Chapter 1: Before / After States

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Before/After States for Advanced Narrative Character Design — Time Layers, Culture & “Voice”

Audience: character concept artists on both the concepting and production sides.

Characters are living records. Every dent, stitch, upgrade, and scar is a sentence in their biography, and “before/after” states are how you pace that biography across the arc of a game, a trailer, or a transmedia campaign. When handled deliberately, state changes—injury, weathering, and upgrades—do far more than decorate: they carry time, encode culture, and give your cast a recognizable “voice.” This article lays out how to design, specify, and hand off stateful characters so that story, gameplay readability, and production reality remain aligned from sketch to shipping build and on through key art and figurines.

1) The Narrative Function of State

Before/after is structure, not garnish. “Before” establishes capability, ethics, and social context; “After” reveals consequence and growth. Injury frames vulnerability, debt, and choices; weathering frames travel, labor, and environment; upgrades frame agency, craft, and community. For concepting artists, treat each state change as a beat with an intention—what does this new state say that the previous one could not? For production artists, translate that intention into toggles, masks, and blend shapes that survive camera distance, lighting changes, and animation.

2) Time Layers: Designing the Accumulation of Life

Time layers are the strata you can read at a glance: base garment, inherited patch, field repair, ritual mark, celebratory paint, emergency splint. Stack them like geology. Early layers should be material and universal (sun‑bleached seams, sole wear at the lateral forefoot), mid layers should be situational (salt crust from sea spray, caked volcanic dust), and top layers should be plot‑specific (fresh blood, soot from a named blast). Concept artists should annotate whether a layer is reversible (washes off), progressive (compounds with play), or pivotal (uniquely tied to a quest). Production artists should mirror that taxonomy in shader parameters and texture sets so time can advance or rewind without re‑authoring.

3) Culture & “Voice”: Repairs, Rituals, and Aesthetics of Damage

State change is a dialect. How a culture repairs and upgrades tells you what it values. A resource‑scarce culture rivets with mismatched metals and celebrates visible mending; a ceremonial order hides sutures beneath gilded plates and treats patina as sacred. Write a short repair doctrine: accepted materials, taboo fixes, color of thread for mourning vs. victory, preferred fasteners, typical stitch length. Define upgrade etiquette: who grants permissions, where sigils are placed, how apprentices mark their work. These notes steer paintovers and kitbash choices on the concept side and become practical texture motifs and decal sets on the production side.

4) Injury: Anatomy, Ethics, and Readability

Injury communicates risk and consequence; it must be respectful, legible, and gameplay‑safe. Concept artists should separate acute (fresh cut, swelling, bruising gradients, wetness) from chronic (scar maturation from red to silvery, hypertrophic patterns, prosthetic wear). Avoid sensationalism: study medical references to place lacerations along believable stress lines and to keep blood behavior consistent with gravity and fabric absorbency. Production artists should implement injury through modular masks (blood, dust, scorch) and deformers (temporary swelling, restricted ROM) that never break the rig. Provide a comfort mode plan (reduced gore palettes, shape‑based readability of wounds) that preserves narrative intent for sensitive players and regional ratings.

5) Weathering: Environment as Author

Weathering is the environment’s handwriting on your character. Map wear by cause: UV (desaturates dyes, chalks leather), abrasion (edge brightening, pilling), chemistry (acid rain spotting, salt bloom), thermal (scorch crazing, resin yellowing), biological (mildew bloom, insect fray). Specify directionality: windward edges, mud splash cones, pack‑strap rub ellipses. Concept artists should create wear maps that explain why each mark exists; production artists should translate them into curvature‑aware and directional masks so weathering grows from gameplay inputs rather than random noise.

6) Upgrades: Agency, Modularity, and Balance

Upgrades are the grammar of growth. Define categories: functional (armor plates, reinforced joints), expressive (faction charms, victory braids), systemic (power cores, UI projectors), and hybrid (ritual plating that is also ballistic). Concepting should show interface logic—bolt patterns, cable routing, harness points—so the upgrade appears engineered, not glued on. Production should maintain attachment standards (named sockets, consistent scale) and weight budgets so animation remains believable. Where upgrades alter proportions, specify silhouette deltas to protect class readability at distance.

7) Material ID, Masking, and State Stacks

Both sides should plan states as stacks, not forks. Author a base material set with stable albedo ranges, then layer non‑destructive masks for dirt, wetness, frost, soot, blood, fabric repairs, sticker decals, and paint. Keep ID maps stable across all states so capture, key art, and figurine paint masters can target the same zones. For production, expose a limited set of parameters (e.g., Dust_Amount, Edge_Wear, Blood_Freshness, Frost_Thickness) rather than proliferating unique textures per beat; this reduces memory and improves continuity.

