What did you guys do to ensure that the art style was consistently upheld amongst all of these varying assets made by various artists? Was there a handful of people who would 'finalize' the artwork? Training for everyone on the art team prior to production to ensure everyone was using a similar work flow?
The art style of the game, I find, is held together by the materials rather than the proportions of characters or how textures were built pre-bake. Certainly the forms in the characters themselves have style to them I just don't find it as defining as the materials. I guess what I am saying here is that without the material pass the art style of the game would not be as defining and clearly "Borderlands 2 style". You can see that alot of what makes the materials there own style was applied during the painting process (you don't see the black sketch lines in the highpoly pass for obvious reasons).
Was everyone responsible for adding these to their art? Or did near-final art get passed off to another for finalizing so that it was consistent?
I think back to a game like Brink where everything from the proportion of the character, the style of definition in their faces, the scale of objects in the world, and the materials all had a style to them of 'stylistic realism' (their words). This was apparent in all passes of art (highpoly, low, set dressing, prop scale, etc.) Their art style, for lack of a better word, was evenly spread amongst all aspects of their art pipeline whereas I find the majority of Borderland 2's falls on its material pass.
Am I right in thinking the majority of Borderland 2's style falls on to the material pass? I mean certainly there's art direction all over the place, I am just finding the material pass carries most of the 'art direction' weight. Is this correct in thinking or am I overlooking things here?
Full disclaimer: I absolutely do not think this is a bad thing at all, so I hope my comments/questions read as such. I personally love to dissect games - like Borderlands 2 - where they have an art style to them that is very heavy and want to see if my assumptions are correct or not.
Edit - (Whoops... didn't read Adam's post, I'll leave this here but he asked his questions much better than I)
Edit 2 - Read back 1 page and the base questions have been answered... you guys are NUTS!
Can someone PLEASE talk about the general workflow that went into these pieces. I'm very interested in learning about how you all tackled texturing... since every piece fits so well with one another, it looks like 1 person did all of the textures. Did you all do the base texture, than have texture artists finish up / polish the rest? As far as art direction goes, did you have a style guide (be it colours, cross hatching / outline etc.) that you HAD to stick too... I'm just super impressed how well all these different artists nailed the style.
Awesome art, awesome team, awesome game... YOU ALL DID A KICKASS JOB!
HOLY CRAP! I was postponing playing this for a while, but after seeing all this, I ordered it from amazon immediately!
These are amazing, great art work, this is one of those games who's art direction really stand out from anything else out there, big props to all the artists involved.
On that note, I would love to hear some insight on the texture painting workflow, and how did you manage to achieve the cohesive look throughout all the art of the game, specially texture wise.
EDIT: Oops, didn't see Adams post, basically what he said, I second everything! :P
Best thread EVAR! Awesome work by all the artists who worked on Borderlands 2! Love the style, and love the screenshots with the texture flats in them as well!
Adam-
To answer your question post processing is a big factor with how the assets are seen in-game but a bulk of the work come from the texture itself, all the images i posted were screen grabs straight out of max.
What did you guys do to ensure that the art style was consistently upheld amongst all of these varying assets made by various artists? Was there a handful of people who would 'finalize' the artwork? Training for everyone on the art team prior to production to ensure everyone was using a similar work flow?
All artists on the project were trained on how to properly set up their textures to fit the Borderlands style, and there are style guides that we all try to adhere to. For example, tape and quilted metal appear a lot in the Borderlands universe. A lot of the art style was established in the first game, but incredibly refined in the second. First of all, we have a great Art Director, Jeramy Cooke, who guided us with the Art style. He's also an amazing Technical Artist, so he helped on that front a lot as well. Second, There are two particular artists: Robert Santiago and Brent Hollon, that a lot of the environment team based their texturing style off of. Much love to them because they did really well to mature the texture style of Borderlands. The fact that most people tried to mimic the styles of Rob and Brent actually helped keep a lot of things consistent. Every single one of us has our own style in the way we ink, but it was all rooted from key individuals who were part of the project from very early on.
The art style of the game, I find, is held together by the materials rather than the proportions of characters or how textures were built pre-bake. Certainly the forms in the characters themselves have style to them I just don't find it as defining as the materials. I guess what I am saying here is that without the material pass the art style of the game would not be as defining and clearly "Borderlands 2 style". You can see that alot of what makes the materials there own style was applied during the painting process (you don't see the black sketch lines in the highpoly pass for obvious reasons).
Was everyone responsible for adding these to their art? Or did near-final art get passed off to another for finalizing so that it was consistent?
