Katzes Workshop
polycounter lvl 17
Already posted stuff in the workshop, but I though it's time to start my own thread..
My first DOTA 2 Courier, Animation by Rahel Brunold
Would be nice if you could upvote it
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=206126457
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q10ou7puWI"]DANGO - YouTube[/ame]
My first DOTA 2 Courier, Animation by Rahel Brunold
Would be nice if you could upvote it
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=206126457
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q10ou7puWI"]DANGO - YouTube[/ame]
Replies
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=229461322
[ame="
While he looks really good and the animation is nice. I feel he may be a bit to weird, which tends to put people off.
The second one is more relatable, however the design may be a bit to close to the minions from Despicable Me. But I don't know where valve stands on that matter.
I don't mean to tear into your couriers, as I said they are really well made. Jut for future reference, I would take the Dota universe into account more.
Yeah, I can't echo this enough. Great work on the technical and execution side but they just don't fit the world of Dota. I think you should really spend some more time playing the game and getting a feel for the aesthetic so you can match your designs match your tech skills.
Specifically for the 2nd one, they look like something out of Despicable me, Plants vs Zombies etc. and generally look to close to the as of yet unreleased Goblin Techies (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Goblin_Techies).
I'm curious, are you developing these separately from Airborn Studios? Cause you're uploading with their account but seem to deviate a lot from the style that Neox and the rest of the gang have already shown.
I can understand why people dislike dango, he is just an ugly little bastard, adorable but definitely ugly.
But both dango and the snotlings/minions are not more out of style than some other couriers valve added to the game and are loved by the community. Or take greevil (man he is toony, and wonky and awesome) for instance, of course it would be cool to give them more anatomy, some hands and feet, but with the limited ressources, 3 of em and the distance to the players camera i think they turned out just great.
The greevils are silly, but they also have a bit of a dark and evil theme going on. I'm not saying that the greevils are perfect examples of silly things on Dota 2, because they're not, but the 'Snivelings' are a bit too cartoony, and the comparison with the Minions from Despicable Me is obligatory, since the courier look almost like an attempt to mimic them along with their popularity. Also, I don't really like tacking on the Dota logo on items like on the crate, it looks really lazy.
I'm not saying that they look bad, they just don't fit Dota. And I have to disagree with Neox when you say that they're "not more out of style than some other couriers valve added to the game and are loved by the community". I personally believe that the walrus from RedMoon was much much better and still the community hated it. Also, if the problems are with the limited resources, why not go for a new idea?
The reasons why the community hated on the walrus have been entirely different - i personally like it, the looks part of it is kinda like dango, the walrus is just not the most adorable little guy, well made but not the cutie many seem to love for their couriers. From what i read they mostly disliked the connection to ixmike and it beeing a promotional item for him, looking a bit like him.
But thats a risk they took, happens, and i don't think they should have not followed the idea just because it could fail or is challenging. Dark and evil theme is something you connect to dota, i agree, but the couriers very often run outside of this scheme - some are just straight cuties, very directly to the point sugar sweet little furballs. I would agree on designing more couriers directly in the dota scheme, Mop and Spacemonkey are great at this, but just take a look at the out of the box donkey - if we would create something like this in case it was not there before the reaction would be the same. Maybe he will be redesigned at one point, i don't know but you can't put him besides a character like alchi or a more serious one like abbadon and say "yes that fits, great match"
but again, that might be just me
I don't think that the problem is so much the fact that it's different or even cute, the problem is how it's different and/or cute. Like I said, they looks like something out of Plants vs. Zombies or a similar game, mostly because of 3 things I feel.
1) Proportions: Dota Plays with proportions quite a bit but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of instances where the proportions are off by this much when it comes to hand/feet to body.
2) Eyes: Eyes in Dota are often just solid colors but there's also plenty of cute characters that don't go nearly as far as these. They're crossing into the anime/desu/kawaii territory which really doesn't mesh with Dota all that well. For reference, cute couriers below (Boar, Drodo, Shagbark, Nelum, Baekho, Tory)
3) Texture/Details: There really aren't many instances where you'll have these big flat parts on either heroes or couriers. Usually there'll be some surface detail to break up the big flat shapes. The jacket the little guys have on is not doing much either because it just created another big flat shape. Additionally, the big color flats are strongly saturated, stay the same hue throughout and are high on the brightness, all of which compounds the problem.
I hope that helps.
well i didn't know that, but to me greevil is one of the best creatures from dota2, awesome proportions, awesome shapes, and i trust in valves design decisions for their game. There is often a lot of fuzz about stuff not beeing dota, but what people more than just once usually mean is dota the mod, not dota2 the game by valve and there are reasons why dota 2 can't follow the design principles of the mod.
it does, i was also thinking about adding more structure to the textures but we stood with it for better readability ingame - maybe we should have added some more texture and material definition overall. Tweaking the eyes should definitely help, less prominent specular, smaller iris. But I still think the proportions work and are not too crazy.
To clear up the whole Greevil situation, the Greevil was the accompanying courier for TI2 and featured art that was somewhat out of line with what Valve had done up to that point design wise (booty shake) which caused it to be recieved with mostly ridicule. The year later for TI3 they had the Smeevil which is much more in line with their own design choices as they are seen throughout the game.
I feel like you're pointing to instances where Valve has done something that wasn't a success or well received and trying to argue that since that got into the game, it must be okay. My point remains that I'm all for doing something unique and inspired but to also ground it in the Dota universe, which is really, really hard. Again, I'm pointing all this out because I wanna try to explain why I'm disliking these rather than just saying "lol sux, ur wrong"
booty shaking greevils are the best thing that happened to dota!
and i am just explaining our reasoning, disagreeing with it make neither us nor you wrong or right, it's different oppinions and it is great that we can share and discuss our points
I also wasn't pointing at your wth the connection to the mod, i understand and respect your standpoint and can agree to some of it.
it might be a bad pose/angle and something is really odd about his ear, but i love this one
he is just bloody awesome