disscussion The difference in artstyle and design between the game and animation

[Waoling]

I've been binge-watching DST I have noticed the art style change over the year, I want to know the forum opinion on it.

[minespatch]

>Ancient

 

Jeff Agala's not T H A T old.

[Waoling]

4 minutes ago, minespatch said:

>Ancient

 

Jeff Agala's not T H A T old.

The art style looks like it is from the 2000s so it is basically almost ancient.

[hhh2]

I really like the SW trailers, it's like a happy medium between the new trailers and forbidden knowledge. The new trailers are too saturated and cartoony for my liking.

[sudoku]

I imagine the original artists are long gone and each new round of artists they bring in to imitate the style loses a little bit more of the quirks that made the original what it was.

[minespatch]

Just now, sudoku said:

I imagine the original artists are long gone and each new round of artists they bring in to imitate the style loses a little bit more of the quirks that made the original what it was.

I'd try to study as closely as possible but I'm not one of the artists in the studio, so I can only observe from a distance.

[Waoling]

5 minutes ago, sudoku said:

I imagine the original artists are long gone and each new round of artists they bring in to imitate the style loses a little bit more of the quirks that made the original what it was.

I think the new animation style has it charm and some people like the cleaner art style, you shouldn't disrespect the new animator like that.

[-Variant]

There is a seriously intense difference here.

I prefer the older one.

I'm happy Klei is giving these artists a place to work an experiment, so I'm obviously not too angry about the style change but I cannot say that I enjoy it as much as I did the older one.

[Waoling]

1 minute ago, -Variant said:

There is a seriously intense difference here.

I prefer the older one.

I'm happy Klei is giving these artists a place to work an experiment, so I'm obviously not too angry about the style change but I cannot say that I enjoy it as much as I did the older one.

The picture you show here was a picture of The medival era, they were experimenting a lot art style in that era and Wigfrid design have change over the year.

[sudoku]

11 minutes ago, minespatch said:

I'd try to study as closely as possible but I'm not one of the artists in the studio, so I can only observe from a distance.

Im sure they do reference past art alot but they also have their own artistic interpretation that will shine through and that may not always line up with the original artists may have done.

6 minutes ago, Waoling said:

I think the new animation style has it charm and some people like the cleaner art style, you shouldn't disrespect the new animator like that.

I didnt disrespect anyone. It was an observation, and im not sure why you created a topic about critiquing the artsyle if you didnt actually want to hear these opinions.

 I just think this is a natural phenomenon when you have art passing through so many hands. 

[minespatch]

1 minute ago, sudoku said:

didnt disrespect anyone. It was an observation, and im not sure why you created a topic about critiquing the artsyle if you didnt actually want to hear these opinions.

I didn't interpret that at all from your comment. sorry if it seemed that way.

[sudoku]

Just now, minespatch said:

I didn't interpret that at all from your comment. sorry if it seemed that way.

No, your'e good i forgot to reply to your comment when i posted, i since edited with my response. 

I just want to be clear im not saying the art is bad because its different, just trying to reason out why its different. 

[lakhnish]

4 minutes ago, sudoku said:

I just want to be clear im not saying the art is bad because its different, just trying to reason out why its different. 

If I had to guess, time constraints. The less time you have to work on something, the less cleaner/detailed it's gonna look, especially since they pump out these animations almost every month, depending on the update.

[Waoling]

Well, I like the new artstyle it super clean, not that I think that sketchy is bad, I just don't think it fit DST, I like the characters new paper like skin, the more simple style, and I also just like the color more, the old one feel out of place.

[lowercase skye]

29 minutes ago, -Variant said:

There is a seriously intense difference here.

i dont think the RoG trailer is really a fair comparison when it comes to art style changes, its a complete outlier in that its made up 90% of in-game assets with minor edits, you can see it so clearly with the tree and pig house back there, and then the 10% of things that are original like wigfrid and wilson are trying to fit in with that in-game style. i dont think any trailer before or after the RoG one did this to such an extent, theres just little bits of it like the BFB in the hamlet trailer.

