Now that Watch Dogs is out I can finally show what I worked on during the project. I had the pleasure of working on Watch Dogs with a bunch of incredibly talented and passionate people, who worked incredibly hard to create something to be very proud of.
During my time on the project, I was responsible for creating the L-Train and all L-Train stations. I was also responsible for a significant amount of the 'Brewed Delight' cafe,and the Mad Mile pharmacy, alongside my talented colleagues James Renshaw and Gurmita Singh respectively.
All incredible work. The various levels of disrepair on the bricked up ticket stations are a perfect detail that tell a ton about the general environment of the game and that specific location.
Awesome work! Great to see images of the stations in both day and night lighting. I know it can be challenge to make an environment work well in both night and day without having to changing around lighting drastically. It seems you mainly just left all the lights on at the stations, bright enough for night and not too bright for day? Or am I missing something else to it?
I love the cafe, I found it while exploring the world today and had to stop to admire how much it felt like a real life cafe. It looks even better when you see other citizens walk in to buy something, makes me want to sit down and drink some coffee haha.
@Ignacio_G - Thanks man! I don't have access to the files anymore so I can't get wireframes etc... But I'm happy to answer any questions you may have (within reason of course!)
@Lt_Commander - Thanks for your kind words - I spent a lot of time trying to tell a story with the stations and their location, so I'm glad that comes across
@Jeff Parrott - Yeah we had some nice shaders to play with
@Stosh - Thanks man, yeah it's always a challenge to get things looking nice across a variety of lighting conditions. The exposure control on the lights was tied into the day/night system, and then could be tweaked further on top of that. We couldn't have done what we did without the great tech we had behind us
@Shiv - Whoops! Forgot to mention that - EVERYONE.. SHIV DID THE COMPUTER MONITORS IN THE MADMILE PHARMACY!
@Strkl - Thanks! Great work too btw, some really nice stuff in your art dump - and we finally shipped! Woo!
@NegevPro - Or play chess! Hah, thanks for the kind words mate.
Thank you for sharing! I was admiring the el trains just last night in-game I've spent a lot of time in Chicago and you definitely captured the vibe perfectly and it's a big part of making the game feel distinctly 'Chicago'. For obvious gameplay reasons, the layout of the map is different than the real town but the el does a nice job of keeping the feel of the city familiar.
What was your favorite part of the project/what are you most proud of? What was the most difficult thing to get right? Sorry for all the questions.
@Hyperloop - Thank you To answer your questions, one of the most difficult things to get right, for me personally, was making what I was doing feel 'right' - Whatever it is I'm creating, I try to think of it's backstory/history; How old is it? Is it exposed to the elements? Has it lead a hard life etc etc... These things can really help inform your design choices, and helps to achieve an element of believability in what you're creating. So for the L Train and the stations, knowing how they are a big part of Chicago's character, I wanted to make sure that I got them right - told a story with them, gave them their own character...
On a technical note, there was of course the age old battle of memory and drawcalls - the L Train underwent a lot of optimisation passes, and it was a challenge to keep it looking nice. I'm definitely most proud of the L Train, probably due to it being the biggest challeng. I hope that answers your questions!
lovely to see what you have been working on Mr Dudley, I just need to find a bit of time to actually play the game!!!!!!! looking forward to it and will be looking out for your cool stuff.
Awesome work! I notice you said you don't have access to the files anymore. Ubisoft/Reflections kept them and owns rights to them or something like that? Is that normal in these pipelines :O ?
@ESFgames - Thanks man; and I'm nothing special lol...just lots of practice and time @Hard3D, XRevan23 - thanks guys! @Justo - I just cleared the files off my machine once I moved off Watch Dogs and onto The Division, to make space @d1ver - Cheers man, I really liked your Escape challenge scene....and I didn't even know that wiki page existed haha
In my opinion this scenes are just stunning, i mean is there any website, which tells you what programs you have to use, what skills you have to develop and what tutorials you have to watch in order to create this awesome 3d models and 3d scenes?
Any tips and tricks would be appreciated, and sorry for beeing a little bit offtopic
Replies
This looks AWESOME!
I would love to see any breakdowns you can throw at us.
Those monitors in the pharmacy look especially sexy :P
@Ignacio_G - Thanks man! I don't have access to the files anymore so I can't get wireframes etc... But I'm happy to answer any questions you may have (within reason of course!)
@Lt_Commander - Thanks for your kind words - I spent a lot of time trying to tell a story with the stations and their location, so I'm glad that comes across
@Jeff Parrott - Yeah we had some nice shaders to play with
@bb0x,rino, Kend -Cheers guys
@Stosh - Thanks man, yeah it's always a challenge to get things looking nice across a variety of lighting conditions. The exposure control on the lights was tied into the day/night system, and then could be tweaked further on top of that. We couldn't have done what we did without the great tech we had behind us
@Shiv - Whoops! Forgot to mention that - EVERYONE.. SHIV DID THE COMPUTER MONITORS IN THE MADMILE PHARMACY!
@Strkl - Thanks! Great work too btw, some really nice stuff in your art dump - and we finally shipped! Woo!
@NegevPro - Or play chess! Hah, thanks for the kind words mate.
What was your favorite part of the project/what are you most proud of? What was the most difficult thing to get right? Sorry for all the questions.
Really great work!
@Hyperloop - Thank you To answer your questions, one of the most difficult things to get right, for me personally, was making what I was doing feel 'right' - Whatever it is I'm creating, I try to think of it's backstory/history; How old is it? Is it exposed to the elements? Has it lead a hard life etc etc... These things can really help inform your design choices, and helps to achieve an element of believability in what you're creating. So for the L Train and the stations, knowing how they are a big part of Chicago's character, I wanted to make sure that I got them right - told a story with them, gave them their own character...
On a technical note, there was of course the age old battle of memory and drawcalls - the L Train underwent a lot of optimisation passes, and it was a challenge to keep it looking nice. I'm definitely most proud of the L Train, probably due to it being the biggest challeng. I hope that answers your questions!
@Slosh - Thanks man- I really like your Batman character
I'd like to see arts for the gun models if possible
Correct, including 2 fc3 weapons that never made it in (retail)FC3 but are in WD.
@RexM - Thank you Very nice work on Infamous: Second Son, really great foliage.
I've just noticed that my art dump made the weekly recap - much love to you all
Up on the wiki it goes:
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryReferenceGameArt#Watchdogs_.282014.29
@Hard3D, XRevan23 - thanks guys!
@Justo - I just cleared the files off my machine once I moved off Watch Dogs and onto The Division, to make space
@d1ver - Cheers man, I really liked your Escape challenge scene....and I didn't even know that wiki page existed haha
Any tips and tricks would be appreciated, and sorry for beeing a little bit offtopic