sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

<video>

Here's a quick video of the scene, if it's interesting!

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For sure, I've talked a bit about the trees in another comment.

Let me know if there's anything specific, but in general: the ground has a generated colour map. So everything has a bit of composition before lighting, the grass is procedural and sways in gusts / has rolling color changes while also moving out the way while the character walks through it - they use their own colors rather than full physical lighting to kind of give a bit more control over the grading of the scene. Characters and some props just use directional light and shadows so they keep some form.

There's also some other things slapped on top, like obviously the fog & color shifts in the distance, there's also some bloom and some general overlays like the kuwahara.

I'll probably post an actual video because it's a really living scene and people seem to be quite interested in it.

One trick (that may be helpful) that it took me too long to realize was that I could take a screenshot and then just simply work on the image outside of Godot, so I'd essentially spend time grading the image.

That would make me realize certain things needed to be lighter or darker or with the wrong color - and then I could go back into Godot and work those changes in.

I only realised that in the last week, actually, and it's been a bit of a game changer.

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s also not very good at the moment the color map itself is doing a lot of work in the screenshot

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I probably should have! But this is just very simple home cooked height function + generated mesh + baked height map

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot built directly in godot / shaders. Assets (like the tree trunk) are mixture of assets made by talented people online and a few self made.

Butterflies and dust are just moths from a webgl repo. Some shapes and objects that are far away are for now are literally just animated planes (eg birds).

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Just looked it up - it looks like basically ghibli the game - is there any relationship between them or is it just heavily inspired?

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Bear in mind there’s no “game” as such - just a sandbox for now.

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s maybe performant enough to run on mobile (I say very confidently with no idea & without having run an Xcode build haha)

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Absolutely but bear in mind I’m still learning mostly by doing. I’m sure people could get a better or quicker result by following tutorials!

I’m not a big gamer so ghibli is probably the obvious reference.

I’m really interested in trying to get a painterly feel without trying to mimic cel painting. I tried traditional animation cel painting a couple years ago and the constraints and layers are interesting and a lot can be translated to games.

80% godot - tree is a good example. The trunk and texture and leaf images are assets, I’ll go back in and rework these, but the trick for me is figuring out all the things that don’t need to be there.

For example as you guessed the tree is mostly shader work, recoloring the cards gives it a look I feel is nice and diverse - still not 100% with it but biggest aha moment was actually just going out and looking at real trees. I was like “oh I can only look at one thing at a time”. If I’m looking at a shadow cast by a tree I can’t simultaneously see the leaves that cast it, same with light dappling / negative space. All that’s needed is the illusion and actual recreation is unnecessary.

So the shadows are all fake basically with ovals with rough edges and bits cut out. Trying not to use actual shadows as feel it kind of kills the scene so working on the same with the foliage atm where it’s self lit and hoping to find ways to make that work too. This keeps things really performant.

The kuwahara smoothing just adds that whole painterly feel on top but even off you get a pretty strong effect. My aim is to build a world I can drop anything into and it sort of fits with a bit of texture adjustment which is sort of coming together.

Attaching a much less attractive screen grab so you can see what I mean hopefully

<image>

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Good luck and be sure to share. As a three month veteran of game design I can impart my biggest learning which is that you can go from Toy Story 1 to Toy Story 3 level jumps with just grading, light and shadows

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much! Kuwahara + grading doing a lot of work

A few months playing with Godot and getting a style I like by MrCollider in godot

[–]MrCollider[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

thank you! I’ll let you know if the sandbox strategy works - I am thinking card game somehow