Reflecting on my evolution as a visual artist (also, art preview).

Hello! I hope you've all been well. I wish to welcome you into a part of my method that I've learned much about this year. I'm talking about the visual aspects of my studies as a game designer, and understanding what distinguishes passable visuals from great visuals. While I'm at it, I might as well give everyone a preview of my animations for the Steam build.

Walk with me, will ya?

About: new techniques.

Spending 8 months putting together the trailer for Unsevered in DaVinci Resolve felt like my personal mid-story combat training arc, and I have come back with a sage mode of my own.

While working on the new animations and renders that will supersede the old ones, I had a chance to look at some of the first iterations of my work. It allowed me to reflect on how far I've come artistically and so, I got the idea to write this post. I've amassed a lot of knowledge over the years. I say this a lot because I'm proud of it, and yet... when it came to my renders, I felt like something was missing. A final piece of the puzzle that is digital art. A final skill to unveil and add to the list of things I've yet to learn and practice. I was happy with the last few artworks I made for Patreon a while back, but that feeling lingered, still.

Now, I know what that missing piece is.

This year I have been schooled through all manners of VFX techniques, and having now learned video editing, I have the skills and tools to create tons of cool visual effects, which for a game centered around magic, is a must. This newfound knowledge is not applicable only to video editing, though. Messing around with the software also inspired me to apply the same techniques to my Photoshop workflow.

Search for any game over two generations old, and take notice of how some of them have graphics that not only aged well but still far exceed what many other games show us in 2024. Need for Speed 2015, Alien Isolation, Mad Max... what do all these games have in common? They excel in post-processing effects. They provide a stylized element that adds substance to form, creating something timeless regardless of texture compression, or poly count. Let me show you a personal example of post-processing.

Chapter 2, strip club render number #70. No amount of post-process is applied.

Same render, with edits.

I didn't just crank up the brightness, I swear!

Though I refrained from changing the original colors, I used a subtle amount of color correction on the shadows and created a new layer from the highlight areas of the render. I applied some Gaussian blur on the new layer, bleeding the colors into each other, creating this cool "foggy" effect I'm kind of obsessed with right now. After that, I put a faint gradient overlay of purple and green on top which reinforces the original colors, and followed it up with the blur brush to apply this faux depth of field, compensating for the lack of it in the original render. Lastly, I added some film grain (or noise) to the final result. This is roughly the same process I used for the new cover art for the game.

Some of the best graphics I've ever seen in games use these very same techniques that now, I have begun to understand and find practical applications for. There's this NSFW artist I've been closely following for the past couple of years, HydraFXX. They're by far my biggest inspiration in 3d, and personally, I think their skill in adult VFX is absolute, unrivaled masterwork. Their dominion over color and motion is second to none. This "fog" is an effect they use a lot in their works (usually with fair amounts of green tint), so deciding whether these techniques are part of my signature as a visual artist or not is kind of a no-brainer. I'll definitely be employing these in some of my future works. Whether these improve the original render or not, is up for you guys to decide, but one thing is for sure; the changes make the renders anything but bland.
 
These techniques don't showcase my skill as much as they showcase the power of Photoshop, but still... I'm a monkey with a big fat machine gun, and I intend to use it.

About: Steam version.

I don't remember how thorough I was when I covered what was to come with 4.1, but still... I'll accept the risk of repeating myself and I'll say it again if I haven't before.

Aside from script revisions and gallery system, I'm revising most of my 'dated' scenes. I started writing and conceptualizing this game almost six years ago, and released it in 2020 after 9 months of development, without a shred of the knowledge I possess now. Hell, pretty early in development, I was hit with the realization that I didn't even know English as well as I thought I did. I guess it says something about my competence when you consider that my knowledge of the English language was for a long time, my biggest skill. I confess I was reluctant to revise some of my older scenes, as I believe in fully committing to whatever I'm making, regardless if it's a mistake. I've told you guys before that I'm proud -- too proud. Committing to a bad idea is part of that.

However, after years went by, more of the story got written, and I got to know my own characters better, I realized how foolish this approach is. Why commit to having dated, and rushed scenes in my game when I could bring them to their full potential? One that'll better captivate lots of people who'll be playing the game for the first time? One that is not bound by schedule or hardware limits? Besides, a lot of my old scenes and dialogue precede an era when I wrote and documented every single idea I had. Like I said, I commit to what I make, and altering aspects of the story is hardly something I'll ever consider doing. However, some of the surface details of it simply don't reflect the original vision, that's why, if it doesn't tamper with the original story and context, I'm pretty OK with expanding some of my scenes and/or giving them a fresh coat of paint whenever I deem it necessary. That of course, means that maintaining my ever-evolving standards will be an ongoing effort that does not limit itself to the upcoming version of my game. If I learn new techniques, I won't shy away from going back and applying them.

I would also like to give you guys more proof of my evolution as a 3d artist by presenting to you a couple of the animations you'll find in 4.1 Final Cut. Wait, you didn't think I brought you here just to watch me ramble, did you?

SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE

SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE

SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE

SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE

Please excuse the low pixel quality. Not much I can do about that, as I have to convert the .mov files to .gif in order to display them here. It does not reflect the final result.

Chloe - first sex scene (Chapter 1). This is roughly the first version of this animation.

Chloe - first sex scene (Chapter 1). This is the version currently in the game.

Chloe - first sex scene. This is the new animation coming to 4.1 Final.

Elena - First sex scene (Chapter 0). This is one of the animations currently in the game.

Elena - First sex scene (Chapter 0). This is one of the new animations coming to 4.1 Final.


I've acquired a higher understanding of digital art, but with the knowledge of what I know, comes the knowledge of what I don't. I know I'm only scratching the surface, and so I will keep dedicating myself to learning.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll be seeing you guys again tomorrow if nothing keeps me.

Three days left until the official Steam release of Unsevered.