Advice regarding 2D art (image warping) Thread

Hey everyone,

I have a design-related question I'd like to ask:

A friend of mine and I are putting together a mobile game. We are trying to figure out how to design the visuals. None of us has any experience with anything graphics related, so we are planing to hire someone anyway. I'm just trying to find out what I'm supposed to look for.

We need something (relatively) cheap and simple. At the same time, the visuals need to convey realism as much as possible. We are toying with the idea of simply using realistic CG images and to then use image warping (with small amplitudes) of a foreground image (e.g. a knight) that is composed onto a background image (e.g. a castle) to create the illusion of movement. The effect would hopefully be something similar to how Dragon's Crown handles NPCs (the guild master in the video below @06:38):

Youtube.com

What are your thoughts on this? Are there better/ alternative approaches?

Edited by: MajinBoo

I don't think there is a better way to approach this. It's a design choice after all. You could do it differently for sure, but is it what you want? I'd recommend do check some more similar games to gain more references and see what you really like. It's always great to have examples, like the one you've already shown here, for the artist since it does the best job of communicating your idea.

First thing that came to my mind was the GW2 trailer, which used a similar way to compose their trailer: Youtube.com

cheers.

Danke dir fürs Antworten.

Yeah, that is pretty much what we had in mind. In another forum I was told to check out the concept of a "parallax effect":
Youtube.com

From what I understand, it's basically moving 2D layers through 3D space. From a technical standpoint, is this the same thing as the image warping mentioned in the opening post? Is it something else entirely, but with similar results?

MajinBoo wrote: Danke dir fürs Antworten.

Yeah, that is pretty much what we had in mind. In another forum I was told to check out the concept of a "parallax effect":
Youtube.com

From what I understand, it's basically moving 2D layers through 3D space. From a technical standpoint, is this the same thing as the image warping mentioned in the opening post? Is it something else entirely, but with similar results?

I don't think you really need a real 3D space for that. Just think in layers and move the objects independently from one another. Should already do the trick, I guess. On the other hand, I have never implemented it myself yet. To create the breathing effect of that warrior in the reference you gave, image warping might already get close to that. However, have a look at the lighting, it's not static and moves independently, aswell.

Edited by: iqew

Parallax scrolling is essentially layers of images moving at different speeds to create the illusion of dynamic perspective. It's an easy & effective effect to achieve.

I believe that spine, might be worth looking into. It's a sprite part animation tool, but it also comes with a mesh tool which allows you to twist & warp 2D image frames.

Youtube.com (you can see an example of mesh warping from about the 1:30 mark).

Alright, cool. Thx to both of you for the feedback.