Rpg art

[Butch]

Ok, here's the deal: I can write but I can't draw. I don't have any friends that can draw too (one can.. but please don't tell him... he's just not that good!!)

But, I can play with Poser, Bryce and a little bit of 3DS max.

If I just want to "publish" (what a big word!) my game as a pdf file (no printing), is it a good idea to put 3d artwork in the file?!?!

I never saw that in a rpg and I was thinking that it could be a good idea to have artwork.

What do you think about it?

Butch

[Matt Snyder]

But, I can play with Poser, Bryce and a little bit of 3DS max.

If I just want to "publish" (what a big word!) my game as a pdf file (no printing), is it a good idea to put 3d artwork in the file?!?!

I never saw that in a rpg and I was thinking that it could be a good idea to have artwork.

What do you think about it?

Butch -- including artwork as part of a PDF is fine. With the 3D art you're describing, you'd really just be creating the image, then saving as an appropriate file type (TIFF, EPS, or JPG most likely).

The real issue with including any kind of art with a PDF is file size -- i.e. how much "bigger" the artwork will make the PDF file. THis is important because folks will be downloading the PDF over modem connections, most likely. The smaller, the better.

In my opinion it's hard to make 3D art work in a publication. 3D's strength, I argue, is it's interactivity. On the computer, 3D art is great because you can interact with it -- move it, play with it, etc. But on paper (even "virtual" paper like PDF files) the image is static. Compared to a decent illustration, 3D art rarely holds up.

That said, trying to offer up a publication without any artwork at all is tough. I really value the layout and presentation of a game/product. If it has art, then I'm that much more interested. That's partly because it tells me the creators are dedicated enough to do something more than make text file. The fine line, then, is including artwork of sufficient quality for your presentation. It's TOUGH getting artwork, but in the end it's really worth it.

Hope this helps!

[Bankuei]

Having done 2 years in Computer animation:

Unless you are THE SHIT as a modeler, I wouldn't bother.  As most rpg's focus on humanoid organic characters, unless you can model those things, you will have a lot of funky backgrounds and big suits of armor, which will basically be boring art(let's all look at still lifes).  Unless you're doing a robot/mech game, I'd either go to an art school, high school, a comic con, or grab some graf kids who'd be willing to do it on the cheap to get published.  Most likely you're going to get substandard (read, unfinished) artwork, but a good sketch is way better than crapola.

One of the benefits to computer modeling is that you can reuse the same model over and over, which again is great for animation, video games, or mechanical shots, but not for character shots.  Most rpgs demand a variety of characters and situations, even over a few pages(as the archtypical icon, look at White Wolf, I don't think they even repeat a character once in a book).

This is in no way disrespecting your modeling skills, but you might want to save yourself a few hours, days, or weeks pulling vertices and playing with nurbs, and focus on your game.

Good luck,
Chris