Focuse Points of Environment Art
polycounter lvl 16
Over the past year or so, I've attempted multiple environments. I gave up on every one when I would come to the realization that what I was attempting or more importantly, how I executed my attempts, were never going to work.
I was always neglecting major per-production steps that act as the foundation of any environment. What's the story, tone, color pallet, lighting setup, and so on.
Now I'm aware of these things and I've been working on an environment for the past 3 weeks, ensuring I have these foundational elements in place, even if I'm not married to any of the ideas within them, they're fairly tangible and help steer me in the right direction.
However, I'm still having trouble and I know a large part of it is that I just need to keep pounding away, trying things out, scraping what's not working and move on with another idea. I also wonder though, if there's other important factors I'm neglecting or perhaps not aware of that hopefully some of you can give your input on.
For the environment artists out there, what are the major points you always focus on when you start an environment as well as what you keep in mind when sprinting to the finish line.
I was always neglecting major per-production steps that act as the foundation of any environment. What's the story, tone, color pallet, lighting setup, and so on.
Now I'm aware of these things and I've been working on an environment for the past 3 weeks, ensuring I have these foundational elements in place, even if I'm not married to any of the ideas within them, they're fairly tangible and help steer me in the right direction.
However, I'm still having trouble and I know a large part of it is that I just need to keep pounding away, trying things out, scraping what's not working and move on with another idea. I also wonder though, if there's other important factors I'm neglecting or perhaps not aware of that hopefully some of you can give your input on.
For the environment artists out there, what are the major points you always focus on when you start an environment as well as what you keep in mind when sprinting to the finish line.
Replies
Thats the biggest thing that so many beginners don't do and it really hurts you in the long run.
Then you can figure out things like...where do I want to tile textures, where do I want to put modular pieces, etc... then just get to work.
Environment art isn't really about throwing a bunch of stuff together and hoping that it gels into something awesome, it takes a lot of planning and those fundamental steps you talked about go a long way in getting you to plan out what you need to do rather than hope that creative luck happens to work in your favor.
It really depends on what the goal of the environment is.
A single static view, you can work on the composition without having to worry about things like playability, cover, triggers, how many tris are visible, collision AND the viewer having full control to move around. It gets much easier, you can tailor the composition to it, then a lot of traditional painting techniques come into play.
You have the luxury of working in 3D, which can be a pretty big advantage but then can also be a disadvantage because you can't fudge perspective and proportion as easily as you can in 2D, anyone who struggles with drawing perspective might consider that a forced blessing but really it can be quite annoying, especially when translating a rockin 2D concept to 3D. Which is why I like it when concept artists paint over a 3D block out.
With a free camera (player controlled), you can still tailor the composition to a specific view, normally to introduce the viewer to the area (this view normally matches the concept as closely as possible). You can force the camera into viewing the area from a specific point, such as walking out of a tunnel or a door, or just taking control of the camera for a min and forcing them to look a certain way you can hit that same goal, but it won't last long because they will move around.
It's a bit like this:
or this:
They work with the lights in the right spot and when viewed from a certain angle and hopefully you get them into the right spot at the right time. But when they have control of the camera, composition gives way to all of the other things you have to balance or the player might be a dillhole and spend 30min humping a plant in the corner...
Even with a moving camera you can still guide the players eye to a focal point with action lines and lighting, they are very powerful and even with a moving camera shouldn't be tossed aside.
So figure out how much control you have over the scene, play up what you can and before you throw something out find out why it isn't working. Normally it's a collection of things that are contributing to failure and replacing one won't fix the others.