UTMC - DataDay (Artifact of War Theme)
polycounter lvl 8
So quick disclaimer, I am not an illustrator or concept artist with any significant amount experience in that field. This contest looked fun and seemed like a good chance to pick up some xp/practice. I'll try to continue adding to this thread and the images posted within... So without further ado...
I wanted to direct the creative focus a bit, so I came up with a bit of a back story to help fuel the direction of the art and setting. In this Theme, a Mining Colony discovers an alien artifact within the tunnels and caverns they are excavating. Those who came in contact with artifact became infected with a parasitic mutation. They carried this mutation back with them which in turn infected a large swath of the colony. Some however, were not affected at all. Of those who began to mutate, two forms began to emerge.
The first form resulted in a stronger, taller, more muscled mutant, however, the cost of such a change dropped their intelligence significantly. They were also becoming more violent, prone to rage and berserker behavior. For lack of a better name, lets call them the "Roa'h" (root being Roar).
The second form did the opposite of the first, the individuals infected began to wither away, and though they became weaker physically...their intelligence and lifespan vastly improved. They were able to learn at a rapid pace, and even improve upon the miner's second hand hardware. They started to create robotics systems, exo-suits, to support their weakened state. Let's call them the "Lea'th" (root being lithe).
The humans who were not afflicted began to distrust the mutants, rages brought on by the Roa'h as well as some incidents with cannibalism left them spurned by both the unaffected humans and the Lea'th. The Lea'th had their own share of problems though, while they were far more civil than their Roa'h counterparts... they preferred the company of their own as well as the technology they created for themselves. This left them the target of envy and fear based on superstition.
To make mattes worse, the Roa'h and Lea'th quickly grew to hate eachother. It was almost as if this hatedred was build into the very fabric of their mutation. The Lea'th were drawn towards anything having to do with the ancient alien race, their temples, their settlements, and more importantly their artifacts. While the Lea'th had more of a scientific reverence for the artifacts, the Roa'h began to out right worship them. The human's also were not exempt from such interest... for once the corporations found out about these treasures, they offered a hefty sum for them. This brought about the usual quest for wealth from the human race, whether it be miners or bounty hunters. Once theres money involved, its going to get people moving.
So you can imagine what happened next. War. Plain and simple. Three factions split and spread out all over the planet. It was a literal gold rush for alien artifacts, as well as the sheer hatred the sides started feeling for eachother.
After generations apart, and new settlements formed... the Roa'h began to show off the products of their own civilization. Tech was re-purposed from what they took out of the mining colonies and almost primitively re-assembled. Their weaponry was even less sophisticated, it had only one purpose after all...to create a sea of guts and gore in its wake.
The Lea'th became masters of hiding from the sight of others, where ever their colonies were, they would be hard to find. Their tech, became unique, far more advanced and polished than what a mere human would wield. To put it simply, it was elegant, accurate, and extremely potent.
The human's also continued to get support from the space corporations and other goods brought in through trade and conquest. They learned to craft weapons that could pierce the thick armor of a Roa'h, or shut down the weapon systems of a Lea'th exosuit.
At the center of this continued conflict... Alien ruins, artifacts and a one big war zone. It's become a bit...Unreal.
Alien Artifact Site:
I tried to depict a setting in which there are miles of vast open caverns on the surface of a dry planet, and within these caverns exist sites of interest as well as vast mineral resources. The Artifact on the right is surrounded by a type of bio-mineral formation, the artifact has creatures of some sort inside it. Strands of biomaterial link the top to its base. Careful, its still active.
I wanted to direct the creative focus a bit, so I came up with a bit of a back story to help fuel the direction of the art and setting. In this Theme, a Mining Colony discovers an alien artifact within the tunnels and caverns they are excavating. Those who came in contact with artifact became infected with a parasitic mutation. They carried this mutation back with them which in turn infected a large swath of the colony. Some however, were not affected at all. Of those who began to mutate, two forms began to emerge.
The first form resulted in a stronger, taller, more muscled mutant, however, the cost of such a change dropped their intelligence significantly. They were also becoming more violent, prone to rage and berserker behavior. For lack of a better name, lets call them the "Roa'h" (root being Roar).
The second form did the opposite of the first, the individuals infected began to wither away, and though they became weaker physically...their intelligence and lifespan vastly improved. They were able to learn at a rapid pace, and even improve upon the miner's second hand hardware. They started to create robotics systems, exo-suits, to support their weakened state. Let's call them the "Lea'th" (root being lithe).
