Standard Grafik

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Introduction
Here I gather all my thoughts related to my graphics production
I seek freedom, not challenge, I have an assortment of styles I use and that is that.



Vedurs Standard Graphics Style List
For every style there is a person I associate the most with it, who did it best, who did it with intention, or both.
I use the list below and think no further, excentric styles are not for me.
Sexy graphics rawr, catty.
types: 1. begrenzt 2. Skizzieren/Bruks 3. Dedikation
Effectors: German, Italian, Scanned, construction levels, detail level, digital(don't limit yourself to it though), Raster(stick to a palette), Cluttered, Spacey
And mostly Natural Palette
1. 50s/60s Solblekt Minimalism(Skeumorphism, irl tool imitation, if UI) = Logos, Simple UIs
2. Ahlbom(You can also call it watercolor sketch but Ahlbom is my favorite sketcher) = backgrounds, sketches, squares-paper sketches(those square papers are comfy, sketching paper feels wrong without it, it's easier for people to copy your sketches, it's the drawing equivalent to bands on your violin), pillow fantasy
2/3. Ligne Claire = Full scenes, Comics, UIs, Animated/moving objects
2/3. Rough Comics = animation, comics
3. Mcquarrie = backgrounds, fancy still UI elements Example
1. CCTV camera(480p, 1-5 fps) + storage
2/4. Basic D-cam 720p/1080p 60fps + 8-bit color + 20x zoom + tripod
3. advanced D-cam/Film4k-8k 60fps + 20x zoom + 10-bit color + tripod ++
2.5. Feltwerk(!!Minecraft!!( 3D equivalent to Pillow Fantasy) Runescape, Phantom Hourglass, PS1) = Sketches, Simpler 3D Games, limited expression.
2. Ligne Claire 3D
1. Minimalist 3D(SNES, AMIGA)
2/3. Mcquarrie 3D(you can also call it gouache 3D, but Mcquarrie is my favorite painter, Perfectly blends mathematicality with emotionality)(Team Fortress, skyward Sword, Battlefield Heroes, 3D world that looks like gouache/poster-color) = Dedications, Immersion
3. Hyper detailed oil paintings
2/3. Basic Photogrammetry(Flight Simulator 2004, Down Under Dan, Alex Colville(mood), pirates of carrbiean pc game 2003, Counter Strike: Source, Half Life 2, Mount n Blade Warband? Star Wars Battlefront Classic) = sketching world, interiors, houses, high expressive potential.
3. High Resolution Voxel rendering/Point-cloud-rendering
3. HQ photogrammetry
2. Kollage


Notable Mentions
1/2/3. LEGOS(I wish they had yellow heads in the lucasarts lego games, I prefer the simplicity of yellow heads)



Note the yellowing is just to set vibe, please do not have yellow stuff that is retro emulation


Construction Levels
1. Symbols(süßfigurs, symbols, 2D-shapes)
2. Symbols + simple shapes(3d construction, Findus, Tintin, Donald Duck, yotsuba, symbols for certain elements rotated)
3. Realistic Construction(tracing, hyperstudy anatomy, realistic proportions)


Location
I only have real world locations, that is something I got from Tintin. I do not see the point in fictive locations.
It keeps everything together real nice.

3D-Graphics technique list
! DON'T DO FAA
! DON'T DO MASS TEXTURE FILTERING
! IF YOU'RE NOT DOING REALISM FOCUS ON GEOMETRIC READABILITY & FUNCTIONALITY
* Flat lightning, only direct lightning, no global illumination
* Multi sample anti aliasing = removes jagged edges, expensive.
* Cone-tracing = sort of like ray tracing but cones instead.
* Local-illuminaton = boxes that control the ambient lightning in a room whenever there is light cast into/in it, cheap.
* crevass Occlusion/coloring = makes crevasses darker/colored, cheap.(Don't overdo this everything will look like skrottnisse)
* Ray tracing = calculates light bouncing, expensive as hell.
* Bloom = smudges the are around light hitting the camera
* gradient textures = good for giving form readability to textureless objects
* Noise gradients = same as above
* Paralaxx shaders = good for textures with depth, grass, gravel
* skyboxes = good for worm backgrounds that don't move
* chunksum billboards = good for chunks that are far away and at a similar angle.