Everyone on the art team was responsible for completing their asset from start to finish. Blockout, High poly, low poly, uv, bake, texture, and implementation. Since we all work so well together, and would feed of everyone's style and creativity, consistency really just fell into place. If anyone was ever having trouble, there was always someone there to proved feedback and paintovers if needed.
Am I right in thinking the majority of Borderland 2's style falls on to the material pass? I mean certainly there's art direction all over the place, I am just finding the material pass carries most of the 'art direction' weight. Is this correct in thinking or am I overlooking things here?
The textures of borderlands definitely play a larger role in defining the Art Style. The combination of our inks and black outlines drawn around objects in game would definitely allow someone to point out a screenshot of Borderlands. Though Proportions do play less of a role but they still do play a role. Bolts are large, wires are thick, and rocks are chunky. There's also the way that our visual designers set dress the world. It's a very kit bashed approach, but they do it in a way that I think also helps define our style.
As far as getting something to you guys that illustrates our workflow a little better, I'll try to put something together. But I'll have to get it approved. So sit tight, I'll see what I can do!! The art team over here is kinda blown away from all the positive reception we've been getting from all of you. We're all so happy that you're enjoying this art thread!
Yeah, I'd love to see wires, and more texture flats as well.
Regardless, this art is totally amazing. The game looks amazing, and seeing all these individual assets is really impressive. I could stare for hours. I think I will.
ha tris, i was in the process of replying the same thing: brent and rob pioneered the texturing. I learned A TON from those guys! But they both work totally different haha
Inks and outline rendering certainly do a lot of the heavy lifting to keep it cohesive. It's funny that it all "fits" together because everyone has their own twist on things. That was actually the funnest part about the project. Jeremy Cooke definitely oversaw everything and kept it inline, but there was very much an attitude of "just get out there make something awesome" and people just had fun with it. Also the concept artists did a great job of feeding us awesome designs with consistent style. (scott kester, kevin duc, lorin wood)
As for the textures, alot of the guys use a Toonit filter (http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toonPS/main.html) to help bring the base textures into a more handpainted look. You can also use photoshop's cutout and paintdaubs filters to get a similar effect. Some people liked to ink first and fill in texture afterwards. some inked after the base textures were made. Either way works, but inking after making the textures seemed to work best for me.
The texturing on the guns turned out to be a different monster altogether. We started out using photosourced textures. But after going through all the masks, patterns, and colorizing in the materials the extra noise of the photosourced textures just became very mucky and ugly. I found it best just to hand paint the whole thing and keep it crisp clean. (look at the old bandit AR vs. the updated bandit AR) I use crazy bump for highlight/cavity maps. then do a ton of handpainting highlights and shadows. throw some grundge on top and ink it!
Jeremy Cooke masterminded the swappable materials on all the guns, characters, and items. They are incredible and go a loooong way in bringing diversity into the game.
Really awesome work guys, really inspiring to see this level of consistency over the whole game. It's really really schweeet. Love the game! I'm still playing and I'm always wandering around looking at the art as well .
Hmm, am I the only one who thinks that black outlines and details in diffuse texture(not in shader) hide most of normal/spec map details?
Those high poly models are state of art, but unfortunately, it doesn't show ingame, since diffuse is super complex and those nice details are difficult to read with diffuse maps such these.
Was there a point in development where you asked yourselves "Is baking from hi poly really necessary? Is it time efficient and worth the end results?"
Also, this reminds me, I created a TEDIORE smg some time ago based on the first (cam) footage and concept art released
LAchtan, I do agree that the normals and stuff dont pop as much in game, but honestly, I don't mind in the slightest. Yes, the HP models are STELLAR, but if all the detail popped through, I think it would ruin the style.
What I find absolutely amazing is how tight you group of guys seem, and the fact that you are giving credit where credit is due. Calling out brent and rob for pioneering the texturing. Very big of you. I know, it's something you SHOULD do, But it truly shows team work and how down to earth you guys are. So Kudos for that.
This art dump, without a doubt, is my favourite art dump yet. BL2 is without a doubt my favourite game in the past 10 years. Absolutely stellar work, not only by the art team, but by the entire studio. A lot of times, the others that help make the game (programmers, TAs, QA, Design, etc etc) get left out, but I really want to let it be known that I am thankful for each and every one of you. Thank you for such a GREAT game.
I would love to see wires as well though. But I know sometimes studios don't approve those, for whatever reason.
TL : DR - I think the best part of this thread is we now know who we should send lots and lots of candy / beer to, and who we should mail bomb! If you made any box or weapon, prepare for beer. If you made any of the annoying enemies, prepare for the tiny tina treatment!