[luvu2bits]

I think a better comparison for now vs then would probably be Forbidden Knowledge. The new style is pretty much just that style refined and filtered through new artists and a richer Klei

The new style is a bit more zany and.. rounded(?) than the old one, which as already said is probably just because of different artists. Outside of that, the new style is just if the animators actually cleaned up their linework and got rid of those frames where the sketch was still visible, alongside some more detailed backgrounds. Since Wilson's lab is just a bunch of sketches that are all one color and all the furniture is 2D. Not saying that's bad, though. I actually like that old room a lot, it has an almost cozy atmosphere to it. But that was almost a decade ago now. I doubt those animators even work on Don't Starve anymore, and Klei has the resources to constantly push out clean animated trailers, and if they can why shouldn't they? Times change, and Klei has gained tons of points for moving forward rather than backward.

A discussion I'd like to see is one about how the music's changed over the years.

[CaptainChaotica]

ANCIENT era?  Up to 2016, is _ancient_? God damn, as if I didn't feel old enough...

Spoiler

I can kinda appreciate naming the style-eras after historical ones in GENERAL.  I mean, after all, I'm the one who came up with the "March of Civilization" challenge, in which each in-game year is named after a different historical era, after all.  But...wow.  : P

Anyway I guess I like it when the animation/color style doesn't go TOO far off from the original.  Not too bright of colours, or too little sketch-lines visible.  Anything from the original style to...I guess modern, if we DON'T include stuff like "Tree's A Crowd". Still hate that one.  Both for its TOTALLY "didn't get the memo" art style, and also for what a massive waste of lore opportunity it was (character refresh shorts usually tell us something about the character's PAST!) _and_ the goofy happy tone of the writing, that also went way too well with the cartoony saturated colors.

Spoiler

"Monster Marsh"  has the same art style but gets a pass from me--BARELY--because it's _darkly_ funny.  The main characters still die in the background.  Also Wurt hadn't been around since almost the beginning and didn't have any mysteries that fans had been making theories about for years.  There wasn't any missed opportunity for lore/character background, as she was a NEW character.

I prefer from the original up to whenever it starts getting REALLY different, style-wise, I guess.  I guess I have parameters of what's "too far" or "too different", that I don't know what they are until I see them.  (shrug)
(Would I give "Tree's a Crowd"'s art style more of a pass, if the short was _about_ stuff like what the deal is with Lucy, and whether or not her voice is all in Woodie's head? Absolutely.  Part of how I recieve each art style has to do with how the individual short that it's used in made me feel--and that one made me feel nothing but annoyed disappointment..)

...Notorious

[kittem]

tbh im just a fan of the whole "naming of eras" thing. lol.
i voted for classical era. my favorite trailer EVER, the gorge trailer, is a part of this era. ive watched this trailer a lot and i promise it is not just because im a gorge stan. (uhh, i promise) (its not what it looks like!)

this era being marked as 2017-2018 is interesting because its a small amount of selection, but theres interesting things to be said about them in regards to the whole art style discussion topic... for instance, the new reign trailer as THE reworking of the sketchy style, keeping to it and its desaturation. the forge and gorge trailers, well what can i say except i love them???? everything...i cant say more. ive already said my favorite.
its actually the two hamlet trailers that align with more modern era complaints actually? the first trailer is like, really smooth actually. i actually do love that trailer, i love the climax of the music as the mayor picks up the artifact wilson had dropped while being mauled to death. this trailer has clean lines, and flat shading people complain about. the second hamlet trailer actually mixes smooth lines and sketchy lines. i actually want to believe its intentional. the smooth lines are used for animation focused on the pigs society, with the rough ones for the dangers and environment. like the rough style is meant to push that you are in danger!

[minespatch]

1 minute ago, kittem said:

ive watched this trailer a lot and i promise it is not just because im a gorge stan. (uhh, i promise) (its not what it looks like!)

Klei needs to play a ton of Darkest Dungeon and Bloodborne to get the Victorian Eldritch roots back to the game. 

[CaptainChaotica]

21 minutes ago, minespatch said:

Klei needs to play a ton of Darkest Dungeon and Bloodborne to get the Victorian Eldritch roots back to the game. 

Which is extra funny, considering...

...this is literally the second screen you see upon booting up Darkest Dungeon.  : P

But yeah.  I am ABSOLUTELY about the Victorian/Eldritch (and Edward Gorey) style and overall feel in DS/T.  I go around using/wearing my Gorge-won skins (that sounds...way darker, that way) all the time. For example, almost all my non-endo firepits these days are the fancy metal one, and my no-longer-beta world started with Wendy wearing her mourning-weeds look.

