Posts with tag Environment-Artists

Part four of the latest series of Artcraft was released this week, and this time, five different level designers are featured in the segment, all talking about the development of Draenor's version of Nagrand. Nagrand is pretty unique in that Outland's version of the zone is one of the most pristine parts of Outland -- it's been virtually untouched by corruption, although chunks of the zone have obviously broken off and floated away. Which makes for the interesting task of keeping those familiar landmarks of Outland's Nagrand, while seamlessly adding those missing areas that were lost in the Twisting Nether.

All of the designers talk about that particular hurdle, as well as delivering a lot of other really interesting facts about Nagrand and the Highmaul Raid included on the western edge of the zone. The development of Highmaul and the Highmaul ogres vs. the Warsong orcs is particularly cool. This is the final installment of this particular series of Artcraft -- honestly I think it's been one of my favorites to date, simply because it highlighted so much of the stuff behind those zones we spend all our time in, but hardly ever think about in terms of how they came to be. You can check out the final installment on Blizzard's website, as well as all other posts in the series.

The excellent Artcraft series continues with a look at the tools used to develop zones, as well as how the Level Design team works with Environment Artists to craft a zone's many areas and make them all seem like natural parts of an area.

Artcraft - Level Design Part 3

The environment artists make the models and textures, and the level designer sculpts and paints the terrain, places the trees, rocks, and bushes-all the while considering gameplay and both the art and design direction. A typical day for our level designers will include decisions about the overall look and feel of a zone, as well as paying finite attention to detail, like how one plant looks when placed next to another plant in the scene.

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So far this has been one of my favorite Artcrafts - while it was fun to get to see the various new models for playable races, getting to see the tools that craft the World of Warcraft we experience as players is nothing short of amazing and I'm very much looking forward to part four. Just getting to read about how they vary the shade of green to bring out different elements of the zone has me super excited. Nagrand is beautiful and diverse, and we're getting to see how elements of the game we've already known are referenced and incorporated in its creation.