IOTD: Face generator for my game

Face generator for my game, by kronoman

This shows some faces generated with my little face generator.

This generator is part of the character generator for my work-in-progress game, where you will command a small squad of soldiers in closed environments against bad dudes.

The idea of having faces and names for the squad members is to make the player feel something for their little soldiers, because they gain experience through the missions, so you must try hard to keep them alive between missions.

The game will be something like a mix of Warcraft, Space Hulk, Chaos Engine, Fiend and something more of my own...

I have some more stuff working, like the animation system, the game kernel, and some more stuff, I'm coding all this on my free time, so I'm going slow.

Cool! Hmmm, Alberto looks pretty weird, I like it. I'm gonna have to put Moe Arza in second place. Then Patrick in third. - William Heatley

Haha wow that's a really cool idea!! Yeah Alberto seems a little fruity, but I like this a lot. ^.^ Reminds me of an old game I used to play... Crime fighters. Ironically you were doing illegal things, not fighting crime... - Ceagon Xylas

Really nice idea, to generate faces (and names), I'm currently working about a game that is simillar to yours - a bit cannon fodder, small unit of soldiers in "chaosengine-looking" enviroment. Your face generator is a good idea for this sort of game (lot of dead soldiers - but with names and personalities) - Pavel Hilser

That seems like a cool idea. I suggest you take a look a Jagged Alliance, it has similarities with some of the features you mentioned (such as the portraits, and the gametype), and you may get some inspiration for your game.
I'd like to try out your face generator program, looks cool

. And don't forget to allow for user costumization of the base pictures (eyes ,noses, etc) for the faces. - pj mendes

Thanks for all the comments.

Well, yes, I did took a look at Jagged Alliance too, and Cannon Fodder, and some other games too.

I love old school games, so DosBox is almost always running on my PC

My face generator works like this:
I have an array of noses, mouths, eyes, hair, beard, etc and a list of names, nicknames and surnames.
Then, the generator returns a BITMAP with a new face, made using the random bitmaps (colored too, to change hair color, etc), and also a random name.

I'm working also on adding skills too, like stamina, accuracy, health, etc to the generator.

Maybe I can do that every enemy has also a name and a face, just like in some old arcade coin beat-em-up games (was The Punisher? or Cadillacs & Dinosaurs?) - kronoman

Pure Unadulterated Genius. - Michael Jensen

That's pretty cool!
BTW, ALberto's eyes remind me of Batou from Ghost in the Shell.

- Sporus

Hey this is nice. I did a similar face generator for my Transit Mania game too. Just that mine was simple smiley face. Good job it really looks sweet. - Ju-Han Soon

If you are ever interested, I suggest you make a tool where artist could make face template for other people who are not artist.

Japanese anime style drawings is a type of artwork that can work well for a face generator.

There is also tool called "hero machine" that does this picture permutation idea for creating whole characters, but they still keep the copyright on the generated characters, so we can't use them in a commercial game(~_~). - larienna

This section is only available to registered Allegro.cc members.

Join Allegro.cc

The Gallery | Add your own image!