Explaining our Art Direction (Patreon)

Hello everyone! It is I, Chloé, bringing you today’s Patreon post! （ΦωΦ）

Paralives has gone through lots of visual changes since 2019 – originally, it was just Alex; but now, we have a dedicated team of artists to work actively on the art direction.

Top: Paralives in 2019. Bottom: Paralives in 2021.

Now that the style has undergone a massive overhaul, people often ask why the environments and characters don't quite have the same art style. While the art style will still go through some changes, the disparity won’t be fully bridged: it is an intentional choice made by the team!

For today’s Patreon post, we will discuss the game’s current art direction—and why the backgrounds won’t be in quite the same style as the characters. 

Our Goals with our Art Direction

First and foremost, any art direction begins with design pillars, so that’s what we decided first. You may ask yourself: "But Chloé, what even are those?" I’m glad you asked! Design pillars are one-liners that serve as guidelines during production so we stay in line with our vision. Here are ours for the art direction:

• A unique style that distinguishes us: When seeing our style, we want people to know that it’s from Paralives!
• Serves the gameplay: At the end of the day, our main focus is the gameplay, not the aesthetics.
• Make Parafolks stand out: They have to be easy to spot, even in a big cluttered house, for players’ ease.
• Quick to produce: We are only a few artists unlike big companies where there are hundreds of them, so it’s important to have a style that isn’t too demanding time-wise. We also have tricks to work quickly and efficiently.
• Supports customization: More freedom to the player!

Our Characters' Art Style

With our recent PAM showcase, you all got to see the amazing job Léa and Sonia did for the Parafolks: let’s take a look at the style in a bit more detail!

For the Parafolks, the team wanted to go for a more detailed render compared to previous alterations, specifically with a hand-drawn approach inspired by the talented Lesly Oh’s art. The team drew highlights and defining outlines on the Parafolks to achieve that desired look. For the hair, we instead went for something softer, more akin to watercolour, to ensure nice flowing hair (regardless of hair type). The proportions for the Parafolks are also on the more realistic side.

Can you see the similarities between Lesly’s art (left) and our Parafolks? (right)

Apart from that, there are two other points worth noting: the outlines around the characters, which are generated in our game engine, and the ‘’toon shading’’. Toon shading is a type of rendering in which the shadows are sharp and stylised rather than smooth. These two points are the two areas in which the characters and environments differ.

Our Environments’ Style Exploration

You’ve seen a bit of the new style for the environments in our newest Paramaker video, but I am still hard at work improving it via a test project that we call a Render Target: we talked about it a bit more in this Patreon post if you are curious!

We first defined the goals of the art direction for the environments. We decided that the proportions should be realistic and that the different materials should be accurately depicted. They should also harmonise nicely with the Parafolks, but make it so that the focus stays on them. After all, environments serve to enhance the experience, not to steal the show!

We gathered tons of references to see what could be done to fulfill those requirements. Here are two and their pertinence to the art style:

1. A distinct style for characters and backgrounds: A screenshot from the game ‘’Demon Slayer - The Hinokami Chronicles’’ by CyberConnect2. This game, amongst others, has a different style for both so that the characters easily stand out from the backgrounds. This concept is also widely used in animation! We think this principle will work well for Paralives, but we'll do our own take on it.
2. Hand-painted textures: An image from the talented Jasmin Habezai-Fekri’s 3D piece, ‘’Sunny Market Entrance’’. Our team quite likes her work in general, but we enjoyed how her textures had this soft hand-painted feel in this one.

We figured a more painterly approach would work well with the Parafolks and allow for more details than before. Alternatively, we decided that we did not want outlines for the environments, not only for performance but also to contrast with the Parafolks. This way, they will still be easy to spot when you are playing!

The Final Result

Broadly speaking, here’s how we could summarise our art style:

• Parafolks with hand-drawn textures that stand out from the backgrounds. Our unique style will allow players to customise their characters at will.
• Hand-painted environments that fit with the characters. There are more details and a painterly touch to the furniture items, and it’s as customisable as ever.

You can say Paralives has a fun, artsy style that is perfectly imperfect!

Sebastian and Sebby-I mean, Eli, in the photo studio.

We will keep tweaking and improving our style over time, no doubt. Every tidbit we share is a work in progress. Still, we think our art direction at the moment is heading in the right direction. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we do!

I wish you all a lovely weekend! Take care! (´∀｀)♡

Chloé

Edit - March 31, 2022: This post is now public so feel free to share it!