As for "A New Reign"?  YES!  LOVE it!  THAT is what I consider to be one of the best examples ever of DST shorts--it's got everything:  Tone, look, MADE out of lore, (but you can still laugh at it, if you want--I still remember the "Let It Go" parody somebody here wrote with the scene of Charlie kinda...forming the shadow castle around her)  and in fact that short is part of what made me decide to go ahead and buy the multiplayer version of the game, when I _already had_ the singleplayer one.   More.  Of.  THAT, please.

(or at least things that are kinda a little bit like it in some ways.)

..and it's from 2016, which I guess would make it "ancient".  But, screw silly names.  It's badass and awesome.

...Notorious

[Waoling]

33 minutes ago, kittem said:

its actually the two hamlet trailers that align with more modern era complaints actually? the first trailer is like, really smooth actually. i actually do love that trailer, i love the climax of the music as the mayor picks up the artifact wilson had dropped while being mauled to death. this trailer has clean lines, and flat shading people complain about. the second hamlet trailer actually mixes smooth lines and sketchy lines. i actually want to believe its intentional. the smooth lines are used for animation focused on the pigs society, with the rough ones for the dangers and environment. like the rough style is meant to push that you are in danger

The hamlet smooth line is different from The Curtain Calls smooth line, the line feels more heavy and thick in that one, and also the animation is really weird, while in the second trailer I think they actually just mash a bunch of trailer animation together.

[JoeW]

There are a lot of variables here. Things depend on how long we have to make something. How many people we have available to work on it. Who is working on it and what message we are trying to go for. But one thing that has never been a priority is keeping things strictly on model at all times. There has always been a little breathing room there. Otherwise, we would have A LOT less animation out there. =)

Also, I think you may also be seeing some of our love for the characters we have spent so much time with. I personally have been working on Don't Starve for nearly 10 years. These characters have a lot more personality burned into my brain than they did in 2012. 

And, finally - I don't think the survivors are quite as desperate as they were when they were alone. There is more personality to explore with their interactions. Wilson certainly seems to be more determined than he was in the early days, which makes sense. 

Most of you weren't around before DST was released, but we had a lot of concerns because what was built with the original DS was specifically about a lonely single player experience. So you're also seeing some change as we shifted away from that as well.  

 

[HowlVoid]

1 minute ago, JoeW said:

There are a lot of variables here. Things depend on how long we have to make something. How many people we have available to work on it. Who is working on it and what message we are trying to go for. But one thing that has never been a priority is keeping things strictly on model at all times. There has always been a little breathing room there. Otherwise, we would have A LOT less animation out there. =)

Also, I think you may also be seeing some of our love for the characters we have spent so much time with. I personally have been working on Don't Starve for nearly 10 years. These characters have a lot more personality burned into my brain than they did in 2012. 

And, finally - I don't think the survivors are quite as desperate as they were when they were alone. There is more personality to explore with their interactions. Wilson certainly seems to be more determined than he was in the early days, which makes sense. 

Most of you weren't around before DST was released, but we had a lot of concerns because what was built with the original DS was specifically about a lonely single player experience. So you're also seeing some change as we shifted away from that as well.  

 

Thanks uncle, I always appreciate your insight. 

DST wouldn't of been what it is without those 10 years of your hard work.

[Waoling]

10 minutes ago, JoeW said:

There are a lot of variables here. Things depend on how long we have to make something. How many people we have available to work on it. Who is working on it and what message we are trying to go for. But one thing that has never been a priority is keeping things strictly on model at all times. There has always been a little breathing room there. Otherwise, we would have A LOT less animation out there. =)

Also, I think you may also be seeing some of our love for the characters we have spent so much time with. I personally have been working on Don't Starve for nearly 10 years. These characters have a lot more personality burned into my brain than they did in 2012. 

And, finally - I don't think the survivors are quite as desperate as they were when they were alone. There is more personality to explore with their interactions. Wilson certainly seems to be more determined than he was in the early days, which makes sense. 

Most of you weren't around before DST was released, but we had a lot of concerns because what was built with the original DS was specifically about a lonely single player experience. So you're also seeing some change as we shifted away from that as well.  

 

What happens to the white outline?

Why is the animation style changed so much?

[Echsrick]

lookin back at the newer white outlines ones, im thankfully that dit not stick around