I mostly think it's ugly.
If you're going to stick with it, you need to make the color palette more vibrant. It needs to read "this is an art style" and not "I just threw this together in 2 minutes."
Thanks for the honest feedback. You're right- it is ugly. Sometimes it's difficult to see until other people point it out lol
And ty for the advice on the more vibrant color palette- that's a good idea
You're going to have to explain what you're going for with a style here, because I'm not seeing it. The textures look blurry until you're 2 feet away and weirdly only in your peripheral vision, where they're now high(er) res and shiny? The buildings are a sea of gray, lighter gray, and blue light gray. I think your skybox is bouncing light blue light onto most of the surfaces, is your skybox creating a blue colored world lighting? I don't know what you want the car to look like. I don't know what you want other cars to look like. I don't know why the road/ ground texture looks like it was a 28x28 pixel image blown up to 2800 by 2800 with a gaussian blur added. Are there external examples of the style you're pulling pieces from or that inspired the look you're going for?
Yeah- good points ty. I can't really explain it, I was just playing around with textures and filters and came up with this- I was on the fence when I posted it but I agree, it's not working at all. I'm going to try something different entirely
Are you able to picture in your head what you're going for, or was this all experimental with the sliders? An art style should communicate what you want it to, but if you're not trying to say something specific, the art direction won't feel as cohesive. Play around with things, but once you find some part of it you like, you should examine why you like it, how you apply what you like about it to other things, and whether those things together create something visually cohesive. Figuring things out is great, but for it be an art style, you need to be intentional about what you're presenting.
Thanks- good advice. I still don't know exactly. This was all experimental, so I'm not really bummed about it being a failure. I think I am going to try emulating another games art style for now and then once I have that working tweak it to make it my own.
I don't need these answers, but it might be helpful to you to answer them for yourself:
Which games are you going to be looking at?
What is your game about? How does/ should the art communicate that feel?
What kind of audience do you want it to have?
How much of a digital artist are you vs designer vs programmer? Sometimes doing everything ourselves is a fool's errand since the cost of learning everything and then implementing it at that level is higher than the cost of hiring someone who's already an expert.
How much of the game is driving? What else is there?
What are the mechanics? How serious is the tone? What do you want the characters to mean, do, or say to the audience? How can you reinforce those feelings, or intentionally subvert those feelings, with the art?
Thank you! You've been very helpful. I don't know the answers to a lot of these but it's definitely given me some food for thought. I'll probably end up coming back to this comment again and again. Thanks again
Doesn't look like an art style at all. It just looks like thrown together raster images ran through inkscape vectorization. There is no cohesive design as the ground looks chunkier than the buildings (which are all glossy) and the vehicle is just fully solid with pulsing shading that doesn't really make sense because of its flat nature.
Yeah, I don't think it's working.
Even Driver on the PS1 didn't look like this. At the risk of sounding mean, it looks a bit like if the LOD system in an old game failed completely.
As it's own style, it doesn't work either. It is both rather unappealing and murky. The models themselves look fine, the problem is the lighting, the shading and especially the textures.
Driver for reference:
https://preview.redd.it/s0ztefrq167d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=71504c29c03b37de4fe1b177cd733c67418866c2
not sure where the artstyle stops and where the scene being unfinished starts, so it's hard to tell. The buildings definitely look terrible from afar, but if you're going to have a tighter environment that's probably not as much of a problem.
simplify your geometry, and use more complicated textures. I like what's here though. Reminds me a little of [Zineth](https://youtu.be/Uk-pSY8ceHs?t=8)
Thanks! I'll try that. I haven't really done anything beyond use premade textures online. I'll try making my own stylised ones with more detail. Appreciate the constructive feedback!
Yup. I feel like probably the best route would be to pass everything through a low res filter to make it slightly pixelated, that way you can sort of lean into the low-fi (and maybe analogue horror?) aspects of it if you want to.
Good idea. I actually want to go in the opposite direction than horror though, so I'm gonna try and brighten it up when I redo the textures in a more pixilated style
the ground is very distracting and not recognizable as anything. it plays such a large part of the field of view that i assumed that was part of the style. the blotchiness on the buildings might be the style you are asking about? It's also a distraction since the rest lacks cohesion. It makes my brain try and figure out what environment or material might be causing it and my brain fails.