Really awesome job all of you! Even cooler for sharing. I just ordered the game from checking this thread out. You guys just forgot to post the kitchen sink static I think.
I know someone has clearly already said this before but MIND = BLOWN! sums it up. Could stare at this for hours checking all the amazing detail. Very inspiring.
Would love to see some rigging work if anyone can show? Am interested to see that part of the pipeline also.
I wondered what you have done to make the aiming and movement feel so close to quake engine based shooters?
The first Borderlands title had really bad aiming mechanics and the mouse movement wasnt really smooth(on pc). With Borderlands 2 though the aiming and movement precision is just about perfect.
I'd love to see more Texture Flats and Lowpoly with wires, too and i would really be keen to know how you where going about Performance Optimization (Instanced Materials, Visblocking in the levels etc.) if you could post something about that i would be incredible greatful.
Replies
Were all the weapons also made in Zbrush?
What did you guys do to ensure that the art style was consistently upheld amongst all of these varying assets made by various artists? Was there a handful of people who would 'finalize' the artwork? Training for everyone on the art team prior to production to ensure everyone was using a similar work flow?
The art style of the game, I find, is held together by the materials rather than the proportions of characters or how textures were built pre-bake. Certainly the forms in the characters themselves have style to them I just don't find it as defining as the materials. I guess what I am saying here is that without the material pass the art style of the game would not be as defining and clearly "Borderlands 2 style". You can see that alot of what makes the materials there own style was applied during the painting process (you don't see the black sketch lines in the highpoly pass for obvious reasons).
Was everyone responsible for adding these to their art? Or did near-final art get passed off to another for finalizing so that it was consistent?
I think back to a game like Brink where everything from the proportion of the character, the style of definition in their faces, the scale of objects in the world, and the materials all had a style to them of 'stylistic realism' (their words). This was apparent in all passes of art (highpoly, low, set dressing, prop scale, etc.) Their art style, for lack of a better word, was evenly spread amongst all aspects of their art pipeline whereas I find the majority of Borderland 2's falls on its material pass.
Am I right in thinking the majority of Borderland 2's style falls on to the material pass? I mean certainly there's art direction all over the place, I am just finding the material pass carries most of the 'art direction' weight. Is this correct in thinking or am I overlooking things here?
Full disclaimer: I absolutely do not think this is a bad thing at all, so I hope my comments/questions read as such. I personally love to dissect games - like Borderlands 2 - where they have an art style to them that is very heavy and want to see if my assumptions are correct or not.
Thanks for sharing Gearbox folks!
Edit - (Whoops... didn't read Adam's post, I'll leave this here but he asked his questions much better than I)
Edit 2 - Read back 1 page and the base questions have been answered... you guys are NUTS!
Can someone PLEASE talk about the general workflow that went into these pieces. I'm very interested in learning about how you all tackled texturing... since every piece fits so well with one another, it looks like 1 person did all of the textures. Did you all do the base texture, than have texture artists finish up / polish the rest? As far as art direction goes, did you have a style guide (be it colours, cross hatching / outline etc.) that you HAD to stick too... I'm just super impressed how well all these different artists nailed the style.
Awesome art, awesome team, awesome game... YOU ALL DID A KICKASS JOB!
These are amazing, great art work, this is one of those games who's art direction really stand out from anything else out there, big props to all the artists involved.
On that note, I would love to hear some insight on the texture painting workflow, and how did you manage to achieve the cohesive look throughout all the art of the game, specially texture wise.
EDIT: Oops, didn't see Adams post, basically what he said, I second everything! :P
Love the art, love the game. Fucking brilliant, every bit of it!
To answer your question post processing is a big factor with how the assets are seen in-game but a bulk of the work come from the texture itself, all the images i posted were screen grabs straight out of max.
All artists on the project were trained on how to properly set up their textures to fit the Borderlands style, and there are style guides that we all try to adhere to. For example, tape and quilted metal appear a lot in the Borderlands universe. A lot of the art style was established in the first game, but incredibly refined in the second. First of all, we have a great Art Director, Jeramy Cooke, who guided us with the Art style. He's also an amazing Technical Artist, so he helped on that front a lot as well. Second, There are two particular artists: Robert Santiago and Brent Hollon, that a lot of the environment team based their texturing style off of. Much love to them because they did really well to mature the texture style of Borderlands. The fact that most people tried to mimic the styles of Rob and Brent actually helped keep a lot of things consistent. Every single one of us has our own style in the way we ink, but it was all rooted from key individuals who were part of the project from very early on.
