Reality of Moodboards in Production
ngon master
So obviously mood boards are important and a huge boon to any artist that uses them. Utilizing reference IMO is one of the most overlooked things for beginner artists and can lead a lot of people off of 3D art and game art. So I am not wondering about their validity. Rather I am wondering what the reality is for time and various positions of using them.
Is it realistic to expect time for reference and mood boards to be gathered/created?
How much time? Obviously this question is going to vary so whatever your personal experiences are would work.
Would an environment/prop artist be doing reference and mood boards or would that fall more on the shoulders of concept artists?
How do the processes of reference use and gather differ between production artist and leads?
What are some ways that leads can help their artists in regards to reference?
Replies
https://mobile.twitter.com/apocalynds/status/1234244446289453057
but before starting a level I will usually sit down for atleast a couple hours and grab a ton of refs and color ideas etc.
you probably shouldnt be spending multiple days creating moodboards for a prop or small environment, but a 1-3 hours at the start of each task is probably relevant and worth the time investment. like I said, I get the initial ideas down in purref and then add to it as i go and find more stuff in line with what i am doing.
this is super important, it helps me stay focused and reminds me of things I want to add, and more importantly with multiple artists working on lighting and environments, it helps everyone stay consistent if everyone knows the visual direction for fog density, light/shadow ratio, color saturation etc. so the entire game looks cohesive even if tons of people are building out the world and lighting it.
you probably wont be given explicit time/tasks of creating moodboards, just factor it into your time estimates when a producer asks you how long you need for something. if you are assgined a prop and think its gonna take a 3 days to make, quote 3.5 or 4 days to give yourself some breathing room. i usually add 30% to my time estimates to include stuff like this, it doesnt make you look slow if you give yourself some wiggle room, it makes you look competent when you deliver it on the time you said you did. always pad your time estimates exactly for reasons like spending time on important things like this.
also a lot of the time at the start of a game, during pre-production this is where things like these get created at a macro level atleast for planning out the world, assets and visual look.
in production you are super lucky if every task you work on you get a concept for it, a lot of the times a map will have a single moodshot or key concept art that you are responsible to extrapolate from for both environment artists, designers and lighters etc. a lot of the time an art director will provide a super high level moodboard, but the more micro/detail ones you tend to create yourself to help you as you work.
moodboards for props, materials and assets are good, with pictures of surface materials, smaller details etc.
This question actually came up after telling one of the members on my team about your video of creating various reference boards when starting a project. As I wanted to know what the sort of process is for a lead regarding use of reference by team members as well as time expectations. What you've said regarding time makes complete sense. I wouldn't expect someone to list every single activity of asset creation as a spare chunk of time so reference and mood board creation are just part of it and should be factored into the whole estimate.
You have 20mins to make one, and hardly anyone except you will look at it though.