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| [ goodies | dev diary | chapter four ] |
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| #4 |
Art for
heart's Sake |
Creating the visual look for a game with a high profile such as Worms is no mean feat, particularly
when it's an all new 3D iteration of the game. Very early in Worms 3D's visual direction it was felt
that maintaining a close similarity to the Worms 2 series was going to be key and the team of artists
and animators have worked to bring the 2D cartoon style animations to life in 3D.
The team itself is a mixed bag, with Dave and Patrick overseeing the design and implementation of
the in-game graphics; Patrick creating and texturing the in-game models, Dave applying himself to
the overall mix of models, textures and effects. Alongside these two, we have Enrique and Mar, our
Spanish artists who are feverishly creating the texture-sets which will adorn the environments in
our worlds. Mike is also creating textures as well as environments and is the right-hand man to the
programmers in terms of testing and checking how things work. Andy animates the Worms, but that's
covered in the next diary when we explain how Boggy B, our worm character was brought to life! We
were also joined by Tom last November, a concept artist who has been a great addition to the Worms
art team, bringing with him a very black humour, which has worked a treat.
By the way, if it sounds like we haven't got a massive amount of artists on the job, it's worth
remembering that our team of designers are responsible for creating objects and environments for
the game, rather than the artists - and that particular craft will also have its own diary entry
when we explain the process.
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| Worms style |
With the graphical approach to the game, the main aim was for people to recognise it as Worms -
and as discussed above, people are very familiar with the 2D cartoon style.
Translating the best bits from old games and looking at other influences we tried to find
something that would fit the Worms world. The first problem we had was working out what actually
made and contributed to the Worms style. The early games had one style which changed for the
sequel and then continued to branch out with the more artists that worked on it. Because we
were starting from scratch, we had the ability to completely control the look of the game. This
was very important to create a consistent look and style throughout.
Like the previous Worms games, The levels are split up into various themes as well as having a
wide range of custom designed levels for the single player game. When we first started, everyone
was coming up with themes they liked best and ones they wanted to see in Worms 3D. This time round
though, they take much longer to create since in the 2D games, a couple of land textures and a dozen
or so flat objects would make a theme, which typically took a week or two.
For Worms 3D, it now takes months to create a single theme, lots more textures are required, much more
complex textured objects, sky-boxes, water and suchlike. Creating good 3D textures is a difficult task,
particularly in a cartoon environment since they have to look right and work with the rest of the
textures.
Each theme consists of around thirty or forty destructible objects created using our editor, several
small Maya built detail objects and around fifty or so individual textures. To make up for the decreased
number of themes than before, each theme has three different sky settings, changing the lighting and
mood of the levels and allowing weather effects such as rain and snow. With the range of objects, mix
of lighting, water and weather, there's a lot of variance within a single theme.
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| influences |
The kind of influences that effected how the game looks came from various other places as well as Worms.
Being big fans of Nintendo, playing games like Mario Sunshine not only affects by the style of graphics,
but makes us really appreciate the work involved to make games of such a high standard and drives our
production values up - we want our game to be viewed in similar high regard to that standard of
game.
A few months were spent concepting work and how the levels were going to look, but it wasn't until the
editor got into full swing and objects could be built when we could see what we could really do - and
things have just got bigger and better from there.
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| full swing |
The art team is pretty much in full swing now, the themes are determined and the single player missions
decided (these are being created by the designers and textured by the artists). Our artists all produce
work using Photoshop (using graphics tablets), traditional drawing on a light table (and scanning their
work), Maya for modelling and our Worms 3D editor for building levels, objects and environments.
The next diary will discuss how the 3D character was born, developed and animated, covering all the stages
of his creation.
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| [ goodies | dev diary ] |
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| Development Diaries |
We plan diaries right up until the end of the project and they will
appear every week or two, so keep popping back for updates. The great
thing about the diary is that so much just isn't written yet!
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| overview |
The graphics and images shown in the diaries so far don't come anywhere
close to where we are currently in terms of visual style.
The first few chapters merely serve to bring us 'up to date' to how we got
where we are. It's envisaged that we will catch up with current progress
by Christmas and the diaries will then mirror recent developments rather
than things from the distant past.
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Patrick, Mar, Enrique & Andy
Mike, Tom & Dave
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Textures 2002
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Character 2002
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Environment 2000
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