jcfst@unix.cis.pitt.edu (John C. Fossum) (03/06/90)
Since the recent discussion on where are the amiga artists hanging
out, well the answer is overseas. At work, I picked up a couple of
magazines from Europe called 'The One' and 'MicroWorld', both very
supportive of the Amiga and ST, and we are getting killed in every
department (ie. programming, game design, and above all else, graphics).
I am very surprised that none of these games are being converted to
NTSC and sold over here. The only company, besides Psygnosis, that has
at least made this attempt is UBI Soft, and this is just recently. Let's
face it. The American PC development companies are hurting right now.
Everyone seems to be jumping on someone elses bandwagon (and it seems
like EA is that wagon).
The attitude overseas is in the right direction too. Develop for the
best possible machine in terms of graphics (of course, the Amiga) and
work your way down from there. Being a computer artist myself, I develop
the same philosophy at work (even though it's for VGA to EGA, damn
company dropped it's Amiga line...well we won't be there too much longer
anyway) and for a current moonlighting project (should be a killer and
ready for marketing by June). But in VGA to EGA, it's really EGA to VGA
because you want to make at least both formats look decent instead of
just one. You have to look at it that way because VGA is not a standard,
at least not yet anyway. But on the Amiga, you have a standard, a 32
color redefinable palette. Character's animations can be reduced to 16
to save graphic plane switching and increase speed. Then if you want
other PC conversions, you whip out Digiview, freeze some palettes,
play around with palette controls and # of colors, do into Dpaint and
retouch and WELLA. Not too difficult. The joy on working on the Amiga
is that there seems to be graphic solutions to almost any problem
(speaking from the artistic standpoint, good luck programmers). What
seems to be lacking over in the US is a distinguishable style and there
only a select few that have developed there own. Cinemaware has
some incredible stuff and follow the same British graphic converting
hierarchy as described above. Another is Psygnosis (I believe they
have a distributor in Illinois) (not originally from US but very much
in the camera's eye over here). Their styles are recognized and perhaps
more than 50% in selling all of their games. What do you do when you
pick up a Cinemaware or Psygnosis game? Look at the back for the graphics.
They are recognized for that. I think the thing that is lacking is the
the balance between a well designed and programmed game, and a
graphically appealing product. That's what we (me and a few programmers)
are trying to work on and try to release. I'm a stickler on high impact,
well rendered stuff, and they're hung up on great game play with
decent overall speed (disk access, animation, fluidity). Until someone
(hopefully us) can find this elusive medium, I think the US will be
content with 8-bit Nintendo block charcters that bloop, bleep, and
flicker like a bad campfire. Let's hope and pray that this is not the
PC world we are eluding to.
-Steve M. Suhy