How to make the Levels the Two Towers Way - Page 4 of 9 - Pinwire
 In Art & Design, Entertainment, Sci & Tech

Create – 12 pencil drawings for each level

  1. Art Director and Concept Artist all decide on 9 –12 locations to concept out
  2. CA takes 9- 12 screen shots of the blocked out level

The basic geometry is there, now it is time to plan out the details. The best way to do this is for the Art Director and his Concept artist to load the 3d map up and then take 9 –12 screen shots of the most important areas that need to be planned out. The Environmental artists will need this information so they know what build and what to texture. Also this art will help the Client see what the game will ultimately look like.


Figure 4

  1. CA prints those screen shots out
  2. CA does a tight pencil drawing of the set over the print out of the blocked out geometry in 3d.

The Concept Artist prints out the screen shots, and then traces over them with pencil on a piece of marker paper so that he has the perspective and scale correct.

Then he refers to the preliminary concept art, set designs and reference photos and starts to draw in the details, like sets, props and foliage, as well as any particle or special effects. See Figure 5 and 6.


Figure 5


Figure 6

Once the pencil sketches are done for those areas, the boards are then given to the Environmental Art team to use as a guide. A list of all the objects and buildings can be generated by these drawings, and estimates can be assigned to each of these models. This will help make the schedule more accurate.

For example in the scene I did we can determine that we need to build a fence, a guard tower, a bridge between the towers, a palisade wall, palisades gate, two houses, a tree, tufts of grass, and a stable building. Also the programmers now know we need to create realistic puddles and splashes when the character walks through them. The grass is going to need to sway and so will the trees. They smoke and fire are going to have to act like they are being blown in the wind.

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