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.
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.
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