Hi All!
The problem: I’m working on this Yeti Home Defense game:
And hear from people around about over-saturation and not having single style, but nothing in particular.
What is the right place to discuss game visual style?
E.g. top-5 things that would distract you from playing?
And, as my target is mobile, what could be improved without fps loosing?
My reference style is 3d game kit, the setting is extraterrestrial planet invaded by crystals.
This is the right place. Visual style is just one aspect of game design, but if it’s distracting from gameplay, that’s squarely in the topic of this forum.
The problem isn’t so much the style but the visual literacy:
Comparing the two tells me you need to either start following a class course, which will teach you how to parse visual elements as shape, textures, light, volume, colors, and how to compose them … or to hire a specialist, ie a competent artist.
That said some quick fix, can increase readability, like having clear separation in the saturation domain between pure environment (harmonize the saturation level of the colors) vs dynamic objects (should be at 20% of saturation distance from the environment color).
Ps:
texture as visual elements is not the same as textures as image you put on 3D objects, which can lead to confusing statement like different textures (images) can have different textures (image quality) 
For example cel shaded game tend to have flat textures (image quality) compared to realistic games which have more noisy elements. Even in realistic games textures (images) can have different textures (image quality) like rugged or smooth.
In your case, the main character have a lighting texture (image quality) that is overly smooth compared to the texture underneath (for example the hair), which create visual clash of style and weaken the image. You also have overly harsh shadow and garish color, while the overall “gestalt” (composition) is rather poor.
One way to selectively study the result is to decompose the image into HSL (hue saturation light) component and look at the various contrast in isolation, also a high pass on the light to separate high frequency and low frequency will tells you where are the potent part. This will let you visualize the visual hierarchy like an artist feel it, it you understand what’s going on.
Ok, will try by myself
I have set low saturation and changed explosions and fog from additive to blended shaders -do you feel this looks better?
I need your advice how to make horizon not so sharp line…
The horizon will be taking care by using decoration as framing device like I explained in the post in the OTHER thread. You probably need something that looks like distant background (like mountain, etc…) look at the phantasy star example I shared in the OTHER thread (we should probably keep all discussion to the more active thread).
Also the white stuff below the crystal a great visual blending touch, it’s creating a dampening low saturation transition to a highly saturated elements, which appease a lot the clash, good job. It’s much better than having it read as snow scattered everywhere and fighting visually for importance. Having a similar blending decals under the rock (maybe dirt decals, or some grass around)) would also help not having them seem randomly place with no reason. If the ground is terrain and not just a flat plane, keep the collider flat, but raise a bit the terrain around the rock (and other big elements) to smooth the transition (as if dirt accumulated).
Tree are also scattered randomly, that’s a good thing you use them as back up dancer, but they should probably be scattered in group, and maybe just a bit more variation in height.
Overall it’s a nice improvement.
Don’t hesitate to look at other game, the more you understand the visual concept, the more you see it’s everywhere irrespective of production value, competent artist applies the same composition to AAA or to casual game, from high end to low end, 2D or 3D, movie or game.
Health bar could have a proper background instead of boring rectangle. Make it a bit transparent if possible.
Same applies to the cooldown icons. White text on the white background is ugh.
Ideally make it the same icon, except a bit tinted to the black. In any case, spend some time polishing UI.
It is really important for any user base.
Object placement should follow some general idea. If its a forest - then place place trees in groups / more dense.
Same applies to the rocks. If those are mountains - then it should have some kind of logic or environmental storytelling behind it.
Have some objects at the background with a proper scale to break down a horizon issue. Or raise a terrain + place rocks. Plant some trees etc.
There are a bunch of issues others have noted, but I’ll answer your original question regarding style:
A big thing is to see if things ‘fit’ together. In your opening cutscene, you have some relatively cartoony characters and a low poly tower right up in front. In the background, you see a beautiful realistic sunset. This clashes horribly, and immediately makes it seem like you’re using various styles.
Another example is in the gameplay. The castle ‘nodes’ are relatively high quality, and give a sense of ‘realism,’ while the towers that rise up from them are far more cartoony. This clashes.
Some of the rocks used are using a realistic texture, while some of the trees feel like they got dropped out of a cartoon (albeit one that tries to look realistic.)
I think that is your core issue causing that feedback. Determine whether your game is supposed to look cartoony or realistic, and update the assets to reflect that. Once you fix that, more issues will pop up which you can then fix.
