BigPoint: The creative process: sentinels in Shards of War

1 of 45

The Creative Process:Sentinels in Shards ofWar

2 of 45

Intro

Oliver Trogemann

Joined Bigpoint 2011

Senior UI Artist, Head of 2D Art

UI and Concept Art (~40 Artists incl.

ADs/Art Leads)

Advising internal & external projects

Hiring

Feel free to connect on LinkedinFind us at: G6

3 of 45

FARMERAMA2009 | 53m users

DARKORBIT2006 | 90m users

DRAKENSANG ONLINE2011 | 31m users

Founded 2002

550 employees

370,000,000 registered users in 200

countries

200,000 new users added every day

180+ payment methods

1 billion+ daily transactions

San Francisco

Istanbul

Hamburg

Luxemburg

Malta

Seoul

4 of 45

About the Team

Teamsize total: 52

15 artists (2D, 3D, Animation, Tech)

2 Concept Artists/Illustrators

Unity / Custom pipeline

5 of 45

About the GameSciFi Action MOBA

Free to Play

18 Sentinels (+)

4 Shards (Worlds) (+)

2 Maps (+)

2 Skins per Sentinel (+)

6 of 45

Video

7 of 45/ About SoW

Initial map

8 of 45

New map: Benefiting from key learnings

9 of 45

Features

W A S D Controls

Customizaton

10 of 45

Sentinels

~4 week total art production (concept,

asset, artwork)

Art & Game Design: flexible/ collaborative

Regular Workflow: Game Design (character

specs) – followed by Art (visual concept)

Special Case: Big Bot

11 of 45

Art testing shapes and sizes.Design created: Bastion

12 of 45

Sentinels

Last minute feedback: Early Sentinels not

futuristic enough. Solved by replacing with

skin. (Examples)

13 of 45

Example Vulcan: Switching early version …

14 of 45

…with the skin

15 of 45/ Sentinel

Example Striker: Switching early version …

16 of 45

…with the skin

17 of 45

Skins

Require new 3D assets and illustrations

Illustrations: essential communication tool

(Story, Identification, Immersion)

Classification of „Story“ and „Fun“ skins

Varies each case

18 of 45

Flatline

19 of 45

Flatline: “Story skin”

20 of 45

Zel

21 of 45

Zel: “Fun” skin

22 of 45

Blitz

23 of 45

Blitz: Fun skin

24 of 45

Skins

25 of 45

Skins

New Skins: Preserve spirit and silhouette

26 of 45

Skins

New Skins: Spirit and silhouette

27 of 45

Skins

New Skins: Spirit and silhouette

28 of 45

Bastion

29 of 45

Bastion: Fun skin (Inspiration?)

30 of 45

Rhino

31 of 45

Rhino: Fun skin

32 of 45

Identifying and testing 5-6 different

vendors

Providing 2 rough sketches, allowing

artists proposal

Surprise: Giving rather more than less

freedom = best results!

Sometimes making quick fixes internally.

Outsourcing

33 of 45

Vox: Great inital artwork from thevendor

(Values, Composition)

34 of 45

Second color draft lost all power.Different Artist?

35 of 45

Solution: Inhouse fix

36 of 45

Vendor had problems (perspectivedistortion)

37 of 45

Outsourcing

Hulk saved us (inhouse fix)

38 of 45

Outsourcing

You need great artists – simple as that

The more changes - the worse it gets,

start from scratch

Artwork is done when you say it‘s done

Giving Artists codenames from popular

show for later reference

39 of 45

Creative Process

Keeping Sentinels inhouse, Outsourcing

skins

Currently 2 Concept Artists/ Illustrators

Switching between concept art and

illustration

Example: Zel

40 of 45

Concept Art

Zel: Early concepting

41 of 45

Concept Art

Zel: Weapon design

42 of 45

Concept Art

Zel: Costume Layers

43 of 45

Zel: Final concept

44 of 45

Zel: Final inhouseartwork

45 of 45

Questions?

Find us at:

Play the game: www.shardsofwar.com

G6