BG and sprite, future of VN

[firecat]

so i was talking to people in a skype group, then a topic about too many BG and less sprite came up. so i decided to test this theory of too many BG and less sprites by randomly picking 2010-2015 VN from VNDB. i also skip many NSFW (OMG there's so many) and only pick one for example.

 

https://vndb.org/v11431(NSFW) - sprties are included but BG is heavly rellay on it.

 

The Visitor - BG only

 

Monobeno - BG and sprites

 

Cradle Song ~Kinou ni Kanaderu Ashita no Uta~ more sprites then BG

 

Psycho-Pass - sprites (not release so who knows)

 

so its kinda even, exactly with NSFW titles but this does bring a good topic. what you guys think, is it better for VN to be more BG or stay with more sprites like the old days?

[Eclipsed]

VNs like Eden* which used waaay more CGs (& BGs) rather than sprites were pretty fun to read imo; actually made the reading experience feel more "lively" than a VN relying more on sprites.

 

Sprites can be fun too, particularly in the case of Yuzusoft's Dracu-Riot!. Character expressions change mid-sentence rather than sentence by sentence etc. to make things more "lively"

 

~~

The ideal future VN has animated sprites and abundance of BGs.

[starlessn1ght]

I prefer with sprites. Just BGs feels... awkward...

[TexasDice]

The ideal future is whatever they used to make Nekopara. Just look at it, it's the most beautiful thing ever.

 

Fans of static sprites would probably hate that, but I don't give a damn.

[Cythnar]

The ideal future is whatever they used to make Nekopara. Just look at it, it's the most beautiful thing ever.

 

Fans of static sprites would probably hate that, but I don't give a damn.

Agreed. Neko Para was glorious.

Future of VN's confirmed.

[Deep Blue]

I don't think it's necessary and the costs of production for these types of vns are way more than your regular one so I don't even know if it is worth it.

You can have an amazing vn even with just a few backgrounds (like narcissu)

The most important thing in a vn imo is the story and the music, everything else is going to help but can't redeem a vn if it is bad just by having awesome graphics, nekopara sucks ass, yes it SUCK ASS it just pretty to the eyes, nothing more.

[sugiken]

I don't mine a lot of BGs with beautiful art, they do picture me how Japan's like, or any other abstract place (in case i've been playing too much Hibiki Works' Pretty x Cation 1 and 2, there's a lot of BG and they're good).

And recently, on Pretty x Cation 2 the characters sprite, well it's already with e-mote features now. Looking good to me.

 

i should use the media tag.

Edited June 25, 2015 by sugiken

[BananaShiki]

Worrying about still pictures?

Get with the times, son.

[Funyarinpa]

I want many BGs over all else, they flesh out the world the most for me. After that, animated sprites and then come the CGs.

[Deep Blue]

[Kurokusari]

I don't really see the reason why not just use the both of them properly.

To me, eden* was the most visually appealing VN I've ever read. Reason being the usage of subtly-dynamic sprites (just the eyes move) and the blending with the background with the sprites made it more than enough for me. Sure, Nekopara did a more expressive sprites due to the e-mote system but that doesn't mean the static sprites aren't properly conveying the feelings of the characters. A good example would the Yuzsoft VNs that has sprites with a lot of variety that constantly changes.

 

I have no idea how much does this affects the production costs but the developers would think of things to shake things up like the current E-mote system. It's relatively new so there's still so much to improve, hopefully.

[Narcosis]

There's no real recipe for that. Everything depends on both story and art direction within the game. What will work in one visual novel, won't work well in another. Certain titles will look a lot more appealing with the use of Live 2D/E-mote, others can easily rely on static art without much of a loss. Whether you decide to use traditional method by utilising simple sprites and backgrounds, or go with animation is just a different way of execution; none of them is "better". VN's will always rely mostly on static art, simply because it is a lot cheaper and less time consuming to create.

 

Character sprites are generally a lot cheaper than backgrounds or event CG's (Eden relied on these way too much, to be honest). Licensing Live 2D is expensive. E-mote is quite affordable for indie devs and comes in a unified devkit, but you still have to fork over at least 800$ for a single license. The drawback is if you ever exceed sales over a specified ammount, you have to upgrade to commercial package, which costs a lot more.