Left hand vs Right hand
Something that helped me learn how to use the right hand was thinking of the pen as a mouse.
Just like I access the computer with a mouse in my right hand I access the paper with a pen in the right hand.
Try it out I recommend.


Palettes
* Natural Palette with accents
* Flat and integrated palette
* High Contrast Saturation pump palette
* Gay palette(Everything is stupidly colorful)


View Distance to Width Ratio
For art to be viewed as the artist intended you should have a "view distance to width ratio" in the metadata of the art.
For example a small painting has a size of 30cmx30cm and is viewed originally from 50cm.
It can be made bigger, but the ratio must be maintained.
50/30
100/60


Simple Photogrammetry Expression
Simple photogrammetry has that japanese style philosophy to it.
Ease of expression, simplicity and freedom over realism.
The style bends to the artist rather than the artist bending to the style.
What is also nice in this art style is that the job of reducing the scene to the relevant abstract elements is already done, less processing for the person.
The graphics of the 00s could have been as catty as the PS1 if they didn't add all that FAA and texture smoothing making it into a blurry mess in the name of making it "realistic"
The push for realism in the 00s was a mistake, makes me think of the N64 with those horrible smooth textures.


pre-texture-colors
I like the 3D-model to be wood colored and particles to be paperbits when I have not added textures yet
and the world background is my work room.


Süßfigur
Begrenzt tier.
A Süßfigur isn't a style or anything, it's just what I call small figures that are easily replicable.
They have a very simple figure and a very simple face.
Such as:
* Toon Zelda Characters
* MIIs
* Animal Crossing Characters
* Matrjosjka


PFPs
Profile pictures are supposed to carry the soul of the individual, so I prefer them to be sketch or dedication tier.


Minimalist Metaphoric UIs
My favorite way to do UIs is minimalist metaphorism.
One day I asked myself just how deep the metaphorism should be.
I realised the metaphorism should be maxxed to the point of almost being absurd.
It's hard to relate to the UIs when they all have this spacey flat disconnected design.
What does the dark grey background mean? Am I in a machine of some sort? a dark box?
Why are all the colors so saturated and unatural, what does that mean?
It all feeds this idea of the digital space being some sort of mysterious dark world.
I do not like cyberspace aesthetics.
I Miss the round clock in windows 7.
It's easier to relate to a circle with pointers than a number.
metaphormaxx to the point it starts hurting for the UI dev.
I am experimenting with different levels of metaphorism, we will see.
Do you remember when logos actually resembled something? now everything looks like LSD tablets.
When you relate the application back to a physical tool, like a drawing table, a modeling table, a street, a shelf then the user can understand how they are supposed to relate to every element much quicker.
Software without metaphoric is so slow to read the productivity grinds to a complete halt.
If a non-computer-enthusiast understands a drawing table, a modeling table, ect they should be able to understand a drawing application or a modeling application.
If the user is constantly asking themselves "where the h*ll am I" you've got a problem.
Try to make things readable in monochrome as well.


Smallest Unit
Something I think about in design is "smallest shape"
I avoid having elements, blobs, gaps, shapes, below a certain size to make sure it looks good when you zoom out.


Paint Brushes n pencils
wide brush = color blocking
blotchbrush = color blocking smaller objects/shading
pen = shading/details n texture
Hair strand brush = fine shading


Minimalism Guide
Separate elements through value first and line second.
NEVER separate throught hue.(Colorblind people will h*te you)
Try to communicate through shape/texture first and hue second.(Again because colorblind people will h*te you)
us non-colorblind people do prefer communication/separation throught texture/line/value also.
It feels weird looking at two field only separated by hue.


