Star Wars: The Old Republic's art style is unmistakable.
Whether it's the iconic battle uniforms of the Jedi, or the Havoc Squad armor worn by
Republic troopers, each outfit and armor set in the game was carefully crafted to fit the
look and feel of an era that comes 3,000 years before the Star Wars movies.
In this short documentary, I'll be talking to Anna Lee, a long-time concept artist for
Bioware who has designed many of the recent armors in the game, and Dustin Gagner, a Character
artist who is new addition to the Bioware Austin team.
Anna Lee received a Masters in Fine Art in Illustration from the Academy of Art University
in San Francisco.
Shortly after, she joined the Bioware team in 2014, the same year the Shadow of Revan
expansion was released.
Although she hasn't been with the studio since the launch of the game, when she joined she'd
collected over eleven years of experience in concept artistry.
It's no wonder she was assigned to design Empress Acina's regal new outfit
just a year later!
Dustin Gagner has a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and started off as a 3D Artist Intern at Disney
Interactive Studios, and only joined the Bioware Austin team in late 2017, as the team was
getting ready for the United Forces update.
Together, they've joined up to tell us just how the Bioware development team tackles adding
new armor designs to Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Reference collecting is the most important and the very first step of creating a new
set of armor.
This can be the most fun part of the process because there are so many good designs and
stories to take inspiration from in the Star Wars universe.
Four to five initial sketches follow to initiate the discussion, and different departments
can be involved in this stage so that the team can prevent any technical issues and
get more open feedback.
We plan ahead of time drawing inspiration from the comics, older Star Wars games and
movies to inform and inspire new ideas.
The outfits ideation is open to all team members.
Whether it's from a sketch that a Character Artist did, a reference that a designer pulled
up, or even a player idea, all ideas are considered in a team-oriented group conversation.
Creating a new story character's look and armor requires an incredible amount of collaboration
between the writing team, concept team and character artist team.
Unlike armor design for player characters, armor designed for key characters must reflect
that character's values, strengths and ideals.
After a discussion, the concept team drives the main design of the outfit.
Young Kim, concept artist, had the chance to create the concept art for one of Star
Wars: The Old Republic's key story characters in the story arc following the Knights of
the Eternal Throne expansion.
I initially wanted to know more about the character, so I spoke to his writer, Samantha
Wallschlaeger, and worked closely with her on his development.
I spoke to her about who this character was, and what his motivations were.
For story based characters I think writers are one of the best, if not the best, colleagues
a concept artist could hope for.
That kind of synergy is really exciting as you bounce ideas off each other and ask questions
like "Is he being used by the Gemini droid?
Does he have Force powers and powerful connections, or does he just have an uncommon will to see
a mission through?
Who is he?"
After speaking with Samantha several times I had this image of this regular guy who was
grieving and who wanted to find some way to bring down the alliance that had caused so
much destruction in their wake.
I felt his motivations were pretty close a movie character who was a citizen turned terrorist
mastermind who sought revenge after losing his family, becoming obsessed with destroying
the "good guys", and I was definitely inspired by it.
I imagined him traveling with this Gemini droid who had somehow found him, taking whatever
enhancements he could get, like Gemini cybernetics, to get him closer to his goal.
He would have traveled extensively, fighting and surviving - searching for the weapon to
destroy the alliance for what they had done.
That was why in the concept, I gave his armor more of a dented and really worn feel - he'd
been through a lot to enact his plan.
I knew he was an ex-Horizon Guard so I definitely wanted to include elements of Horizon Guard
armor like the black plating and the gold trimming to hint at that.
The senior character artist Dustin Gagner later changed it to silver to give the outfit
a more neutral relationship for other color dyes to work with.
I also reasoned that he was mourning the losses in Zakuul and what it used to be.
Initially I wanted to have a black cloth band on his arm, which often symbolizes mourning,
but there was feedback that it could mean something else unintentionally so that was
scrapped.
Instead, I placed a badge on his chest with a black band around it to kind of point towards
that.
This type of subtle symbolism has been an important part of the game's armor design
since the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, from the ornate armor of the emperor of Zakuul
to the small-scale designs on the royal family's belts.
Charles Boyd, the creative director of the game, helped shape the Eternal Empire's
presence in the third and fourth expansion.
CHARLES: The designs for these characters serve several goals - they demonstrate the
power and opulence of the Eternal Empire, setting it apart from the Republic and the
Sith in clear ways.
Their costuming also contains lots of elements of ancient Zakuulan culture, helping to show
that this is a long-standing civilization with its own past and traditions.
Finally, I think they do a good job of not being inherently "good" or "evil"
– the details and use of color often subvert expectations in interesting ways.
Even the Horizon Guard uniform that Vinn Atrius's armor was modeled off of contains key elements
from Zakuulan design, while his unique helmet was influenced by another key character in
the Fallen Empire's storyline.
The helmet went through a bunch of iterations that received a lot of feedback from different
people, but I just wanted to make a cool helmet that would stand out in silhouette and at
the same time have some kind of shape relationship with the Gemini droids.