8) Motion, Ergonomics, and the Body Under Change

State changes affect movement. A strapped splint limits elbow extension; a heavier pauldron skews posture and swing arcs; a soaked cloak doubles in weight and clings to calves. Concept artists should annotate kinematic consequences for each state—reduced reach, altered gait, favored hand—and propose alt‑poses that express those changes. Production artists should test collision and cloth sim for new silhouettes (torn hems, dangling straps) and adjust skinning where swelling or prosthetics alter topology. Micro‑acting matters: scar tightness reduces brow lift; a fresh rib bruise changes breathing.

9) Color, Value, and Print/Screen Stability

Time layers can desaturate a palette into mud if unmanaged. Keep two separations at all times: value contrast to hold the read in greyscale and hue temperature contrast to convey material differences (cold steel vs. warm leather) even when grime reduces saturation. Provide a neutral LUT for capture and CMYK notes for print where cyans, violets, and dark reds tend to shift. Reserve a brand color island—an emblem, sash, or energy core—that stays protected across states so marketing and UI retain a constant anchor.

10) Iconography, Language, and Repair Typography

Give repairs and upgrades a type system: stitch families (whip, ladder, sashiko), rivet head designs, patch shapes tied to roles, paint stripe widths with ritual meaning. Keep a rune library or marker sheet so decals remain consistent at all scales. For production, implement these as vector decals and layered normals so they scale without artifacting. For concepting, write one‑line translations for a few symbols to enrich documentation and prevent mismatched uses downstream.

11) Progression Maps and State Milestones

Treat state as a roadmap. Sketch a progression strip from Prologue → Midgame → Endgame with 3–5 milestones. For each, write a paragraph: narrative cause, physical manifestation, mechanical effect, cultural interpretation, and assets touched (textures, meshes, rigs, FX). Identify one poster pose per milestone for trailers and press kits, and flag one figurine‑ready moment with stable base contact points and readable negative spaces. Production should version assets with clear suffixes (charA_v03_state02) so capture and marketing can request exact beats.

12) Ethical Framing and Inclusive Representation

Injury and augmentation intersect with identity. Avoid fetishizing pain or disability; portray prosthetics and mobility aids as integrated, dignified tools with their own aesthetics and maintenance states. Provide accessibility skins that communicate function without graphic gore and ensure that color‑blind simulations preserve the separations you rely on. When drawing from specific cultures for repair motifs or ritual marks, cite sources and consult; avoid treating sacred symbols as generic patterning.

13) Handoff Packages: Making States Usable

Deliver states with a compact bible: overview sheet (intent, culture notes), callout paintovers for each layer, mask previews (greyscale thumbnails named), material tables (albedo/roughness ranges), and a capture kit (approved angles, lens suggestions, lighting recipe). Include scale witnesses (rulers, stitch-per‑cm notes) so physical merch can reproduce details accurately. For production, provide look‑dev presets and default parameter ranges; for concepting, keep a small library of brush stamps or decals that match the doctrine so late‑stage fixes remain on‑style.

14) QA for Continuity and Performance

Before lock, run a continuity pass: does the scratch on the vambrace “travel” through shots with consistent orientation and depth? Do reversible layers actually come off cleanly, or do ghosts remain in roughness? Does the splint impede the same ROM in all animations? Then run a performance pass: are mask blends causing banding at low bitrates? Do added geometry and cloth sims stay within budgets at LODs? Are print extractions free of moiré or crushed darks? Document any compromises so narrative, capture, and merch teams share the same expectations.

15) Practical Patterns You Can Reuse

When in doubt, apply these repeatable patterns. Echo and escalate: repeat a repair motif (blue sashiko) and escalate thread weight or density after each major trial. Contrast and resolve: introduce a mismatched upgrade from an ally faction, then resolve it with a hybrid piece that marries both aesthetics near the finale. Mark and mourn: add a small, culturally correct mourning tag for a chapter—then retire it in a ritual scene, leaving a faint stitch shadow as a memory. Each pattern gives players a way to read time on the body, and gives production a predictable plan for masks and materials.

16) A Simple Weekly Practice Loop

Build a rhythm: pick one character per week and do a three‑state strip (pristine, midway, climax) with notes on time layers, culture voice, and technical toggles. On Friday, translate your notes into parameterized masks and a one‑pager capture kit. Over a month, you’ll seed a reusable library of repair doctrines, decal sets, and upgrade sockets that accelerate future briefs and keep the ensemble coherent.

Outcome: before/after states become a disciplined narrative system instead of scattered grunge. Your characters will carry time honestly, speak with a culture‑rooted voice, and remain technically robust across concept, production, capture, print, and figurines—so that what players feel in motion matches what they hold in their hands.