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In a previous post I discussed the geometrical basis for head and face skinning. In this post, I am going to look at the geometric basis of various skinning styles for the minecraft body template (commonly known as "Steve") with a focus on developing a "realistic" style.
The Evolution of a Skinner's Vision of Steve
Skinners appear to go through a similar evolution in their thinking about skin design. Beginners see the Steve body for exactly what it is - a series of blocks, and develop skins that reflect exactly that. They use flat shading for blocks or they may will add a little noise or blurring to add some contrast.
The first evolutionary step toward a more realistic skin is the "blocky" body. The edges and corners of the blocks are made to look beveled by shading in two darker tones. This makes Steve look more 3D.
As novice skinners compare their work to skinners making the pop reel, they begin to see that by increasing the number of beveling shades (making a gradient) they can make the blocks look like cylinders. Darker pixels are placed in the vertical crevices where the arms meet the body, and between the legs. Lighter pixels are placed where light shines on the figure (the front of the cylinders).
The next thing the evolving skinner realizes is that Steve represents a human figure with locked elbow, wrist, knee, and ankle joints. These joints form a narrowing in the anatomy of the arms and legs. The interpretation of Steve is has moved from straight cylinders to segmented cylinders with curved ends. Therefore, shading is used between horizontal joints. This is a fairly typical interpretation; one that allows good to high quality skins that look plausible from every angle in game play.
Beyond this level, lies the vision of "ideal Steve", one with body proportions scaled to what a human would look like if he/she was confined to the boundaries of the Steve frame. I want to be very clear, this is the holy grail of realistic skinning style artistry - completely unattainable because pixels are surface elements and not tiny blocks that can be removed or sculpted to our whims. This is the level where a skinner thinks deeply about using shading to create the "illusion" of the underlying bone structure, the overlying muscle definition, and the draping of any clothing on top of all that. The end result is always more sophisticated details than a "Jointed" Steve but considerably less formed than an "Ideal" Steve.
In my model of the "Ideal" Steve, I scaled human body proportions to fit within the dimension of the Steve blocks. I've labeled muscle groups that can be mimicked by shading (these are just representative muscles, there are many more...). It isn't important to memorize the muscle groups, but you should observe their locations and how their interplay affects the degree of shading necessary to illustrate them.
Lets see what attempting an "Ideal" Steve looks like in practice. My "Satyr" skin is a good example of the points I am trying to make. On the upper body, I shaded the deltoids, biceps, pectorals, and obliques on the front view and the trapezius and latissimus on the back view. If you look at the goat-like legs you can see that I shaded a goat's equivalent of the gluteus and leg muscles.
Kitty Softpaws is an example of creating a more feminine form of the "Ideal" Steve. See if you can identify how many "ideal" features the skin contains.
Skinning for realism is always risky, experimental, and subject to criticism, as too are all skins, such as animals and inanimate objects, that try "not to be Steve". Every illusion used to create these types of skins has hidden penalties that the skinner needs to minimize or disguise if the skin is to look good in motion and during game play. I will be discussing these trade-offs in future posts. To me, the thrill of skinning lies in dancing on this edge between pixel art and functional game avatar.
The Evolution of a Skinner's Vision of Steve
Skinners appear to go through a similar evolution in their thinking about skin design. Beginners see the Steve body for exactly what it is - a series of blocks, and develop skins that reflect exactly that. They use flat shading for blocks or they may will add a little noise or blurring to add some contrast.
The first evolutionary step toward a more realistic skin is the "blocky" body. The edges and corners of the blocks are made to look beveled by shading in two darker tones. This makes Steve look more 3D.
As novice skinners compare their work to skinners making the pop reel, they begin to see that by increasing the number of beveling shades (making a gradient) they can make the blocks look like cylinders. Darker pixels are placed in the vertical crevices where the arms meet the body, and between the legs. Lighter pixels are placed where light shines on the figure (the front of the cylinders).
The next thing the evolving skinner realizes is that Steve represents a human figure with locked elbow, wrist, knee, and ankle joints. These joints form a narrowing in the anatomy of the arms and legs. The interpretation of Steve is has moved from straight cylinders to segmented cylinders with curved ends. Therefore, shading is used between horizontal joints. This is a fairly typical interpretation; one that allows good to high quality skins that look plausible from every angle in game play.
Beyond this level, lies the vision of "ideal Steve", one with body proportions scaled to what a human would look like if he/she was confined to the boundaries of the Steve frame. I want to be very clear, this is the holy grail of realistic skinning style artistry - completely unattainable because pixels are surface elements and not tiny blocks that can be removed or sculpted to our whims. This is the level where a skinner thinks deeply about using shading to create the "illusion" of the underlying bone structure, the overlying muscle definition, and the draping of any clothing on top of all that. The end result is always more sophisticated details than a "Jointed" Steve but considerably less formed than an "Ideal" Steve.
In my model of the "Ideal" Steve, I scaled human body proportions to fit within the dimension of the Steve blocks. I've labeled muscle groups that can be mimicked by shading (these are just representative muscles, there are many more...). It isn't important to memorize the muscle groups, but you should observe their locations and how their interplay affects the degree of shading necessary to illustrate them.
Lets see what attempting an "Ideal" Steve looks like in practice. My "Satyr" skin is a good example of the points I am trying to make. On the upper body, I shaded the deltoids, biceps, pectorals, and obliques on the front view and the trapezius and latissimus on the back view. If you look at the goat-like legs you can see that I shaded a goat's equivalent of the gluteus and leg muscles.
Kitty Softpaws is an example of creating a more feminine form of the "Ideal" Steve. See if you can identify how many "ideal" features the skin contains.
Skinning for realism is always risky, experimental, and subject to criticism, as too are all skins, such as animals and inanimate objects, that try "not to be Steve". Every illusion used to create these types of skins has hidden penalties that the skinner needs to minimize or disguise if the skin is to look good in motion and during game play. I will be discussing these trade-offs in future posts. To me, the thrill of skinning lies in dancing on this edge between pixel art and functional game avatar.
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http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/jointed-minecraft-human-test/
What do you think?