[firecat]

Worrying about still pictures?

Get with the times, son.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLf9oWUe2fc

 

those are interactive cutscenes, they are way more different and advance than BG and sprite characters. you could almost say its a movie of some sort.

[BananaShiki]

those are interactive cutscenes, they are way more different and advance than BG and sprite characters. you could almost say its a movie of some sort.

u wot? Those are all sprites and CGs. That's no cutscene, that's simply how Mahoyo does all its scenes.

It just happens to be much more complex than most VNs, but it's still all CGs and sprites, nothing more.

[Decay]

VNs like Eden* which used waaay more CGs (& BGs) rather than sprites were pretty fun to read imo; actually made the reading experience feel more "lively" than a VN relying more on sprites.

 

Sprites can be fun too, particularly in the case of Yuzusoft's Dracu-Riot!. Character expressions change mid-sentence rather than sentence by sentence etc. to make things more "lively"

 

~~

The ideal future VN has animated sprites and abundance of BGs.

People always say this about eden, but it still felt the same as any old sprite-based game to me, due to the way they did the CGs. It was all the same few sprite variations for every character in every scene. Compare that to ef, where Minori did an insane amount of custom work for every CG and the characters felt more like they were in the world instead of floating above a background. 

[Eclipsed]

People always say this about eden, but it still felt the same as any old sprite-based game to me, due to the way they did the CGs. It was all the same few sprite variations for every character in every scene. Compare that to ef, where Minori did an insane amount of custom work for every CG and the characters felt more like they were in the world instead of floating above a background. 

I need to read ef.

 

I need to read VNs in general

[Decay]

I probably oversold it, now that I read what I just wrote. But really, eden's "cgs" were just a bunch of sprites overlaid on a background, I fail to see how that's much different than what most games do. ef's had more effort put into them, I felt, and there were a LOT of them. But there were also a lot of CGs where they didn't put much effort into it at all and put some of the standard character sprites over a background like in eden. But even those were done with more care than in eden, making them fit in much better. 

[firecat]

u wot? Those are all sprites and CGs. That's no cutscene, that's simply how Mahoyo does all its scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU-27H4XNAc

It just happens to be much more complex than most VNs, but it's still all CGs and sprites, nothing more.

 

until i see some kind of behind the scene video, i will think of it as interactive cutscene.

[Narcosis]

until i see some kind of behind the scene video, i will think of it as interactive cutscene.

It's art assets - bones, as they call them - moving around the screen in a similiar way to how flash files work. The rest of the effects is usually done either by shader post-processing or clever use of image masks.

[BananaShiki]

until i see some kind of behind the scene video, i will think of it as interactive cutscene.

You cannot be this dense, oh my god.

[firecat]

It's art assets - bones, as they call them - moving around the screen in a similiar way to how flash files work. The rest of the effects is usually done either by shader post-processing or clever use of image masks.

 

 

You cannot be this dense, oh my god.

 

so its like movies, they also do the same thing with art assets. just look at any movie and you'll see that they do that.

 

so yes BananaShiki it's an interactive cutscene not a BG or a sprite character.

[Narcosis]

It's hard to call it an "interactive" cutscene. It's just a bunch of bitmaps with transculency, moving and morphing on the screen.

[Deep Blue]

eden* felt rushed at the end, they tossed like 4 cgs in like 1 min...without any reason and the rest wasn't any spectacular either, just the voice sync for the characters, ef was much more bigger in terms of production value, it looks almost like an anime, there are scenes where the characters even "walk" while they are talking, you have the whole story of chihiro told like a child book, Kyosuke uses his camera all the time and the effect of his scenes while he is filming is really cool, etc, etc. There is no comparison between eden and elf.

 

If you want to feel like you are watching an anime read muv luv alt or ef

[Decay]

so its like movies, they also do the same thing with art assets. just look at any movie and you'll see that they do that.

 

so yes BananaShiki it's an interactive cutscene not a BG or a sprite character.

[BananaShiki]

so its like movies, they also do the same thing with art assets. just look at any movie and you'll see that they do that.

 

so yes BananaShiki it's an interactive cutscene not a BG or a sprite character.

I bet you think all of Nekopara is an "interactive cutscene" too