TSAA
I really like TSAA, texture smoothing anti-aliasing.
Some developers use texture smoothing on everything for some reason and that really bothers me.
texture smoothing only works as anti-aliasing where there is supposed to be smooth gradients instead of blotches.
if you add texture smoothing to a grass texture those grass strains are not de-aliased, they straight up dissapear.


Worthy Mentions
* Rough Comics(Disney, Newgrounds, Bully, Skull kid, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft Logo) = Sketching, technical sketchs, Storyboards, day2day, animation, world building, furries, this or ahlbom whatever is your taste
* Mark Ferrari(Amazing colors, amazing craftsmanship, good composition)
* Yotsuba


Fonts
* Times New Roman = "Extra" titles font, bread-text-font
* Arial = Titles Font
* Segoe UI = chat/notes font
* Comic Sans = Comics
* Courier New = Code


Gear
* D-Cam with zoom * Fixed Zoom Draw Screen(Only change pencil size, to mimic physical medium)
* tripod
* SQUARES PAPER
* Gouache
* Watercolors
* pen
* Aseprite
* Blender


2D-LODs
Illustration Resolution = px/cm^2
A common mistake I see people make is to only draw at one LOD-level and thus never develop the ability to make an advanced composition.
0.5cm-squares-paper + sharp pen(0.5cm/16 tip) relative LOD-zones
16px/cm density, 32px/cm. When I do digital art I still think more in terms of centimeters than pixels. "How big is that sword illustration? 8cm at 32px/cm, 1px pen tip,"
Use all of the color bits! Do not hold yourself back!

Be comfortable drawing at different LODs(level of detail)
Be okay with objects only being identifiable through context
Remembering LODs through characters and styles is effective.

The list below is how I orient myself while drawing/sketching:
~square/0.5cm^2: Emojis, cow-blotches, blotch-mario, house-blotches, vegetation-blotches, cloud-blotches, head-blotches, group-blotch (Extremely-far-away/extremely small)
~2^2-squares/1cm^2: blobby SNES characters, SNES, small mario, small Mega Man, small Yoshi, 16px blocks, (far away, small)
~4^2-squares/2cm^2: Thinner/lankier SNES characters, Big mario, Big Yoshi, Big Mega man,(medium)
~8^2-squares/4cm^2: Mulle Meck, Patrick Hines, Simpsons characters, Tintin, (close/big)
~16^2-squares/8cm^2: texture, dedication-level (Very close/very big)
I keep fine tuning these LODs.
A shoutout to Brandon James Greer who also teaches in a LOD increment style.

Another LOD-scale is letter-make-out

3D-LODs
Important equation:
LOD = Resolution * scale
Voxel Resolution = vox/cm^3
Texture Resolution = px/cm
Vertex Resolution = vtx/cm^2
I adjust these over time
VA = View Angle
Person-relative LOD-levels
* LOD 4, bloch, photoreal viewed from ~500m : Town, Village, Mountain, Valley
* LOD 3, billboard, photoreal viewed from ~50m & 120VA* : Parking lot, house, road, store, beach
* LOD 2, gen-shape, photoreal viewd from ~5m & 120VA* : office, kitchen, room(base LOD for simple photogrammetry)
* LOD 1, Macro, photoreal viewed from ~0.5m & 120VA* : guitar, chair, table, sofa, table, Lifting iron, pen, paper, headphones, laptop, Hamburger, speaker, dumbells
* LOD 0, Micro, photoreal viewed from ~5cm & 120VA* : dirt on table, surface wobble, grains, finger-prints, air dust


Map Designing
1. Paper sketch, theme, style
2. Chunks division, chunk layers
3. software modeling, texturing and lightning