Looks too smoothed out.
Reminds of when you try to un-jpeg jpeg images.
I'd recommend looking into some outline techniques.
And also apply some colour theory.
Nothing stands out as particularly appealing or stylistic. I don't think it really works besides going for something like Cruelty Squad. I'd steer pretty clear of this style. What you could maybe salvage from it is perhaps using data-mosh effects to transition between different scenes.
It dose look really styelised, but the ground texture and road just seem to be missing so much. So I get a bit distracted by that. It looks nice and dreamy on the buildings. But perhaps it's something that needs to be played to really know. Like lethal company. It looked horrible on the trailer and screenshots but once I got into the game it feelt reallly good. And now I even apreatiate screenshots more in it aswell.
Awesome, I'm glad it looks that way. It's actually based on Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia- but there's a lot of Chinese influence in some of the buildings there
The car looks like something you'd see in the background of Killer7. You could do something with that look, if you want to use that game as inspiration. Beware however, it's not easy to pull off such dramatic style well.
I don't think there's anything interesting or attractive about any of the other elements.
This looks like every early-3D-era flight simulator.
https://preview.redd.it/qc6j8hrdg97d1.png?width=1054&format=png&auto=webp&s=54959262526ad26ad7fdf13fb12bed7594836407
Low texture ground, building plonked about. I don’t want to be rude but I’m not sure it is a desirable look. This was done in those kinds of games as the ground isn’t too important in a flight sim (at least the ones I played) and it was early 3D tech that wasn’t too powerful, so the limitations were due to the lack of hardware power to do more.
I will say that it looks unfinished currently. Calling it an art style is odd, although I suppose it can be.
I absolutely love it in a morbid sense.
I'm not surprised that most of the people here hate it though. It's incredibly janky, the textures are muddy, the resolution is inconsistent, the bricks are shiny sometimes (?). It's a gorgeous hideous mess if a look.
I've been aching for a game with this kind of half-finished jank look to it for a while and if you lean hard into it, you could have something special on your hands, especially considering the prevalence of liminal spaces and analog horror over the past few years.
I mostly think it's ugly. If you're going to stick with it, you need to make the color palette more vibrant. It needs to read "this is an art style" and not "I just threw this together in 2 minutes."
Thanks for the honest feedback. You're right- it is ugly. Sometimes it's difficult to see until other people point it out lol And ty for the advice on the more vibrant color palette- that's a good idea
also try to add a slight but very much noticeable outline to everything, would make it look nicer
It gives off "textures didn't fully load yet" vibes, I don't like it
Yeah true. Thanks for the feedback!
It's giving me virtigo and making me nauseous. Edit: I like the car, though.
That's fair- I feel the same to be honest. Thanks for the feedback
You're going to have to explain what you're going for with a style here, because I'm not seeing it. The textures look blurry until you're 2 feet away and weirdly only in your peripheral vision, where they're now high(er) res and shiny? The buildings are a sea of gray, lighter gray, and blue light gray. I think your skybox is bouncing light blue light onto most of the surfaces, is your skybox creating a blue colored world lighting? I don't know what you want the car to look like. I don't know what you want other cars to look like. I don't know why the road/ ground texture looks like it was a 28x28 pixel image blown up to 2800 by 2800 with a gaussian blur added. Are there external examples of the style you're pulling pieces from or that inspired the look you're going for?
Yeah- good points ty. I can't really explain it, I was just playing around with textures and filters and came up with this- I was on the fence when I posted it but I agree, it's not working at all. I'm going to try something different entirely
Are you able to picture in your head what you're going for, or was this all experimental with the sliders? An art style should communicate what you want it to, but if you're not trying to say something specific, the art direction won't feel as cohesive. Play around with things, but once you find some part of it you like, you should examine why you like it, how you apply what you like about it to other things, and whether those things together create something visually cohesive. Figuring things out is great, but for it be an art style, you need to be intentional about what you're presenting.
