Has anyone ventured to quess what classes are depicted in the concept art section. I think the Cleric and Ranger are clearly depicted. I would venture to think the others might be a Warrior/Dire Lord, and the Flaming Sword Aradune Class?
I would really love to see some more class concept art.
I'm an aboslute sucker for concept art. I'll never get enough of it. Hell, I bought Warhammer Online based about 80% on the concept art alone, outweighing the 20% of my logic yelling, "NOOOOOOOO!!!"
I would love, LOVE, to see VR put a ton of concept art out there for us to drool over.
Feyshtey said:I'm an aboslute sucker for concept art. I'll never get enough of it. Hell, I bought Warhammer Online based about 80% on the concept art alone, outweighing the 20% of my logic yelling, "NOOOOOOOO!!!"
I would love, LOVE, to see VR put a ton of concept art out there for us to drool over.
Agreed on both accounts.
tehtawd said:I would love, LOVE, to see VR put a ton of concept art out there for us to drool over.
Oh, i'm right with you Feyshtey. Unfortunately I feel the team has moved on from concept art and is building in game models.
-Todd
Every studio's pipeline has concept art as a pre-req for modeling :)
Ok, I'm going to appologize for this up front, but I just love this stuff. So prepare for a complete geekout supernova...
Most often the concept artists dont even do the modeling. They are the braintrust to come up with all the cool looking stuff, and the modelers are often given very little artistic license. They're expected to recreate the concept as faithfully as they can, barring any technological issues that would make the model problematic.
A common pipeline looks kinda like this:
1: Art director says to the concept artist, "Ok, we need a thing that has this kinda feel, with that sorta backstory, and I want it to be dark and creepy (or light and fun, or whatever)."
2: Concept artist draws up many sketches with a ton of rough ideas. These are presented to the art director who chooses the ones that he wants to have the concept artist further pursue, and makes suggestions on the direction things should move in. This can sometimes be a processes repeated several times before any decisions are finalized on what to use and what to discard. It can be super simplistic at this point like this : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/02/d5/99/02d5991e01c2fa0168daced7cebf7f13.jpg But that kinda depends on the artist and his/her style.
3: Concept artist creates more refined pieces (character/structure/vehicle/creature/etc.) , still somewhat loose and often in a dramatic pose or even a scene. Like this one: http://www.pantheonmmo.com/images/concept_cleric.jpg
4: Concept artist then creates variation guides, particularly for characters, that explore many different looks in more detail, like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d1/9e/3c/d19e3c8bef17db4bb422fe46ffea8596.jpg
5: Concept artist creates a style sheet or model sheet. A style sheet is sort of the final art that goes thru the rest of the art pipeline. The style sheet usually shows the asset from precisely front, back, side and top in individual panes. For characters, the asset is posed in a very passive rigid stance so that the modelers can see everything clearly and building the model with as little of the model touching another part as possible. Something like this :
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IiiKxmyILKU/TkBfG2b1szI/AAAAAAAAAp0/wIB1h28UIqo/s1600/z_f2.jpg
6: Concept artist delivers the style sheets to the 3D modeler (at 4pm on a Friday before a national holiday weekend and told to have it done by Tuesday.... No, I'm not bitter... ) which he imports in the modeling software and positions the view panes so that they are in exactly corresponding 3d space to the modeling area. He recreates it as closely as he possibly can to the images he was presented.
7: The 3D modeler uploads the model(s) with the style sheets to a repository where the texture artist and the animator (usually two different staffers) pull down copies to paint the model and create animation skeletons. Especially the texture artists still adhere faithfully to the style sheet from the concept artist. Sometimes the texture artist or animator (or both) also create any effects that apply to the model as well. Like particle effects of smoke or fire or glittering fairy light or somesuch, but sometimes there's staff entirely dedicated to effects that's added to the chain.
8: After the model, the textures, and the animation skeletons and particles are completed and compiled together to form the final asset.
The art director is giving the go/no-go on each of these stages.
This is the basic idea for both games and TV/Movie animation studios. For games there's also an evaluation in that scope that means to identify places where art assets that have already been created can be reused to optomize performance in the final game product. The more unique art that's added, the more has to be cached in memory for use during gameplay on your PC/console/etc. There's also care taken so that an asset, lets say a breastplate, can scale to fit multiple body types without stretching or distortions.
And just for fun, here are a couple of amazing concept artists that will just blow you away:
Feng Zhu ---- I dont think this guy sleeps. He just cranks art out, and if you really want to see something amazing, look him up on youtube to see how quickly he can produce amazing art.
http://fengzhudesign.com/
Keith Parkinson --- The late art director for Sigil and Vangaurd. Any of you old D&D geeks out there have seen several of his pieces, whether you know it or not.
https://www.keithparkinson.com/
Edit: Wow, I'd forgotten how much art Keith did for Everquest. There's a new section to his site (which might have been there for years, which shows the last time I went there) where there are original concept sketches from old EQ days for the promo materials for sale, from intial release and kunark expansion. If I had the cash, I'd snap a few of those up in a heartbeat, but they arent cheap.
Thanks for both the insight and the links. I'm familiar with the EverQuest and Sword of Truth art there, but never knew the artist. Cool.
EDIT: Um, oh yeah. Is the character in the chair with the ghost woman behind him a Dire Lord or a Paladin?
Yeah. Thanks for linking Mr. Parkinson. I'm familiar with some of the work he's been assiciated with but never knew about him. Let alone that he did anything for EQ. So, thanks for that Feyshtey.
@ Shucklighter; My pick would be Dire Lord as the overall scene has a darker feel to it. You could be right though. Also, the guy with the ethereal looking whip also has a banoleer similar to the female with the cross-bow.
