Hello everyone, Nick here again with another daily dev topic. Today, we will be talking about sprite direction.
There are different ways one can approach implementation of sprites in one's Visual Novel. You can have static sprites, animated sprites or anything between. We elected for a more subtle approach in the Ghost of Alcantra.
Now, just because an effect is subtle, doesn't mean it isn't effective. We receive our sprites as layered .psd files with each modifiable sprite part as its own individual layer. This means we can mix and match sprite combinations as we see fit. Alexandria for example has 3 outfits, 3 eye permutations, 8 mouth types, 5 eyebrow positions, and 5 "extras" (extras being emotional modifiers like a bead of sweat). This amounts to a lot of different possible combinations. But how does one use these combinations effectively? That answer depends on what sort of story you are trying to make, but I will outline my approach.
Let us take a look at a couple screenshots from the first scene of the VN. Alexandria is wary of Nick in this moment, so the angry brow and smaller eye are clear choices. I kept the mouth neutral instead of a frown because while wary, the question she was just asked was innocuous.
Now lets look at a scene with multiple characters. Nick's Mom has a bubbly personality, and tends to push for her way, hence her happy, bubbly expression. Uncle Kyle is Nick's Mom's brother, and is used to her antics, hence the reminiscent, distant expression. Nick's Father is serious and anxious, hence his more determined expression.
For my last example, let us take a look at this image of Detective Storm. She has established herself to be a fierce woman, who does little to filter her feelings. So for a piece of dialogue like this, an amused expression, rather than a saddened one is appropriate. But she is also recalling something, so to better evoke that effect, I have her look to the side. Eyes are super important in indicating the change in emotion of a character, especially in their transition from one to the other.
I could go on forever on this for every sprite change, but I will leave things at three. This gives you a taste of the sprite integration process for this work. I hope was able to effectively convey my mostly intuitive process to you all in a non-intuitive way.
Until next time,
Nick