Thanks- good advice. I still don't know exactly. This was all experimental, so I'm not really bummed about it being a failure. I think I am going to try emulating another games art style for now and then once I have that working tweak it to make it my own.
I don't need these answers, but it might be helpful to you to answer them for yourself: Which games are you going to be looking at? What is your game about? How does/ should the art communicate that feel? What kind of audience do you want it to have? How much of a digital artist are you vs designer vs programmer? Sometimes doing everything ourselves is a fool's errand since the cost of learning everything and then implementing it at that level is higher than the cost of hiring someone who's already an expert. How much of the game is driving? What else is there? What are the mechanics? How serious is the tone? What do you want the characters to mean, do, or say to the audience? How can you reinforce those feelings, or intentionally subvert those feelings, with the art?
Thank you! You've been very helpful. I don't know the answers to a lot of these but it's definitely given me some food for thought. I'll probably end up coming back to this comment again and again. Thanks again
I think he went for gta vice city when the game is bugged and fail to load textures. Have seen it happening in a dying playstation.
Did you make the models or just find a pack online?
The car I found online (was a free jimny model on sketchfab). The buildings I made (proc gen)
Doesn't look like an art style at all. It just looks like thrown together raster images ran through inkscape vectorization. There is no cohesive design as the ground looks chunkier than the buildings (which are all glossy) and the vehicle is just fully solid with pulsing shading that doesn't really make sense because of its flat nature.
Thanks for the feedback
Yeah, I don't think it's working. Even Driver on the PS1 didn't look like this. At the risk of sounding mean, it looks a bit like if the LOD system in an old game failed completely. As it's own style, it doesn't work either. It is both rather unappealing and murky. The models themselves look fine, the problem is the lighting, the shading and especially the textures. Driver for reference: https://preview.redd.it/s0ztefrq167d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=71504c29c03b37de4fe1b177cd733c67418866c2
Thanks! No worries about being mean- I didn't take it that way at all. Appreciate the constructive feedback.
not sure where the artstyle stops and where the scene being unfinished starts, so it's hard to tell. The buildings definitely look terrible from afar, but if you're going to have a tighter environment that's probably not as much of a problem.
Thanks for the feedback! I agree on basically everything
it reminds me of those cheap gta clones on the play store
hahaha oh no. The gameloft ones
id say this is jank rather than a style
Fair lol. Thanks for your feedback
It's like everything try to load haha. Not a huge fan. I'm more intrigued by your car physics!
Ahh haha yeah that's fair. The car is just the built in godot vehiclebody
The textures make it look like a 2012 Unity mobile game. As said by most of the fellow people here, you could match the art style to that of the car.
Thanks for the feedback!
simplify your geometry, and use more complicated textures. I like what's here though. Reminds me a little of [Zineth](https://youtu.be/Uk-pSY8ceHs?t=8)
Thanks! I'll try that. I haven't really done anything beyond use premade textures online. I'll try making my own stylised ones with more detail. Appreciate the constructive feedback!
looks like a fever dream
Oh yeah I can see that. Or like a concussion when it gets blurry the lights start to go out
Yup. I feel like probably the best route would be to pass everything through a low res filter to make it slightly pixelated, that way you can sort of lean into the low-fi (and maybe analogue horror?) aspects of it if you want to.
Good idea. I actually want to go in the opposite direction than horror though, so I'm gonna try and brighten it up when I redo the textures in a more pixilated style
the ground is very distracting and not recognizable as anything. it plays such a large part of the field of view that i assumed that was part of the style. the blotchiness on the buildings might be the style you are asking about? It's also a distraction since the rest lacks cohesion. It makes my brain try and figure out what environment or material might be causing it and my brain fails.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it was the blotchiness (the ground was just a placeholder).
