Hmm, I have a question. I was thinking that it would be best do use something has relates to “folding” like the origami mentioned earlier. But first I think it would be useful to know what the Defold logo image is supposed to be? The little colorful cube.
2 Likes
+1 for bean or bean-derivative from me.
3 Likes
I spent a few minutes playing with evolving the bean/capsule character as I feel it’s a very simple character that anyone can create something with, but it is also shape which with a few additional components (assets/accessories) that can create very expressive and unique characters which work both in 2D and 3D contexts—much like Defold itself.
I’ve done my mock up deliberately in black & white and have included a smaller size variation as I think these need to be adaptable to a number of contexts—and adding colours, shading and textures will only make them richer. I also think they’ll probably work fine as pixel art, but I haven’t broken out Aseprite yet to try.
There is of course some inspiration from Patapon (namely from being rendered in black and white currently), and I’ve also deliberately not gone with one single mascot character. There’s something really interesting about the idea of being able to adapt a simple bean/capsule into an almost limitless array of characters. I’d love to see an evolving library of bean related sprites, spine models, etc in the asset library that could be used by folks to quickly start creating games with Defold. More interesting and fun than generic placeholder assets, and instantly recognizable from a Defold brand perspective.
I kind of think of them as ‘Defold Minions’. 
Anyway, just thought I’d put this out there sooner rather than later to see what folks think. Happy to continue evolving (further designs, components, character sheets/rotations/models, style guide, templates, asset repo, etc.) it if there is interest in doing so.
My very messy Affinity Designer doc (Defold - Beans.zip) is attached.
Defold - Beans.zip (99.6 KB)
23 Likes
There’s one other thing that came to mind this morning. A few folks have been talking about ‘folds/folding’ (like paper, etc) and there’s another phrase/definition in English that always comes to mind when I think of ‘Defold’ (and I always say it like Gerard Butler going into battle, “Aye I yam gooin inda defold!”):
“…into the fold”
Definition: Into a group of people with the same beliefs.
This phrase is usually said as bring into the fold or welcome into the fold.
I really like this idea as it not only speaks to a gathering of ‘like minds’ but potentially also inclusion and diversity, both of which are things I’d really like to hope are key goals within the Defold community as it grows.
5 Likes
So many good ideas to choose from! If I had to pick just one, I’d go with @Dat_Indie’s sketch with Bengan. I think the bean folk feel a bit too generic, like something you’d find in a free asset pack online.
Count me in!
4 Likes
It’s implied a bit by the title, but I think we don’t need one community mascot. We can have multiple community characters that can be made as 2D versions (pixel art for platformer / hand drawn for other uses) and 3D versions. Then have the IP completely put into public domain so anyone can use them. Mostly focus on using them in example projects, but if people wanted to make real games with them they could too. So whatever kind of character inspires you and you think would be useful we could make versions of. Then maybe they could appear as easter eggs in our own person projects.
5 Likes
Yeah! We did do these assets which are free to use by anyone. But nothing apart from that, from what I can remember.
12 Likes
We did what!?!?!?!?!?! How on earth could I have missed or forgotten about this. OMG.
10 Likes
Awesome @Axel! Do you think it is possible that you have somewhere also SVGs of the bean character? 
And @britzl - is it possible to have SVG Defold logos?
I am asking because Rive can import only SVGs, not PNGs 
I published them with the PNG versions here: https://github.com/defold/assets-defold/commit/293adef237f59c3bb4cd8a330af54cdb32affdf8
1 Like
Does Rive require characters to be positioned in a T-pose when rigged (I assume not), and does it require that each object (body, arms, legs, head, eyes, etc) within a character be a separate object/layer/group within the SVG document?
I suspect many existing SVGs will be flattened/simplified/optimized when exported (from Illustrator, Inkscape, etc) which make make it difficult to extrapolate the various parts for animation.
I’ve included a quick semi-structured/grouped sample SVG file along with the original Affinity Designer document (attached) to experiment. So far it generally seems to come into Rive (via Affinity) just fine, except for rounded stroke end-caps and joints (rendered a square) which likely means all lines/strokes must be expanded to curves (see: Bean Outlines.svg in the archive) before importing into Rive to ensure the geometry remains intact.
Bean.zip (28.2 KB)
1 Like
@pkeod actually had more variations of the logo than I had. I’ve pushed the logo versions from Brian to the same GitHub repo.
2 Likes
Nope. Not according to Guido from Rive. He writes “you can rig in whatever pose you want. And you don’t necessarily need the SVG to be broken up, we have vertex deformations (similar to raster image deformations, but with vector graphics).”
3 Likes
Beware!
This is of really bad quality, because it was recorded with gif capture, then added bean gif in Google Slides and then recorded again with gif capture 
Please don’t mind this way of working, but: 1) I don’t see any option to export from Rive to GIF 2) the bean assets are really small (160px high) 3) I don’t see any option to import gif to Rive + nor the SVG import is working like I would expect - but it might be that I don’t know something
This one is with Kenney’s HD character (the same, blatant way of working):
12 Likes
Mr. Bean. Maybe with a Defold logo on him.
2 Likes
I played a little bit with DALLE and made some concepts for a community mascot for Defold - merging moose as national Sweden animal (I think it doesn’t understand difference between moose and reindeer though) and Defold specific colors.
I am not good at 3D creations, but if anyone anytime would create such a cute creature - and better - render and animate it in Defold - it would be soooo cool Imagine there would be a game template with such a cute boy! 
Here are some of my favourites:
I like the design with hands, because it can then easily hold something e.g. gamepad, mobile phone, envelope (e.g. when explaining messaging system) etc. DALLE is obviously not consistent and always generates a new design so it’s useless to make fun with one design and only change its pose and holding items or so
I’m playing though with Rive from time to time and if I will manage to create a 2D version of it, I won’t hesitate to share it!
What do you think about such shenaningas? 
4 Likes