Environment Art and Inspiration?

Showster

Do you guys have any favourite level artists?

I'm really enjoying some of the latest Ubisoft 360 work, especially Assassins Creed and Naruto RON. Although I have no idea whos worked on those titles .

Until the end of Creed I found myself quite immersed in it, the only other recent game I had the same experience was Bioshock.

Lastly do you guys actually take time to check out game environments anymore or do you find yourselves hammering on through a game trying to complete it as fast as you can.

danr

i remember i went round the entire Jak 2 city, just looking at stuff. They clearly have fun at naughty dog

Eric Chadwick

That's mostly what I do in games, check out the enviro and character art, not really play. Cheats are a great help.

IronHawk

Now that I finished COD4 I'm going to run around that one. Yeah running around games is great or loading up the editor and cruising in spectator mode.

I also like browsing assets as well. Usually not till I finish the game though. Hate teh sp0ilz.

Nature sites are a good source of inspiration. I loooove this one. Wicked shots of mountains

tokidokizenzen

Nice ref IronHawk, book marked it

Ghostscape

I've tried to limit my "stop and stare" because it tends to detract from the gameplaying experience, but I still do it a lot, and did it a ton more while I was learning. I find that once I've cleared an area of enemies I'll start poking around.

Also it's a lot of fun to watch other people play games because I can fully devote myself to examining the art instead of playing the game.

Mark Dygert

I rarely finish games now a days, mostly for two reasons, time and I crave new content. I lose interest fast in games that waste my time by constant back tracking just for the sake of extending the gameplay. Travel time shouldn't be factored into "gameplay". I mostly play to explore the content.

Since environments are put together by so many people its hard to have a hero. Very little of my inspiration comes from other games. There is so much real world reference that is much more interesting and inspiring.

I really like urban decay, ancient ruins, old bunkers, mothballed ships. When I can't do it on my own I gather ref from sites like...

http://www.opacity.us
http://www.forbidden-places.net
http://www.modern-ruins.com
http://www.ohiotrespassers.com/locations.html
http://www.undergroundkent.co.uk/maunsell_towers.htm
http://www.ghosttownexplorers.org

DanConroy

Great links Vig, thanks for posting them up.

Michael Knubben

For old architecture mixed with decay, dirt and technology, outside tube-stations (submerged, but still in open air) are great. I take the Circle Line daily here, and there are some really nice sights to see. Blackened brick walls with thick, multi-coloured (but faded) wires running alongside them, stuff like that. If I had a camera, I'd have taken a few snapshots already.

adam

For me it depends. Lately I've watched a movie then wanted to model something from that movie. It switches to be honest.

Here's some more links:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/index.php
http://www.ontarioarchitecture.com/Terms.html
http://www.simoncornwell.com/urbex/frames.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/sunshyn178/abandoned/main.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kazil/
http://www.kto-to.de/en/gal.php?lang=en&pd=6
http://www.containershipping.nl/casualties.html
http://www.shieldsaroundtheworld.com/gallery.html

pliang

I find panogames a nice site to see some panoramas of in game scenes....

Most of the time I try to clean up the levels in games and walk around in there like an architect and look at all the details and examine how its built and all...

Oneil

Seriously thank you Vig and Adam for posting such awesome Reference sites for Environments. .

OBlastradiusO

Very good abandoned building references.

www.darkpassage.com

Peris

An environment artist who's often inspired me to take my own work to a better level, back in the halflife mapping days and still today: http://www.philipk.net/

And this guy made me realise you can make awesome looking stuff thats still ridiculously optimised: http://www.3d-mike.com/
not much recent work anymore by him though
(EDIT: Jesus it looks outdated now )

A-Train

Thanks to all, especially Vig and Adam. Great refs guys! OblastradiusO, darkpassage is awesome. I've checked that site out a long while back. Great you posted it, because I was missing my bookmark.

Cody

My motivation:
http://www.tylerwanlass.com/index.cfm
http://www.envart.com/
http://www.pernroth.nu/
http://www.marc-antoine.ca/
http://www.mikeyspano.com/
http://stefan-morrell.cgsociety.org/gallery/316562/

SHEPEIRO

my motivation/inspiration, comes from going to cool places, get out and see the world for yourself

PixelMasher

I love watching documentaries on various cultures/places , movies and flipping through art books for inspiration. plus i usually use the ol' "im gonna study the art" defense to justify buying a new game every week or so.