How many poses for portraits should I have?

[Terozu]

I'm using Character Busts in my game for dialogue, visual novel style, and I know the basic 6 expressions work.
Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sadness, Neutral and Joy. This is a good range of emotions, but... Just changing the expressions and having the busts remain in a single pose feels... wrong. So I want the characters to have multiple poses they cycle through, to add extra flavor to the emotions.
Currently I'm thinking

A Shocked/Surprised pose, the character is in recoil or taking a step back after hearing something.
A Neutral pose, the character has just stopped whatever they're doing, they aren't relaxing, but they aren't actively doing anything, they're just standing.
A Bothered/Busy pose, The character is thinking about something, or something is irritating them. They might be looking to the side, or have their arms crossed.
A Carefree pose, the character has loosened up for the moment and is relaxing. They're in a casual mood.
An Excited pose, they person is just happily excited, or they're celebrating.
An Angry pose, something pissed them off.
An Action pose, they're ready for a fight here.

Across each pose, the character can display different emotions on their face.
They might be happily surprised, or getting ready for a playful fight, or trying to relax while irritated.

Is this to many poses, or not enough?

 

[CraneSoft]

While the number of character poses doesn't decide if a game would be good, I do think having multiple poses are actually a good idea when you are using full bustshots and not simple face graphics.

You can never have "too many" poses, naturally the more you have, the better your game will score in the visuals department if you are willing and are capable of committing to all the extra work/expenses, that is something that a lot of devs didn't bother either to save costs, save time or simply doesn't think it's necessary for their game or worth their efforts.

For a good balance between costs/workload and quality, you can just have 2~3 "primary" poses for the more important (ie. main) characters but also opt to create variations for the individual body parts (the head-angle, and the arm gestures) of each pose in a natural way, this way your character feels more alive than static poses and doesn't require an entirely new pose just to express one type of emotion.

Ultimately, the right to decide how many you would need lies with you, the creator.

 

[The Mighty Palm]

More is objectively better. The issue is whether or not that's too much of a workload/expense.
If you can manage it, absolutely more. But that's a lot of graphics to be drawing/commissioning, and keeping it concise is more economical and I don't think anyone would blame you for it.
It's a question of "Is it worth the effort" and I think that's a question only you the creator has the right to answer.

 

[Terozu]

Ok, so if more poses is better, which poses are better? As you both said, the more poses the higher the workload, so I should keep it lesser. I was thinking a base amount for the main characters then a more general amount for side characters. Do the 7 I listed sound general enough for most eactions? Are there any 'key' poses you think I'm missing?

 

[TheoAllen]

From my personal experience:
- Available emotions dictate your character personality.
OR
- Your character personality dictates the available emotions.
OR
- Somehow a combination of both.

You don't need to ask which pose is better. But which pose you need for your character.
If your character never gets amused because it's too cold, you don't need a cheerful pose.
Your character has a cheerful personality, so you need a wave hand pose when they greet some people.
You don't need that for your introvert character.

 

[Parallax Panda]

Of course more is better in this case. Only thing stopping you is the extra work or money you have to pay for them. If you're paying money for them, I'd probably keep it to a minimum since the cost easily add up. What minimum is depends on your game though, which I know nothing about.

 

[Terozu]

That... is true, though I think a baseline is still good.
Especially in a case where the party is primarily young adults.
However I'll keep that advice in mind for the older characters in the storyline.


And to the Pandaman, I mean this in a more general sense. In a style of game making where the game uses Visual Novel portraits for characters, what's a good baseline for number of poses?

 

[The Mighty Palm]

Like Theoallen said, it depends on what kind of emotions the character's dialogue evokes more. A serious yet calm minded detective would do a lot more "thinking-pose" and a lot less "Angry-pose" and so on.
I think personally it'd be better to just do it as you go, because then you'll see what you need. You wouldn't want to make a bunch of emotions and then later find out as youre writing and re-writing that you don't even use some of them that much.

 

[Parallax Panda]

Well, I'd say this. You can get away with just 4 emotions (Neutral, Angry, Happy, Sad) and one pose if you intend to cheap it out. But adding in the "chock" and "disgust" expression could make it more lively. Furthermore, You could probably go with say... 3 poses?

Angry/disgusted/sad - same pose
Neutral/happy same pose
Chock - one pose

just a suggestion of course.

Depending on the game you might also consider alternative outfits. In a VN game, those are fairly common and I would argue about as important as additional poses. And making one extra costume for one pose might be less work than making a bunch of different poses for one costume.

 

[Kes]

'General Discussion' is not for feedback on individual, specific projects.

[move]Game Ideas and Prototypes[/move]

 

[Terozu]

Sorry about posting it in the wrong place again! I'm... still confused by forums...

 

[Kuro DCupu]

I think what you need is to learn your character first. Write down all his / her / its personal data including background and such. Now that you know your character, next try to pull their "normal" stance. This will be considered as their neutral pose. Every character thinks differently on what is normal. Energic character have their hand on their waist. Timid character slouch a bit and put one hand behind their neck or shoulder. Confident character stand tall with their chin up a bit. Etc etc...

Only after that you can think more variation for their pose. It will be much easier if the storyline is already done. If it's not though, look at your emotion chart and think if your character is able OR will be showing such expression.

 

[Wavelength]

I'd say you've got a good smattering of poses. One that sticks out to me to add would be a "frantic" kind of pose - like we need to do something RIGHT NOW - different from a confident "action" pose or a recoiling "shock" pose.

What you could do is (before creating the artwork) go through each line of dialogue and determine which expression/pose you want to give it. If none of your current poses fit well, come up with another and "assign" it to that line. Then, for any poses which you wrote down at least 3-4 times for a single character, add that in as a pose to create artwork for (on that character). For any poses which only appeared once or twice, shoehorn one of your existing poses in rather than spending time/money on extra artwork.

 

[bgillisp]

I went with 8 when I ordered the art for my game. Every character has the same 7 emotions in their poses, then the 8th is unique to the character. Some I had to order a 9th pose as a couple of cases came up, for example one of the characters is a little sarcastic and rolls her eyes in response but I had no pose for that, so that because pose #9.

Overall though if you are not very far in making your game I'd start with 1. Just pick something you can stand to look at while you make the rest of the game, then once your game is farther along, add in the others. Plus this will give you more time to experiment around with your characters and learn them better. And you might even learn some are not going to still be in the game in the long run (which did happen to me).