Environment Art Production
Author of this post: Carl Yellott-Bilby | About Blog Authors »
All Environment Artists work slightly differently, partly to fulfill their own role or specialty and also as a result of personal preferences. Since the Environment Artist is to responsible for creating an immersive 3D world in which the game takes place, the production pipeline is an important process for all game development. Here I’ve outlined an example work-flow based on my experience for creating a game level.
Establishing an Art Pipeline: It’s advisable to establish a documented art pipeline for use within the environment team. The game engine may require assets to be created, flagged or named a certain way, or it may just be to facilitate artist collaboration. Also, using the same modelling software (and version) as their colleagues working on the same project will help to reduce the risk of any problems with exchanging files and other issues such as plug-in compatibility.
Design: A meeting between the Artist, Lead Artist and Designer ideally should place to review what happens in the level and go over the map to establish where any environmental features will be positioned. Some technical knowledge of what is possible on the destination platforms is required at the initial design stage, as a level designed without this in mind may have to be redesigned later when engine can’t handle it. Some of the questions which usually need answers are: What are the goals of the level? What is required from the level in terms of game play and atmosphere?
Planning & Modularity: Any re-useable level sections and features need to be decided upon so they only need to be modelled and textured once (unless something similar has already been created that can be re-used). These modular environment features can then be copied around the map where required before being tweaked individually if needed at the end.
Assets: Using the design as a guide, the Lead Artist and Designer can produce a list of assets required to populate the level. The knowledge of where these props are positioned will be needed initially by the Environment Artist to make sure enough space is left for them, especially important for game-play related props. Re-useable and more generic props such as litter and vegetation are handy for quickly populating at sparse level. Some of the more unique props can only be a few times.
Schedule: Once the tasks are quantified, time estimates can be allocated to each one. Although initially these may not be very accurate, especially if an Artist has never done some of the tasks before but these should get more accurate as the project progresses.
Block-out: The Block-out (also known as a White Room) is a rapidly built, simplified early version of the level defining the main environment features and structures for testing game play and getting a feel for its size and dimensions. Basic texturing and rough props can show where features will be and what materials are needed. The level can be divided into portalled-off zones at this stage to allow for higher polygon counts as only a few zones usually need to be drawn by the game engine at any one time.
First Pass Lighting: A quick lighting pass on the Block-out will give an early indication on the best approach for lighting it as well as making navigation easier for play-testing. Once ready the Block-out can then be used by the Designer to test and tweak the game-play before giving the go-ahead to start the final geometry production.
Concept Art: Any concept art created based on the level design should be received, ready to begin creation of the final geometry.
Final Geometry creation & prop placement: Once the Block-out has been tested and agreed upon, it can go into full production. Creating the final geometry for the game based upon the concept art created with the features, layout and atmosphere in mind. Modelling repeating geometry such as pillars and walls only once before copying them around the environment can help speed-up this process. Textures creation may done by the Environment Artist or a dedicated Texture Artist.
Optimisation & Collision: To speed up the collision detection between the environment and the dynamic elements of the game such and the player and enemies, a highly optimised collision hull is created to limit the number of polygons the engine code needs to check against.
Final lighting pass & atmospheric effects: Once the final geometry is in place the lighting can be adjusted to take best advantage of the features modelled. Atmospheric effects such as fire, mist and volumetric lights can be placed where required. Light maps can be generated and / or static shadows modelled in.
Some of these stages may have to be revisited if any fundamental design changes to the level are required.