The humans who were not afflicted began to distrust the mutants, rages brought on by the Roa'h as well as some incidents with cannibalism left them spurned by both the unaffected humans and the Lea'th. The Lea'th had their own share of problems though, while they were far more civil than their Roa'h counterparts... they preferred the company of their own as well as the technology they created for themselves. This left them the target of envy and fear based on superstition.
To make mattes worse, the Roa'h and Lea'th quickly grew to hate eachother. It was almost as if this hatedred was build into the very fabric of their mutation. The Lea'th were drawn towards anything having to do with the ancient alien race, their temples, their settlements, and more importantly their artifacts. While the Lea'th had more of a scientific reverence for the artifacts, the Roa'h began to out right worship them. The human's also were not exempt from such interest... for once the corporations found out about these treasures, they offered a hefty sum for them. This brought about the usual quest for wealth from the human race, whether it be miners or bounty hunters. Once theres money involved, its going to get people moving.
So you can imagine what happened next. War. Plain and simple. Three factions split and spread out all over the planet. It was a literal gold rush for alien artifacts, as well as the sheer hatred the sides started feeling for eachother.
After generations apart, and new settlements formed... the Roa'h began to show off the products of their own civilization. Tech was re-purposed from what they took out of the mining colonies and almost primitively re-assembled. Their weaponry was even less sophisticated, it had only one purpose after all...to create a sea of guts and gore in its wake.
The Lea'th became masters of hiding from the sight of others, where ever their colonies were, they would be hard to find. Their tech, became unique, far more advanced and polished than what a mere human would wield. To put it simply, it was elegant, accurate, and extremely potent.
The human's also continued to get support from the space corporations and other goods brought in through trade and conquest. They learned to craft weapons that could pierce the thick armor of a Roa'h, or shut down the weapon systems of a Lea'th exosuit.
At the center of this continued conflict... Alien ruins, artifacts and a one big war zone. It's become a bit...Unreal.
Alien Artifact Site:
I tried to depict a setting in which there are miles of vast open caverns on the surface of a dry planet, and within these caverns exist sites of interest as well as vast mineral resources. The Artifact on the right is surrounded by a type of bio-mineral formation, the artifact has creatures of some sort inside it. Strands of biomaterial link the top to its base. Careful, its still active.
Replies
Regarding your landscape concept art here's some things to think about improving this idea. I get that this is a fairly huge cave, you did a good job with the light beams coming through highlighting the alien artifact but if you want to convey "miles of vast open caverns on the surface of a dry planet" I don't think this has reached that potential yet.
Keep pushing your depth further back with more atmospheric perspective. I actually think the right hand blue side doesn't look dry and seems to be more of a wet atmosphere and I would strongly advise against going with this cookie cutter hard divide of colors. If this were such a huge cave, the bounce light would be everywhere and carry over. Try adding some more texture to the cave instead of the featureless silhouette shapes.
I don't think there's enough in your concept to cover what you talked about in your big backstory writeup. For instance, I only see 1 thing in this image. An alien artifact in the midst of a big cave, there's no signs of other cultures like your 3 race war you talked about, and if this place was mined to all hell I would think there would be some of that equipment left around either still operational or long past being useable fallen into dusty decay.
Your statue/alien artifact holder/artifact is much better as far as trying to get your idea in your write up across and it's visually cool but getting into prop details should come secondary to the main set design of your theme per this contest.
The general hierarchy Epic stated they want for UT4 is.
1 - Main environment shapes, big important design decisions and shape language. The players have to be able to stand out from the environment via smart choices of detail. I don't think you'll have a big issue with visual clarity, I can clearly see everything up till the artifact it's just that the actual layout is just almost entirely flat in your vertical variations. If you have time, and I think you do I would try your hand at another shot in a different area of this massive cave to show some more interesting break ups of the architecture or landscape, there's just not much for Epic to work with here as far as building a theme to use in the game.
2 - Extra details like your artifact would count as this, also plenty of other smaller shapes playing off the main theme form language. This is where you build off the simple shapes into more complex ones and add some more from your back story into the visual theme like other race technology or smaller architecture variations like the decaying mineing equipment.
3 - Super fine details, think nuts bolts screws tiny stuff to give it a sense of realism and scale. I think you have that in your zoomed up shot with the fine details such as the biomaterial strands and the whole design but as far as your zoomed out shot, the details are kind of left vague and barren. This would be a good time to try to look at some references and put in the last push to bring your concept to the next level.