Thanks everyone, here are a couple more breakdowns.
These are some early concepts of "The Grove" which is the starting city for the Sylvari plant creatures. These were done by Matt Barrett.
Here is a quick test level with some of the first buildings. It was a challenge to create an organic set of buildings but still keeping the textures and materials modular.
Starting to block in the Grove and get a feel for the size.
Started blocking in a swimming hole area at the base.
Getting ready to show design. They rightfully decided to simplify this in the end product because of the confusing pathways and verticality.
Here are some Lions Arch sketches that Levi Hopkins and Matt Barrett provided.
An early block in of one of the market areas. Daniel thought it would be cool if the vendor tents resembled waves crashing against the nearby cliffs.
The same area about halfway finished.
Just playing around with some bridge props by flipping them and trying to find cool intersections. It's always fun to see how much mileage you can get out of a single prop.
Getting close to calling the prototype done. This was one of the later areas I worked on and by this time I was able to hire on a team of ex students. Thanks Andy, Carlon, Kevin, Chris, Danny, Noah, MeatBall and Jacob for the help on prototyping this.
Can't believe no one commented on those yet.
Great job, awesome process and cool concepts!
So cool for your students to be able to join you professionally - super stoked for them)
Now I can see!
Environment are really pretty, I like the composition and the mood. Thank you for sharing this! And sorry for the disturbing, any content from Dropbox is blocked at the office...^^'
This is truly amazing. Im so blown away by all of this! Thank you so much for sharing. I am finishing my last year of uni now as an environment artist and you are such an inspiration. I also play Gw2 and have taken many screenshots of the environment for inspiration!
A couple questions if i may!
1. Could you post some more individual assets breakdowns? I love seeing those!
2. How is the gw2 team split up in terms for world building/environment art? As in, you seemed to have worked on many different areas, Are certain people assigned to build the blockout/large forms, while receiving models from other artists to fill the world out?
This is truly amazing. Im so blown away by all of this! Thank you so much for sharing. I am finishing my last year of uni now as an environment artist and you are such an inspiration. I also play Gw2 and have taken many screenshots of the environment for inspiration!
A couple questions if i may!
1. Could you post some more individual assets breakdowns? I love seeing those!
2. How is the gw2 team split up in terms for world building/environment art? As in, you seemed to have worked on many different areas, Are certain people assigned to build the blockout/large forms, while receiving models from other artists to fill the world out?
Looking forward to more!
Unfortunately I don't have any more individual asset breakdowns since I left Arena a year and a half ago. As far as the team divide, it used to be more segmented but as time went on people started doing both map work and prop creation which I think is more fun anyway. Making individual props is fun but the real payoff is when you place them and bring the world to life.
The prototype team I was leading was sort of a bridge between concept and production so it was fun to experiment and try big ideas. The flip side of the coin is that a lot of it changed later in development so it's hard to see months work of work on an area scrapped. Overall a really fun experience though.
Awesome! The art of Guild Wars 1 and 2, especially the environments, have always been hugely inspiring to me, so having this look at the process is unbelievably cool. Thanks so much for sharing!
Replies
Thanks for showing off all these breakdowns Jason, I've seen most of them in class, but there's a lot of new stuff here too.
These are some early concepts of "The Grove" which is the starting city for the Sylvari plant creatures. These were done by Matt Barrett.
Here is a quick test level with some of the first buildings. It was a challenge to create an organic set of buildings but still keeping the textures and materials modular.
Starting to block in the Grove and get a feel for the size.
Started blocking in a swimming hole area at the base.
Getting ready to show design. They rightfully decided to simplify this in the end product because of the confusing pathways and verticality.
Here are some Lions Arch sketches that Levi Hopkins and Matt Barrett provided.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15098641/PolyCountPost/LionsArchConceptsBarrett.jpg
An early block in of one of the market areas. Daniel thought it would be cool if the vendor tents resembled waves crashing against the nearby cliffs.
The same area about halfway finished.
Just playing around with some bridge props by flipping them and trying to find cool intersections. It's always fun to see how much mileage you can get out of a single prop.
Getting close to calling the prototype done. This was one of the later areas I worked on and by this time I was able to hire on a team of ex students. Thanks Andy, Carlon, Kevin, Chris, Danny, Noah, MeatBall and Jacob for the help on prototyping this.
Great job, awesome process and cool concepts!
So cool for your students to be able to join you professionally - super stoked for them)
Thanks so much for sharing this, Jason.
Thanks so much for all this awesome knowledge!
Environment are really pretty, I like the composition and the mood. Thank you for sharing this! And sorry for the disturbing, any content from Dropbox is blocked at the office...^^'
A couple questions if i may!
1. Could you post some more individual assets breakdowns? I love seeing those!
2. How is the gw2 team split up in terms for world building/environment art? As in, you seemed to have worked on many different areas, Are certain people assigned to build the blockout/large forms, while receiving models from other artists to fill the world out?
Looking forward to more!
definitely inspiring.
Thank you for the sharing
Unfortunately I don't have any more individual asset breakdowns since I left Arena a year and a half ago. As far as the team divide, it used to be more segmented but as time went on people started doing both map work and prop creation which I think is more fun anyway. Making individual props is fun but the real payoff is when you place them and bring the world to life.
The prototype team I was leading was sort of a bridge between concept and production so it was fun to experiment and try big ideas. The flip side of the coin is that a lot of it changed later in development so it's hard to see months work of work on an area scrapped. Overall a really fun experience though.