As another point of feedback: The audio in your last video immediately had me mute it. The explosions as they are, are very unpleasant to listen to.
Hi All!
What do you think about this idea:
figures 1 and 2 below create some visual borders of game scene (the composition is not complete, it’s just an idea)
figure 3 represents enemy spawn point
and snowy mountains in back far away
Is the idea good to go (add some details)?
Its a good idea, just the execution is not so good.
Make it look less artificial and more natural.
In most cases you don’t want your borders to be like “here’s an invisible wall”, but rather “this looks not passable”.
Definitely, it was just a draft 
Thanks for your reply!
Regarding s"of the trees feel like they got dropped out of a cartoon (albeit one that tries to look realistic.) " - all vegetation now is borrowed from unity 3d game kit , so either their artists decided that style is good for extraterrestrial planet (my world is extraterrestrial too), or they are mistaken and mixed different styles.
What do you think?
Thanks for your reply!
Regarding Health bar could have a proper background instead of boring rectangle - it is from Unity Tower Defense template, so I believed that unity artists know what they do when they do this style of bar, do they?..
Regarding Trees / plants / rocks placement is too chaotic - on foreground I wanted not to have clear field, i need obstacles for gameplay, on background I can have forest but i doubt that mobile will survive a lot of meshes…
OK, and what if this way - walls with magic blue fire, clearly stated they are artificial?
Need your advice regarding UI font color - yellow is completely invisible…
An what if I want to add some flat elements upon a grass plane - like a road ? Should I create one plane for road square block and then clone that plane to make long road?
How would that plane upon plane hell influence performance?
Making one big " grass with long road" texture won’t help because ground plane is very large, texture would be blurry
The blue flame wall is a pass for me, they attract the eyes away from the action.
Snow under small elements don’t work well in your case. What’s the purpose of these small elements anyway? Plane on plane, if one plane is transparent or have alpha, that’s overdraw, big nono for mobile, especially on elements that cover half the screen.
Ok, so do you think that stones without fire on right side of picture below look better than line of stones with blue fire on left side?
What if I make blue fire smaller? Fire ads some magic to the scene while simple stones in line do not look realistic…
Small elements were here to cover very simple grass, now added some dirt and moved small plants closer to stones on the right side - is it better?
Dirt and snow are actually transparent planes with Mobile Particles Additive shader, do you have better tech solutiion to do same thing?
And while mountains look good they do not cover skybox to horizon - leave as is or grow them higher?
I mean the goal isn’t to place objects, it’s to solve a visual problem, the problem is that you need a way to frame the scene by giving the eyes a way to focus, it’s not really rocks vs flame, but visual potency, and the flame right are too visually potent and attract the eyes toward something uninteresting and non functional.
What you want to achieve is perceptual organization. The rules are universal!
https://www.philhemsley.co.uk/article/visual-mass-and-flow-in-landscape-photographs-5802
ie use these rules to communicate the gameplay and aesthetics
https://www.cgmasteracademy.com/courses/46-level-design-for-games
https://www.gnomon.edu/blog/discover-naughty-dog-s-environment-art-workflow-for-uncharted-4
Thanks a lot for your reply and links!
I understand that flame will compete for user attention, but what if it burns just for a while?
e.g. my scene begins with a wizard speaking “let that flame protect us as our walls do!” and flame acts for several second like runway lights and turns off completely to the end of battle?
That to my opinion will clearly say to player that really artificially looking lines of stones (with flames) were done by castle crew and ARE artificial intentionally.
Would that be good enough or you belive that I shoud rethink and create some huge rocks or hills or mountains both sides of scene?
And I still need your advice regarding horizon and dirt…
The flame don’t matter, what matter is the graphical impact and fonction. If you find a way to make the flame fit the composition, it’s great.
But you can’t solve the issues by applying piecemal patch, you are getting suck into being to close, take a breath, look at the problem globally, and redo everything. But that’s why I advise you to get an artist, you are basically entering a field you don’t have mastery, and I don’t think you are at a point where you would properly understand and apply advices. I mean you can try, and you can even have some success, but it will be limited, I feel like, based on your answer, you are reaching the limit of what you can do alone.
I won’t answer directly and do my yoda, and see what you get AFTER you read ALL the link above (mostly they are the same thing told in various way, which is great to “get it”), which are basically mere introduction, maybe lightbulb will pop in your head, who knows.
