This is the start of a series going over the creation process of the backgrounds and environments in The Far Rings! Hm, I hoped to be able to post bi-weekly, but with Actually Make Game and Life Don't Wait, maybe bi-monthly is more realistic, for now, haha.
Today’s topic is on the brainstorming and early conceptualization of the game’s three background illustrations! Future blog posts will go over each background’s creation individually in more detail ^_^ .
When we started Global Game Jam 2019, our unofficial team leader Heiden helped us narrow down the scope of the game right off the bat in many keys ways, as described in the last post about characters. The same rule was applied for deciding background/ environment scope! 3 was the magic number for the jam!
Scope-Control for Settings: 'Closed Room' Technique
They specifically described a technique limiting the scope of a story’s environment by describing a ‘closed room’ scenario. I asked Heiden for more details, as it interested me quite a bit at the time ^_^ . This is what Heiden had to say:
“So usually for game jams since I have to keep the scope small, I try to first figure out to what extent are my characters allowed to go.
I sort of treat it as a locked room mystery, just with no mystery:
Everything the characters need are in the locked "rooms" and are not allowed to go anywhere else, sometimes the "rooms" are a ship in space, a ship at sea, or maybe a locked house the characters can’t leave.
Since we know for certain how many rooms there are in each of these settings, and going outside of these rooms would result in death, we can easily limit the amount of backgrounds we will have to draw.
If your plot is more "open" (a character is on a journey, is exploring a town with many characters, etc.) , it's hard to know immediately how many BGs you'll need, and there's more temptation to expand outside of even the known "rooms", b.c the characters COULD go somewhere else without dying.
Put constraints on the environment, and then figure out how to weave your plot through those set number of rooms.
Plays do it all the time too. Like that ^ just with games."
Wow, it’s interesting to see the lessons that can be learned by looking at the techniques and thinking of other trades like writing and theater :D . Games seem especially well-suited to borrowing from others!
How does that look applied to The Far Rings? Well, the 'closed room' is a spaceship, the 'hard restriction' is the death vacuum of space, and the rooms themselves are based on the characters.
Thumbnails:
Settings that Serve the Characters
Of our two artists, Debbie (RyeTaran) was much more familiar with drawing environments, which Mira (me) was not at all. Debbie was able to quickly draw out thumbnail concepts for each room. So it was decided from there that Debbie would be responsible for the background art!
Closed Room Setting: Spaceship
For us, we immediately struck on wanting a scifi space story, so setting the game inside of a small spaceship came naturally.
With three rooms and characters, each one would have a room ‘for them’. So to decide on rooms, we had to first decide the main concept of the characters, since the room would essentially be an extension of their character.
Sleeping Pod Room
Where the MC, a passenger on the ship, spends private time.
The Bridge
Where the captain character would man the ship.
The Cell
Where the alien prisoner was contained.
Do you like her thumbnails? I think they're so cute! Which thumbnail do you like the most? ^_^
Her speed during the jam was the most impressive part! I remember going home late at night for a short nap and script editing, then coming back in the morning to see the background lineart basically done!
Now for another 3-question Q&A! Today it’s with Debbie aka RyeTaran, the background artist :D ! She also has a website showing off all her impressive art and animation work here: https://ryetaran.wixsite.com/website
1. What is the basic steps for your process for creating an environment illustration?
"Bullet point basic steps would be:
> Know the kind of environment you want to make
> Generate ideas/study
> Thumbnail
> Begin larger illustration
First, you obviously gotta know what you’re making. For Far Rings, we knew what we needed pretty early on: a bridge, a sleeping pod room, a cell, and some amount of stars/space in there.
Then you gotta generate ideas through studying the places/environments around you, using pinterest, or google searching (which may actually just lead you back to pinterest). I delved into pinterest specifically hunting for space stations and spaceships that had clean, efficient designs to their interiors. Alluding to the idea the ship was military in design.
I studied what about those images I liked, and then began my thumbnails for the various rooms, focusing on basic shapes and placements of items, and less on minute details. Those would be worked out in the larger illustration.
Once you find the set up and camera angle that you (or you and your team) enjoy, then you move forward into the full piece. From there it’s really a matter of how you approach your personal art pieces. Whether you want to go in with a refining sketch, lineart, flat colors, or what have you.
2. How and where did you learn your environment and background drawing skills? What part of your experiences do you feel was the most impactful for your development?
See, initially I had written a paragraph here about how college didn’t help me learn these skills other than as a space to practice my art technique (which is good and all, but expensive). I got two degrees, film and studio art, but can’t honestly say that they did much to teach me in that regard. Maybe it was just the particular college I went to? Who knows. I’m not here to talk about that. ANYWAY.
Kinda like I said in the previous answer, I learned (and am still learning) how to draw my environments primarily through observation. I catalogued what belonged and fit into a particular scene I was drawing, and I put it there. Some things, like futuristic cockpits of a spaceship designed to be controlled by a single person, will require more than just looking at what’s in the room around you. And that’s what the internet/google is for! Time willing, of course…
For the where part of the question, the answer is everywhere. I drag a sketchbook with me to many, many different places. And if I can’t think of something to draw, or if I spot something particularly interesting, I’ll do a quick observation drawing/life study of it -- I’m personally drawn to architecture and buildings for their clean and interesting shapes, as well as trees because their shapes confuse me.
The part of my experiences I feel are the most impactful for background drawing in general is, I say like the broken record I am, observation and drawing it to commit it to memory. Become the magpie of the art world and collect those shiny, shiny bits of environmental information!!!
3. Are there any insights you learned about making backgrounds specifically from your experience with the GGJ and working on The Far Rings? And what was your favorite part in TFR, environment-wise, to create?
There wasn’t too much in the ways of “making backgrounds” that I learned at the GGJ, but I did come to a realization that being on such a time crunch helped me to not overthink the process.
As far as my favorite environment to create, it would probably be the space background because space is really friggen nifty. But I think i’d be called out of cheating if I gave that answer… so it would be a tie between the knick-knacks in the sleeping pod chamber or all the screens in the bridge."
Wow, she really went into detail for us and I appreciate it a lot as the interviewer! I feel a bit bad for giving our teammates 'homework' like this! They are taking my questions quite seriously heheh ^_^;; .
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment, and ask us any questions! We’ll definitely answer!! :D
Subscribe to be updated on future blog posts to see how each of these backgrounds were developed from here! https://www.thefarrings.com/contact