Maybe the Gemini droid he was with had helped him craft it.
I liked how it came out but I'm not sure if the players do!
I think Samantha and the writing team also had a pretty good idea what voice actor they
wanted for Vinn Atrius, and so I tried to take that into consideration in the head design.
The cool hair treatment that he got came a little later as the creative director wanted
to give him a more of a ronin feel, as a samurai without a lord or master, which worked well
with the character's theme.
After the concept was completed, it was handed to a character artist who did a really great
job breathing life into the character.
We would occasionally talk about adjustments that had to be made, because a lot of times
concepts have difficulty being translated one-to-one.
It really was a team effort to create this character!
When the game was first released, the design team focused on creating iconic, class-themed
armors and outfits.
Many of the armors were even locked to specific classes, so you could always tell that an
individual character was a Trooper or a Sith just by looking at them.
Over time, the team embraced the players' wish for individuality and expression through
their own personal character design.
Not only are there now unique armor designs that fall outside the original 8 class archetypes,
players can also choose their armor with fewer restrictions, and even dye their armor in
ways that the original concept artists may have never imagined.
From the perspective of generating the character models in game, the priority is affected by
what artist is available to take on a new task and what content is coming down the pipe.
We want the new outfit to be innovative and show a different look from existing outfits.
Concept artists have the opportunity to work closely with the Character Artists and the
VFX artists to experiment with new archetypes and VFX on armor.
So, for instance, sometimes a Cartel Market item may take priority because it has some
special new feature we haven't done before, such as a new kind of cape, like the Force
Apprentice set.
Over the years since the game's launch, the development team has added numerous technical
armor improvements to their toolbox.
Some of the more interesting additions include:
The outfit designer which allows players to separate the stats and the look of their armor
Higher resolution textures for newer armor New styles of capes and stoles
Weapon Tunings, which allow greater character customization of weapons
And even animated armor or armor that has a special effect when you draw your weapon
the Tactical Infantry Set
Other things that will take priority are key story characters or creatures and bosses that
are important to get done both in a timely manner, and on style.
We also put into consideration how the new outfit theme fits in with the Old Republic
universe.
Star Wars itself has a distinctive style, and the designs are very different from other
sci-fi movies with its own uniqueness and boldness.
We try to create something fresh looking while keeping the essence of the Ralph McQuarrie
Star Wars design.
After finishing the main design of an outfit, turnaround drawings and call outs are prepared
for the character team.
Turnaround drawings are essential for the 3D team as it allows them to accurately build
the concept idea.
Our modelers usually own a character once concept has finished with a design.
They will see the character through the high poly modeling all the way to integrating it
into game.
The stages of production start with realizing the design from concept in Zbrush to create
a high poly model built on one of the base body types.
Once finished, and approved, the artist will then create the low poly, unwrap its UV's
and texture the game version in Substance Painter and Photoshop.
During this process, once the first game version is made, it is then resized by hand to fit
all 8 body types.
For materials we have different channels of the textures we use that allow us to represent
different levels of reflectivity to give the appearance of different materials, including
cloth, leather and metal.
These channels are in grayscale so how smooth, rough or reflective something appears is controlled
by how white or black it is in its respective texture.
We use a complex clothing physics system that was created and optimized by our talented
engineers.
In short, we use bone chains that we skin the cloth to and then set up collider volumes
to keep it from clipping into the body or legs.
The bone chains have their own values we can adjust to make something more springy or stiff
etc.
This allows us to give the appearance of flowing cloth while maintaining better performance.
From concept artist to character artist, each member of the development team plays a key
part in creating armor in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Every part of process must be given careful consideration, starting with ideation and
sketches, and ending with the technical work done by a character artist to allow the concept
artist's ideas to come to life - so the next time you play Star Wars: The Old Republic,
take a close look at your character's armor and see what kind of story it can tell.
For more infomation >> MİTHRAİN GAMESCOM A SİTEM DUO VERDİLER SOLO OYNADIM YETER - Duration: 6:06. 
For more infomation >> Hightlight Việt Nam 1 - 0 Syria | Bàn thắng quyết định của Văn Toàn tại tứ kết Asiad 2018 - Duration: 1:07. 
For more infomation >> [ MATCH 174 ] du FIVE SONGS - Duration: 6:30. 
For more infomation >> [ MATCH 175 ] du FIVE SONGS - Duration: 6:30. 
For more infomation >> -103- ASR SURESİ MEALİ -Kuran Meali- MEALİ KERİM - Duration: 1:13. 
For more infomation >> برنامج "Kurt û Kurmancî" - السياسة الأمريكية الجديدة في سوريا - Duration: 5:40. 
For more infomation >> RAKİBİ ÜSTÜNE ÇEKME TAKTİĞİ | PES 2019 | PES 2018 - Duration: 11:48. 
For more infomation >> Roxy and Sony A7 III at the river bank - Duration: 8:23. 
For more infomation >> Трасса М10 на СПб. [ Едрово - ✕ Валдай - Крестцы - ✕ Новгородская объездная ] - Duration: 52:32. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét