about the Nahobino,
the main character of this game.
“The white curves on the body represent the environment, often used as a motif
in ancient Pre-Christianity religion around the world.” (…)
This may be taken to convey purity whilst being set in a world inhabited by
demons.
“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, whilst also keeping to the modern visual conventions[JRT<oA&M5] that the rest of the series has established.
DARKEST DUNGEON:
Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike dungeon-crawler created by Red Hook Studios,
known most notably 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.”
Not settling on one concept means that an artist like Toriyama is open to many
possibilities and concepts ahead of time, so that a character can be looked at
from many angles before the final design is settled upon, on top of how having
a strong influence around him can give a great sense of direction when he is
stuck on one aspect of design, which can prove to be a useful tool.
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&M6]
(…)”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.”
(more)Sugimori’s thought processes here show the process clearly, as the roles
of these creatures through their design were just as important to the design of
the rest of the game, assisting greatly with the world building.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, the methods and practices used to create effective character design
are substantially varied, where one can
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Cady-Lee Devon. (2018). DESIGN A VIDEOGAME CHARACTER. IMagineFX.
157(157), pp.62, 64-67. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2049663230?pq-origsite=primo [Accessed 4
December 2022].
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].
Kai lin Yu, Yung-Chin Tsao. (2022). A Study Of Character Design Method. International
Journal of Organizational Innovation. n/a(n/a), p.76. [Online]. Available
at:
https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=14dda87e-f642-4908-86c1-aa269ceb1d4d
[Accessed 30 November 2022].s
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
Mears, Bria N. (2017). Design Patterns for Silent Player Characters
in Narrative-Driven Games. Drexel University: Drexel University ProQuest
Dissertations Publishing. pp.11-12.
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]Is this contextual? What is it showing? You should be more focussed on what the study is saying in terms of process.
[JRT<oA&M6]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.
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