Everyone on the art team was responsible for completing their asset from start to finish. Blockout, High poly, low poly, uv, bake, texture, and implementation. Since we all work so well together, and would feed of everyone's style and creativity, consistency really just fell into place. If anyone was ever having trouble, there was always someone there to proved feedback and paintovers if needed.
The textures of borderlands definitely play a larger role in defining the Art Style. The combination of our inks and black outlines drawn around objects in game would definitely allow someone to point out a screenshot of Borderlands. Though Proportions do play less of a role but they still do play a role. Bolts are large, wires are thick, and rocks are chunky. There's also the way that our visual designers set dress the world. It's a very kit bashed approach, but they do it in a way that I think also helps define our style.
As far as getting something to you guys that illustrates our workflow a little better, I'll try to put something together. But I'll have to get it approved. So sit tight, I'll see what I can do!!
for shame.
Regardless, this art is totally amazing. The game looks amazing, and seeing all these individual assets is really impressive. I could stare for hours. I think I will.
Inks and outline rendering certainly do a lot of the heavy lifting to keep it cohesive. It's funny that it all "fits" together because everyone has their own twist on things. That was actually the funnest part about the project. Jeremy Cooke definitely oversaw everything and kept it inline, but there was very much an attitude of "just get out there make something awesome" and people just had fun with it. Also the concept artists did a great job of feeding us awesome designs with consistent style. (scott kester, kevin duc, lorin wood)
As for the textures, alot of the guys use a Toonit filter (http://www.digitalanarchy.com/toonPS/main.html) to help bring the base textures into a more handpainted look. You can also use photoshop's cutout and paintdaubs filters to get a similar effect. Some people liked to ink first and fill in texture afterwards. some inked after the base textures were made. Either way works, but inking after making the textures seemed to work best for me.
The texturing on the guns turned out to be a different monster altogether. We started out using photosourced textures. But after going through all the masks, patterns, and colorizing in the materials the extra noise of the photosourced textures just became very mucky and ugly. I found it best just to hand paint the whole thing and keep it crisp clean. (look at the old bandit AR vs. the updated bandit AR) I use crazy bump for highlight/cavity maps. then do a ton of handpainting highlights and shadows. throw some grundge on top and ink it!
Jeremy Cooke masterminded the swappable materials on all the guns, characters, and items. They are incredible and go a loooong way in bringing diversity into the game.
skankerzero and shiniku, ill post some wires and textures tomorrow
thank you all for this dump, fantastic stuff, love the textures
Great work!
Hmm, am I the only one who thinks that black outlines and details in diffuse texture(not in shader) hide most of normal/spec map details?
Those high poly models are state of art, but unfortunately, it doesn't show ingame, since diffuse is super complex and those nice details are difficult to read with diffuse maps such these.
Was there a point in development where you asked yourselves "Is baking from hi poly really necessary? Is it time efficient and worth the end results?"
Also, this reminds me, I created a TEDIORE smg some time ago based on the first (cam) footage and concept art released
Thanks or posting and thanks for an amazing game.
What I find absolutely amazing is how tight you group of guys seem, and the fact that you are giving credit where credit is due. Calling out brent and rob for pioneering the texturing. Very big of you. I know, it's something you SHOULD do, But it truly shows team work and how down to earth you guys are. So Kudos for that.
This art dump, without a doubt, is my favourite art dump yet. BL2 is without a doubt my favourite game in the past 10 years. Absolutely stellar work, not only by the art team, but by the entire studio. A lot of times, the others that help make the game (programmers, TAs, QA, Design, etc etc) get left out, but I really want to let it be known that I am thankful for each and every one of you. Thank you for such a GREAT game.
I would love to see wires as well though. But I know sometimes studios don't approve those, for whatever reason.
TL : DR - I think the best part of this thread is we now know who we should send lots and lots of candy / beer to, and who we should mail bomb! If you made any box or weapon, prepare for beer. If you made any of the annoying enemies, prepare for the tiny tina treatment!
Would love to see some rigging work if anyone can show? Am interested to see that part of the pipeline also.
Questions/Request:
I wondered what you have done to make the aiming and movement feel so close to quake engine based shooters?
The first Borderlands title had really bad aiming mechanics and the mouse movement wasnt really smooth(on pc). With Borderlands 2 though the aiming and movement precision is just about perfect.
I'd love to see more Texture Flats and Lowpoly with wires, too and i would really be keen to know how you where going about Performance Optimization (Instanced Materials, Visblocking in the levels etc.) if you could post something about that i would be incredible greatful.
Thank you so much for this Artdump !