Discussion: The Intrepid Informer: Issue #2

Hi everybody and welcome to the 2nd issue of the Intrepid Informer!

This week, we are very excited to introduce you to another member of the City of Heroes team whom you wouldn't have heard much about yet but we can tell you he has been working hard in the background to make sure we deliver outstanding graphics into the game.

Gilbert Martinez is one of our art leads and he has been working on City of Heroes for a little while now. You may have met him if you were at the City of Heroes Bay Area Meet & Greet back in November 2010, in which case you would have noticed Gilbert wearing one of his awesome hats! But hats are not Gilbert's only source of brilliance. He is first and foremost an artist and he has worked on an amazing array of features that will gradually make it into the game throughout the next content updates.

Talking about amazing visuals, Gilbert's team have made a tremendous creative effort in order to come up with a particular feature that will soon make its way into the game: the Floating Fortress.

Without further ado, please welcome Gilbert Martinez who will give us more details on that intriguing new environment.



The Floating Fortress Art Process: Part 1
by Gilbert Martinez


Hi folks,

First off I just want to say how honored I feel to be part of such a fantastic group of game developers here at Paragon Studios. I couldn't ask for a more talented group of people to be working with and I hope you all are as excited as I am to see the content we are building. I also feel humbled to be writing to all of you who play our game and am excited to share with you some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making the content you love to play.

I thought it would be fun to focus this week's topic on the exterior environment art for a feature you will see in Issue 20. The design team challenged us to build a "floating city composed of stolen ships". How cool is that? We were excited to oblige and the images you can see below show how the original paper design translated into the final game.

The image above is a top-down 2D map of the Floating Fortress exterior created by our intrepid designer John "Protean" Hegner. This map provided the environment art team with the layout of the "floating fortress" as well as the type and number of unique and instanced assets that were needed. John also provided documentation on the mission story, gameplay moments, and photo images of the type of military naval ships that would have to be built. Those of you with military backgrounds who noticed that the new battleships in Independence Port look very familiar can thank John for bringing a little bit of naval reality into the game.

Bringing the Floating Fortress to life in 3D was put into the capable hands of Senior Environment Artist Ryan Roth. A large bulk of the exterior zone work involved kitbashing existing art assets into a menacing conglomeration of steel and ship parts. We also roped in Character Artist Eric Chyn to help with the outer protective walls. As you can see in the next two screenshots, it all turned out quite beautiful! Anybody that wants to commend the team for its hard work can tell Ryan Roth in person at Pax East 2011 where he'll be part of the panel representing the City of Heroes artists.

Our job in the Art Department is to bring the design team's ideas alive in our game through art while making it as beautiful as possible within the time restraints we are given. This can often be a daunting task but our team always strives to give our players the biggest bang for their buck. That being said, at the end of the day it is all about fun and one of my favorite tidbits in this area may appeal to those of you who like your fun delivered inside of Easter eggs. Somewhere hidden in this zone are a few hapless fishermen just waiting for your heroic arrival. Happy hunting.

In Part 2 of this article I'll share with you all the art process involved in bringing the interior ship areas of this zone to completion. See you then.

Wtf.



Omg.

That just looks damn cool... a floating fortress of stolen ships? For I-20? I'm thinking someone's decided Praetoria is not the place to be, and Hami may not like water, so hi ho, hi ho, it's off to sea we go!

But if I see Kevin Costner, I'm shooting him on sight.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Very nicely done.. cant wait to see how this baby is going to fit into the game !

Awesome.

Pretty cool, can't wait til you show off some of the interior... and it better be a Red-Side city...


:|

All I wanna know is, can we swim under the boats?

Looks awesome; color me intrigued.

d

A rift portal... so either a rogue portal base/city in international waters on Primal or something in Praetoria? Hopefully it isn't just a task force map but if so I'll be trying to play that one a lot.

Awesome

The floating city is pretty cool- I'd think it would have more struts/ramps/beams to connect everything and keep it floating together, but I really shouldn't say given such a small image.

Nice idea, here's hoping it's populated by pirates!

Seems neat and interesting. Hopefully it isn't another dumping of Praetorian content and something new and original with actual costumed supers and all that.

I also REALLY hope they have original mission maps involved. That would be the big bonus.

Is it bad that I was expecting "floating" to mean "aerial?" And that I was actually disappointed for a moment?

If it's in Praetoria, I think it might be a Resistance base, as a loyalist one probably wouldn't look so "thrown togther" - but if it's on Primal Earth, it could be a loyalist one that they made in secret off the coast.

And whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's connected to the warship in Independence Port and Admiral Sutter.

The Facebook picture looks like it shows a floating platform of some kind, but its shape doesn't seem to match anything on the Floating Fortress diagram:

I can see this zone being a problem for Super Speeders to get around.

Hmm, the phrases "exterior zone work" and "unique and instanced assets" are intriguing. So is the Floating Fortress as a whole a new zone, with different missions taking place in instances within it?

Hrrrm. I suppose it's interesting-looking. It'll depend heavily on the writing, of course.

But excuse me for being cranky? But, well, as far back as when Mission Architect was new, and then repeatedly since then, we keep getting asked what kinds of environmental art assets we'd like added to the game ... and this is not something that anybody, let alone any significant number of us, asked for. I would really have preferred the art department's time had gone into something a little more interesting AND useful, like the long overdue space station and lunar colony and underwater city maps.

Wow! Just wow!

This looks like a smaller version of the floating city Armada from China Mieville's The Scar.

I can't wait!

I'm wondering if the interior is not all instanced (like the tunnels/sewers on a smaller scale)?

Anyone care to approximate the size of this zone (compared against what's already available)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Girl Well, the "somewhere hidden in this zone are a few hapless fishermen just waiting for your heroic arrival" bit means that the fortress is being run by naughty types

You mean Canada Joe is actually going to talk to us now? Oh, wait... 'heroic' types... that's why he wasn't talking to any of us redsiders all this time.

OK, seriously now, some thoughts:

During the BAF test people found a new mission contact in IP stationed on a battleship. He's tasked with defending our waters. The floating fortress has a good chance of being related to that.

That would suggest that that Fortress is located on Primal Earth.

Since they have a Rift Portal, it could mean these ships are from Praetoria.

It doesn't look like something Cole's forces would have put together (too ramshackle).

Perhaps these are refugees from Praetoria; Resistance or simply people who are not loyal to Cole who have taken to living at sea to escape the Hamidon and have now traveled to Primal Earth to escape Cole's forces. Just because they're not with Cole, they could still be hostile to Primals, Perhaps no government would grant them asylum or they live via piracy and it doesn't matter what world they're stealing from.

If they're not from Praetoria, perhaps they're related to the Sky Raiders, or this is an offshore "rogue state" or some sort.

Lots of possibilities.



.

New zone? New zone?

Pleasebeavillainzonepleasebeavillainzonepleasebeav illainzone...

...

I'm guessing probably not but cool.

But I really really want a new villain zone anyway.