Guide on how to convert idea into actual design.

News & General Discussion
1

Hi,

I am a programmer, if I am provided with Assets (2D art, 3D art, music) I can create the game.
However, I am trying to create a game from my idea. Started with the programming part and making progress towards proof of concept. All good. I am happy with it.

Now, I tried to think of how it should look, the art style, placement of UI/Game elements but dude am I lost enough!

This is obviously not my forte, to design things.
So, I started looking to get it out-sourced or hire someone. This is turning out to be even hard.

Whom do I hire to do such things? Concept artist, Graphic Designer?
How do I look for a person who can turn an idea, that is in my mind, into a graphical reality and deliver it to me in assets.

Say even if I hire someone and pay them, what are the chances he/she will nail it, would I be annoying to ask for iteration (of course I would be?)
What if I down right regret there style after hiring them?

I canā€™t go on trying out 10 different artists to nail it. That would hurt my budget a lot.

My question is how to handle this?
Is there a guide for this part of the game.

Sorry if this sounds stupid, I am lost and afraid at the same time.

2

Here is how I work with the two artists on my teamā€¦

I have an idea of how I want the character to look. I talk to them, give them background info on the character, and then ask for concept art. Usually a simple sketch, sometimes they make digital art.

They show me the art, I ask them to make specific changes. When the art is exactly how I want itā€¦or more often, better than how I thought it would be, I give it to the 3d artist to make the model. I ask periodically to look at the model, but I also know that it will look blah until the textures and normals are applied. :slight_smile:

You can do the same thing if you hire someone. Be careful though. Others can better tell you how to handle the contract and exchange of money. Just remember, often, but not always, you get what you pay for. Make sure you look at portfolios and get references, best thing is references from people who are are active on the forums.

If you get the concept art down, you should not have to worry about hiring 10 artist. Have the potential hire draw you a concept art of something, a character, environmental scene, etc., and pay them for the sketch/art, amount depending on how much work went into the concept art.

If they do not ā€œnail itā€, then find someone else. You will be out the money for the first concept art but not for an entire character or scene full of props.

Remember though, a good concept artist can sometimes, or even often, bring something to your ideas that is better than you can do. So be open minded. If you are rigid, you may never get what you need.

As this sounds like it might be your first game, I highly suggest looking over the asset store first, see what might work for you. You can save tons of money that way and if later you want to switch your stuff out for custom and you have the money to do, you can do that.

No reason to be scared, just be smart. :slight_smile: Custom artwork is expensive so as long as you realize that are not fooled by people who tell you that you can get it for cheap, then you should be fine.

3

Sounds like trying to find a wife/husband/SO.

You wonā€™t really know if itā€™s right until after the fact. You have to trust your instincts as much as you need to tally the proā€™s and conā€™s ā€“ I mean, thinking purely analytically. In the end, all you can do is be yourself, express yourself fully and to the best of your ability, and if your karma is good you should find an appropriate partner without too much drama.

If you know that reading people and communicating isnā€™t your forte, perhaps you can only work with people who are willing to do some free samples? I think that would invite people other than experienced professionals, but you never know what talented beginner you might discover that way.

And I think getting some concept art down is a good idea. Consider doing it yourself if you really want to save money. Even if it sucks, stick figures colored outside the lines will do a better job of conveying a theme than you can do alone with words. And just like programming, art is something that can be learned even if its way outside your comfort zone. You donā€™t need any natural talent to just get the basics down enough to make some concept sketches. Most digital apps really cut down the amount of actual hand-eye coordination you might think an artist would need. That effort may be worthwhile towards getting an actual artist able to understand your vision.

4

Thank you Teila,
This is great info. Makes more sense on how to approach this!

Yea already been through asset store, while I got few things from there, the design/art is kinda niche. With your tips though I feel confident to approach this in an attempt to get my first concept art done.

Yea first game I wanna invest in and actually release, have done few prototypes tho.

thanks again!

5

Thank for your input on this, BIGTIMEMASTER.
Haha yea feels something like that.

As Teila said you get what you pay for, so I gotta invest and I am prepared to lose some in experimenting. Time is more of a constraint than money at the moment. So free is not an option.

Was scared as I wasnā€™t sure of my approach at all, now thatā€™s been put to rest.

Yea I do try time to time to bring my inner artist out, with iPad/Apple Pencil, but other than hobby really donā€™t have patience to do that for a game when instead I can do cool stuff with code.

Cheers

6

You donā€™t need to be an artist to figure out what art styles you want. And because art style can have so much impact on technical implementations of other things, the answer is you need to know a good deal about that area, short of actually having the hard skills to create it.

Game developers need to have a broad base of knowledge. Like you might not be able to create models or textures, I know I canā€™t. But I know a lot right up to that point. I can describe to a modeler what kind of mesh geometry I want, the type of shading to use, etcā€¦

Of course it takes time to learn that stuff. The main point is donā€™t think that you donā€™t need to know that kind of thing as a ā€˜developerā€™. Because in this business you do.

1 Like
7

@Codetrix
My answer is pretty straight forward - Keep learning.

Let me share with you my little story.
(Iā€™m apologize if any grammar errors since English is not my main language.)

I studied as 3D artist and I love to make games. I can create 3D art assets without a problem but coding. I know that I just need one programmer then we can start a two men indie game development project already but cost some money to hire. Exactly what you are thinking too. I strongly believe nothing is impossible hence I start searching many online coding tutorials and learn from them. I started on learning Unity Java Script which I feel more simpler from a perspective of zero coding foundation knowledge. I started trying to code some simple point and clicks, space shooter, brickout, arcade games and none of them succeed due to Iā€™m still fresh on coding but I learned something on each failure, this is the value.

2 years later, a programmer friends advised me that better to learn C# because of its OOP concept and it compile faster. I have no idea what is OOP and how it works but I try to search tons of tutorials online and learn as much as I can. Having a hard time converting coding style from Unity Java Script to C# but Iā€™m getting used to it quite fast ,maybe because I have some foundation already. Again, I keep trying to create some simple games to test my coding skills. After 2 years, I successfully created a fully playable mobile games, finally. Although my programmer friend said that my codes are like writing articles (Not generic) but Iā€™m very happy already. With coding knowledge I learned, I can additionally help my programmer friends while doing my artwork to create our game.

Currently Iā€™m still keep learning on C# coding and trying to learn as much foundation as possible. Meanwhile, same goal applies to my original skills - 3D Art. In additional, UI/UX, particles, VFX, BGM, marketing, monetizing and other aspects.

This is how I transform myself from a pure artist into a half programmer, half artist. I suggest to learn both art and programming since they are the main elements on game development. While the other aspects, choose those you like and learn it or just understanding their foundation. So itā€™s easier to technically communicate with people on different professional. I talk albedo, alpha test, vertex normal, PNG, TGA, UV unwrapping, pivot and so on with 3D artist while discussing rigidbody.velocity, Time.fixedDeltaTime, virtual override, singleton pattern, FPS with programmers on my current team.

This is how I turns my idea into product.
Hope my story got inspired you something.
Iā€™m Game Designer.:wink:

1 Like
8

Good to hear your story @AkiraWong89

Itā€™s not that I am afraid to learn, @Teila got it right, but I see my post bringing confusion that I am not able to do it even a little.

To put it more clearly, I have already out grown the phase of making games alone, with good programming + amateur art.

However, now I wanna get into quality games that people would spend money on, my hobby for Art wonā€™t ever reach the quality standards I expect from my game for paid entertainment in a reasonable time scale. So hiring artist is a necessity to reach visual quality goals.

Hard part wasā€¦ how to approach an artist and communicating the idea to get end result I imagine.
In programming, my clients can provide me with spec sheet and I can deliver exactly what they ask for but in art thereā€™s a lot of experimentation, I was just a little bit worried there on if I would annoy the hired artist by doing the guess work.

As a programmer I wonā€™t even accept a clients project if he is guessing specs, reason I was afraid to guess work my idea with artist.

I hired the artist this week, and I learned itā€™s a lot of idea bouncing around, doodling, discussing. :smile:

9

Technical and creative disciplines are very different.

In a technical discipline you dont want to hear ā€œa bit like a cross between and thingy and a doodahā€, you need to know exactly how far between the thingy and the doodah ( lerp(thingy, doodah, 0.0113544474455) :sunglasses: )

In a creative discipline there isnā€™t really an ā€œexactā€ anything, you can get a bunch of source materials that are ā€œsort ofā€ what you want it to look like, and let the artist go on from there. Decide on the colour palette (warm, cold, natural etc.) explain the context, any specific requirements from the technical (player is 2 units high, enemies are never more that 2 unity high and wide because of pathfinding etc.) and get together some samples along the lines of what you want (or donā€™t want) and work with the artist.

Yes itā€™ll feel odd :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
10

Also do not forget the iterative nature of the product. Whoever you hire will most likely NOT get it right the first time. Capturing the idea will take some feedback loops. But once the assets are the game, they will still continue to change, to some extent, to adapt to gameplay iterations : balancing, legibility, etc.

Iā€™d say try to find someone you can work with, not someone you just ā€œhireā€.

11

waitā€¦ iteration is how itā€™s doneā€¦ you make some art, itā€™s OK, but not perfect, you work on it some more, etcā€¦ just like the first Basic Unity Tutorial saysā€¦

iterationā€¦ my first iteration usually doesnā€™t even have any lighting or textures, just shapeā€¦

12

Eh, I donā€™t think the two disciplines are that different. You need to make a plan for your art, you need to make a plan for your programs. There is room for experimentation in both, which is why designing your workflow to allow iterative passes is beneficial.

If your approach to art is, ā€œMeh, I donā€™t know, maybe blue, maybe yellow? Letā€™s just see what kind of mood Iā€™m inā€¦ā€, I doubt youā€™ll be getting things done in a timely manner.

13

Iā€™ll talk with you about it. Pm me if you want.

You need to do things in a logical order and set realistic expectations.