Form & Sketching
Simple Workflow:
1. help lines
2. Fine lines
3. color + pillow shading
Advanced Workflow:
1. Pencil/color pen help lines
2. Pencil/color pen Fine Lines
3. Watercolor/Gouache color fields
4. Watercolor/Gouache Shading fields
5. Watercolor/Gouache bands/gradients
6. Pencil/color pen Shading bands/gradients
Important Notes:
* Pencil(~0.5cm/8 tip) for lines and shading
* Watercolor brush for color and shading
* Gouache for color and shading
* Ruler
* Ralph Mcquarrie(preference for simple projections = better communication, amazing composition, really talented at illustrating worlds)
* Jens Ahlbom(Making humans and animals with simple shapes)
* Herge(Making humans and animals with simple shapes, illustrations have a nice balance between realism and toonyness)
* Tubes
* Tubes & Paws
* Line-inclusive coloring
* Rounded polygons
* Simplification with symbols
* Stamping foilage
* Solid foilage
* Convexes and concaves
* Skeletons
* 2D-primitives
* 3D-primitives
* Westophilia
* upper arms = mid-bulge, lower arms = early bulge
* Thighs = slightly early bulge, Lower legs = Early bulge
* Head parts = Ball, Drain, Neck, Box




Cameras
Things I like
* 100mm+ zoom level, high zoom levels
* Tripods
* High F-stop
* Bruks tier cameras
* Extra tier cameras
* High shutter speeds
* As high as possible ISO
* Dim/soft lightning
* Saturation pumping
* Contrast pumping




Legos
I do not really like human colored skin in legos.
Imagine if all the yellow simpsons characters became white, that would be weird.
I very much prefer yellow skin color for lego adaptions of white characters.
Yellow Lego star wars figurines from the 90s that's the stuff man.




Design Sheet
Design sheets contain information about the rules of a design, for example:
* 0.5cm borders
* Arial font
* Flat color background
* Separation through value first
* Sharp corners
* Natural Palette
Please use design sheets or stuff gets yanky fast!




Quirkiness
I dislike it when people try to be quirky for the sake of being quirky.
* I dislike quirky games.
* I dislike quirky movies.
* I dislike quirky art.
* I dislike quirky Music.
* I dislike quirky clothes.
* I dislike quirky social structures.
* I dislike quirky food.
* I dislike quirky people.
* I dislike quirky women especially.
* I dislike quirky japanese men especially too.
but also
* I dislike trend emulation in men.(not in women)
It is just disorienting and a waste of time.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT BE A QUIRKYMAXX PERSON.
I get nausea, really bad nausea from the entire "muh style" people.
For the love of god "your style" can go f*ck itself.
Every single "muh style" person I've met was a too-far-up-their-ass demented narcissist hyperautist who needs to touch grass.
It is on the same level of autism as creating new languages.
Maybe funny once in a star wars movie but you are soo damn laate holy sh*t.
You need a damn good excuse to create a new language, and you probably do not have one.
Im very tired of goofers so I want basic style and keeping goof to a minimum.
I think most people have ODed on post-one-world.
The reason why I like the 40s and 50s is because that was the last time people were mentally, graphically, musically, morally in the same world, then everything just became more and more fragmented.
People just chase the hits and get more and more bizarre in their existence.
"that song 'let it go' is popular right now, it's about being yourself, self-satisifed people are boring"
-Hayao Miyazaki.


Inspo
* Tintin by Herge 1 2(behaglig form, great specificity)
* Disney Comics
* PATRICK HINES OMG(Shapes are nice, Strong balance between realism and simplicity, Rendering is effective but not realistic, A style that is accessible to mediocre artists like me)
* Jens Ahlbom(behaglig form, great specificity, men blir ofta DOS ACID colors, scanned art)
* Yotsuba
* Mateuz urbanowizc
* Ralph Mcquarrie(composition, färger, simplistic projections)
* Pippi DOS
* Loranga, Dartanjang och Massarin
* KAMRATPOSTEN KAMRATPOSTEN KAMRATPOSTEN KAMRATPOSTEN KAMRATPOSTEN KAMRATPOSTEN
* Kings Quest scanned Art * All of the above have much in common(simplistic projection, rendering, bruks) but Pat Hines takes the cake as I see it.
* Windows 98