Temporis Retro: Vectorizing Iop Info - 2022-01-31 16:00

You see them in the game all the time, so often that you barely notice them any more. That little gobball grazing peacefully out in the field. That one bush you walk past every now and then. Or the big rock where you stubbed the heck out of your toe a few adventures back. Pictograms are an essential part of the World of Twelve and its unique universe.

Today, we'll be showing you the work that goes into vectorizing a pictogram, as performed by DUSK, a mission lead on DOFUS Retro. And the courageous god Iop has volunteered to be his subject! You'll witness all the details of the process of creating a vector image based on the impressive muscles of the World of Twelve's most brutal god… But first, you can learn a bit more about what a vector image actually is by reading the three questions and answers below:
 

What's a vector image?

It's a drawing made up by combining a variety of geometric shapes. To create a vector image, we use straight lines, curves, polygons and lots of other shapes, then specify their color, transparency, thickness and position. The shapes are then linked together using mathematical formulas.

This drawing method is unique to vector images, and very different from the method used for raster images (JPG, PNG ,etc.), in which the drawing is made up of a collection of pixels.

Why vectorize?

DOFUS Retro uses Flash technology to give its animations a clean look, no matter what size the game window is set to. The characters in the game are vectorized, unlike most of the backgrounds, which are made with raster images in order to save resources. The reason is that, in order to display a vector image on the screen, the computer has to calculate and assemble the various components of the vector image as needed for the size of the item being displayed.  For example, a big tree filled with fine details will necessarily require more resources to be displayed than would be needed for a raster image. You can test this for yourself at home: if you zoom in on certain elements on the screen, you'll find some that stay clean and clear while others inevitably become blurry!

Another advantage of vectorization is that it produces an easily distinguishable graphical style, allowing DOFUS Retro to maintain the same visual identity today as the one seen in drawings made in the past.

How do you make a vector image?

Adobe Flash, Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape are just a few of the many software tools designed for working with vectors. Once they've got the right tools, artists just have to draw lines, deform them, color them, link them together and/or superimpose them to go from simple shapes to a more complex drawing.

And now, without further ado, it's time to check out the video!