Telltale Art Style Inspiration

steve0

Hey everyone! I wanted to share my progress to "The Wolf Among Us" inspired vignettes. I am absolutely LOVING this texture style and it's making me want to learn more about inking and graphic novel styles.

I recently applied for the environment artist position at Telltale Games! I think their games are super badass and would love to learn more about their pipeline for creating assets in this style!

I will be happy to post more breakdowns and future WIP for my "Walking Dead" inspired vignette.



Thanks for looking

Cheers.

Steve O

WipEout

I think that's a nice, illustrative style, definitely in the vein of Tt's recent work. One (minor) gripe, on your last image of the stairs, you said there's no normal map used, but the texture sheets show a normal map. Honestly, I'd get rid of the normal maps altogether (bake them in) as I'm 85% certain Tt environment artists don't use normal maps at all, and there really doesn't appear to be enough detail to warrant the extra map (in my opinion). I'm also fairly certain they usually bake their lighting, likely on a second UV set. To be fair, though, I haven't really studied enough of the art from Wolf Among Us yet, that I could say for sure.

I wish I could recall more of the talk Tt environment artists gave at GDC this year, so I could impart a bit more knowledge, but this is all I've got off the top of my cold-medicine-rattled brain at the moment.

Nice work either way, keep it up!

steve0

WipEout, I appreciate your cold-medice-rattled brain and I hope yah feel better. There has been a cold going around where I live, and my fingers are crossed that it doesn't hit me.

I completely agree with everything you said and I'll take the normal maps off the texture sheets from now on. I didn't end up using them though, I was just highlighting them because it said in the job posting to know how to create normal maps.

I have a quick noob question for yah haha..how can I embed these images into my post without having the lightboz links there? Do I need to use photobucket or some other site to upload the photos too and use that URL in the post?

WipEout

happy to help! And I'm not sure about the links-- if you can right click on the source image and click "View in new tab" or "copy image location" you should be able to place the direct image link between the BBcode for pictures:



That would require the pics be uploaded somewhere. I have a photobucket account, but they've kinda turned crappy lately. Flikr or Picasa, or even Tumblr or a blog (which, btw, I've had a few art leads and directors express interest in seeing progress blogs, so maybe blogspot?)

Also, if they're asking for normal-mapped examples, I'd recommend modeling a prop or another scene that would clearly show the need for it. While I don't think Tt really use them a lot in environments, let alone to the extent of, say, Gears of War, I'm sure they want artists that are proficient in the methods when the need arises.

nathanbarrett

yes yes yes loving this style! So slick

steve0

steve0

SirSpangles

what are those sculpts? I though TTG didnt use normals. looks good tho dude, sorry i missed the party last night

steve0

Here is my current progress with "The Walking Dead" vignette!

steve0

Thanks!! Yah they don't dude, but I sculpted them to help get an AO map. You gotta come to the next one!