One of the most time-consuming tasks when making a visual novel is gathering its artwork. As the name visual novel implies, the visual component of the work plays a major role in its construction. There are two basic types of artwork needed in a visual novel: character sprites and screen backgrounds. Other pieces of art might also be used, but those two types are expected at a minimum.
There’s a lot that goes into creating or otherwise gathering character sprites for a visual novel. One must be concerned about consistency of style for all the sprites. Each character in a visual novel requires multiple images, one per expression/pose. For instance, if a character will be angry at any point in the story, the reader will expect to see the anger expressed visually. Another image is required for a sad character, another one for a happy character, and so on. Depending on how many different emotions a character will express in the story, there should be at a minimum that many sprites for the character. Different poses for any given emotion might also be desired. It can add up to a ton of images. 🙂
All the character images need to be sized proportionally. Some of my characters are taller than others, so their respective heights must be taken into consideration. I’m creating my sprites in DAZ Studio, and I have a custom render size defined that I’m using for every sprite image, even when that means there will be a span of transparent space at the top of most images. I’m using the same lighting and camera for all the sprites, to promote consistency. I’ve got my production camera locked in place, so it won’t accidentally change position. I thought to do that only after I messed up once. 🙂
I’ve created a dozen or so sprite images for three characters so far. It only takes one-and-a-half minutes to render each sprite, once I have the pose and expression I want. Finding the right poses and expressions for the sprites takes way more time than the actual rendering. I’ve spent the better part of two days in creating artwork so far. I’ll have more to do for other characters I plan to have in the game.
The image used at the top of this post depicts the headshots for a couple of the characters that will make appearances in Fell Under a Dream, my current visual novel in progress. Many visual novels use manga style art, but a growing number use art generated from 3D models like I’m doing. I wouldn’t want to try collecting sprite images from different sources and putting them all together in the same visual novel project… it would be difficult to attain a consistent look. By using DAZ Studio to generate my sprites, I can ensure consistency between them.
Background images can have their own lighting requirements, sometimes being brighter or darker than the average, or having a tint. Fortunately, the visual novel engine I’m using, Ren’Py, makes it possible to modify the brightness/darkness of sprite images or to change their tint, to accommodate the quirks of various backgrounds.
I’ll be writing more about my progress with Fell Under a Dream over on my MK Eidson author site and plan to post additional how-to posts about creating visual novels. Hop on over to my author site and subscribe now to be notified when those posts go live.