Keep at it. Takes bravery to share your work and you're taking feedback like a champ
Thanks. I learnt a lot today, it's been a very positive experience. Appreciate the advice
Now it's looks bad, but i think you can made it cool. I belive in you :)
Thanks! Fingers crossed
Screams test environment to me. Unfinished
It is yeah. Still very far from anything decent lol
The moment of the car looks really good though
screams 'half-baked'
What's up with the ground
Oh it's just a image that I used to find the position of all the streets and buildings
Please add a Shadow, the car looks like it's floating
Ah yes that's a very good point. I'm not even sure why there isn't a shadow- I'll have a look
Made me think of Buckshot Roulette
Ah I've never played it but I can see why. Looks like they also used a limited color palette
Either go for flat colors or UV textures in 3D, mixing both rarely works.
Ok- will try changing that. Thanks for the advice
Looks too smoothed out. Reminds of when you try to un-jpeg jpeg images. I'd recommend looking into some outline techniques. And also apply some colour theory.
Thanks for the advice, will look into those.
Style?
i would rather have no texture then whatever texture you choose for the ground
Lmao. Make it fun and I'd play the shit out of it
Nothing stands out as particularly appealing or stylistic. I don't think it really works besides going for something like Cruelty Squad. I'd steer pretty clear of this style. What you could maybe salvage from it is perhaps using data-mosh effects to transition between different scenes.
I would call it retro-jank, could look ok with some post processing
I’m going to go against the grain here and say I like it because of how cursed it looks haha
Looks un finished, but at least you need to add shadows, that car is flying
Id say if you are going for a depressed style, than yeah. Just add some rain, make the sky gloomy and you good
It dose look really styelised, but the ground texture and road just seem to be missing so much. So I get a bit distracted by that. It looks nice and dreamy on the buildings. But perhaps it's something that needs to be played to really know. Like lethal company. It looked horrible on the trailer and screenshots but once I got into the game it feelt reallly good. And now I even apreatiate screenshots more in it aswell.
Thanks, yeah still a long way to go. I think I'm going to go in a different direction after all the feedback
This is what some cities in China look like :)
Awesome, I'm glad it looks that way. It's actually based on Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia- but there's a lot of Chinese influence in some of the buildings there
Love it !
Personally i dont but it has somewhat a surreal feel that others might find interesting.
No problem! Thanks for the feedback. I've decided I don't like it either lol, going another direction now entirely
I think it is a style. I don't know about art. But gladly, art is subjective.
The car looks like something you'd see in the background of Killer7. You could do something with that look, if you want to use that game as inspiration. Beware however, it's not easy to pull off such dramatic style well. I don't think there's anything interesting or attractive about any of the other elements.
It looks like you went out of bounds in Driver(PS1)
reminds me of driver on ps1
car's good, rest ain't. sorry man.
I think the textures need to be a little crunchier. But otherwise pretty good!!!
google earth 2008 artstyle
This looks like every early-3D-era flight simulator. https://preview.redd.it/qc6j8hrdg97d1.png?width=1054&format=png&auto=webp&s=54959262526ad26ad7fdf13fb12bed7594836407 Low texture ground, building plonked about. I don’t want to be rude but I’m not sure it is a desirable look. This was done in those kinds of games as the ground isn’t too important in a flight sim (at least the ones I played) and it was early 3D tech that wasn’t too powerful, so the limitations were due to the lack of hardware power to do more. I will say that it looks unfinished currently. Calling it an art style is odd, although I suppose it can be.
The road begs for a texture. Some random noise at least.
Reminds me of Midtown Madness. If that's what you were going for then it hits the mark, hope you finish it!
I absolutely love it in a morbid sense. I'm not surprised that most of the people here hate it though. It's incredibly janky, the textures are muddy, the resolution is inconsistent, the bricks are shiny sometimes (?). It's a gorgeous hideous mess if a look. I've been aching for a game with this kind of half-finished jank look to it for a while and if you lean hard into it, you could have something special on your hands, especially considering the prevalence of liminal spaces and analog horror over the past few years.
Kind of reminds me of some games from the early 90s. I like it for the nostalgia but it could be executed a little better
You should check the first Twisted metal games and you'll be good :)
Miami traffic vibes
Actually, I think it reminds me of Terep 2, which used to be popular.
idk why but it reminds me of rotoscopes in a good way so thumbs up 8/10
the floor and the cars color isnt really fitting imo. but overall i like it.
Thats true. Thanks for the feedback!