RuneScape Forum Archive | Art Team Campfire

Mod Phoenix

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Art Team Campfire Answers

Hi everyone
and welcome to yet another fantastic Campfire session. This time with talented and creative folks from the Art Team!

Here are the heroes of today's Q&A and their answers to your burning questions...

Mod WHALEFIS
I first found a passion for games while the industry was still very young, taking the chance on an in-house position shortly after leaving school, and already having a few published titles under my belt. I’ve followed the roller coaster industry from the early 8bit days, spending some time in the States and moving round the UK working on just about every platform under the sun.

Recently returning from a 3 year tour of duty at Crytek Frankfurt, working on Crysis 2 and Microsoft’s new IP Ryse, I jumped at the opportunity to join the amazing Art Team as Art Director and since January have been soaking up the legacy that is Runescape.

Mod AoB
I joined Jagex coming on nearly 5 years now. I'm one of the many talented Environment Artists updating old assets to bring them back to life and creating new ones for all the new and amazing projects that come our way.

To date some of the projects I have work on include the Gnome Village and the Brimhaven Dungeons back in 2011 to the God wars project "I did the big Boss chamber

". The New Alkharid and Castlewars, plus leading the update project in bring life to Rimmington Village and The Tears Of Guthix project. I also had a small hand in the Duel Arena.

I have worked on some amazing projects over the years and some not so amazing "like making new rocks". When I'm not at work I play way to many games and watch too many movies, but occasionally I do get outdoors and go training a few times a week and of course I have to get in some paintball a few times a year.

Mod Alec
I joined nearly six years ago for a brief period in Player Support where I got a temporary position as a Texture Artist for RuneScape HD. I then became a full time 3D Artist . The Fairy update, Fairy 3, Living Rock Caverns and ‘Hunt for Red Raktuber’ are a few older pieces of content which I particularly enjoyed working on. From there I became a character artist, specialising in all things NPCs big and small, as well as player armour, weapons and inventory objects. I’ve had the opportunity to model such creations as the King Black Dragon update, the Behemoth’s for Dungeoneering and countless player kit parts. I am currently the Lead Character Artist here for RuneScape.

Mod Labl
I'm Mod Labl. I joined Jagex just over two years ago to begin working on Stellar Dawn, however since then I transitioned through RuneScape QA to Runescape graphics to pursue my life long ambition of being a games artist. I'm now on the Environment Artist Team and I absolutely love my work and even though my day mostly comprises of making rocks and trees, rocky walls, tree rocks and walls of trees etc. I really enjoyed working on the Carnilean rising quest, as well as the new Al Kharid and Duel Arena. I'm really looking forward to the upgrades that will come from the HTML5 engine and how that will allow the artist team to flourish and push the quality of our work to look exceptional for a browser based game. There are such exciting times ahead! Are you excited? Where do you think is the best looking place in Runescape? Where do you think needs the most work to improve?

Mod Honeybooboo
I am Mod Honeyboo. I am an experienced 3D Environment Artist working on console and mobile games over the last seven years. I have recently joined the Runescape Environment Team. My job is to create 3D art work and 2D textures and place them in our map editor to create the wonderful environments that make up the epic world of Runescape. I sadly can't mention my favourite projects as they've yet to be announced!

I look forward to answering your questions!

Mod Phoenix

Mod Jane

Mod Jane and Mod Phoenix are here making sure that our artists are well fed, watered and unable to escape!

28-May-2013 20:30:38 - Last edited on 04-Jun-2013 15:39:35 by Mod Phoenix

Mod Aob

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Esquire Pa tri ck:

Where do you get inspiration for making artwork. Some ideas come from real places?

Generally the best places to get inspiration is from nature. There are plenty of very strange and cool stuff out there. Watch documentary's about the deep sea or huge cave systems under the earth etc. The most wonderful and strange creatures i have ever seen have been in these types of hidden away places.
All the best concepts out there would have to have come from reality in one way or another to make it believable.

04-Jun-2013 17:02:59

Mod Honeyboo

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Q.) For the environmental artists: don’t you think it’s about time that the Fisher Realm got a much needed graphical rework? I think it’s one of the most outdated areas in the game graphics-wise right now… :o

A.) Our work on RuneScape 3 has included graphical reworks within the vast world that is RuneScape. I can not give away what areas this will be. However I can say I am excited about the Environment Art in RuneScape 3 and what we can do with the environments developing for HTML5. Exciting times

04-Jun-2013 17:06:42

Mod Whalefis

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

To the concept artists: As a concept and character artist, what would you say the best way to plan and make your concept art is?

Environmental Artists and partially level designers: Do you visualize your art work in your head of how it would look in game and start looking into related works or do you just put the pencil on the paper and draw as it comes to you?

I ask this because I want to be a successful character concept artist and level designer myself!
--
Best way as always is to start with an idea. Before we put pen to paper we always start of with some kind of design brief and then start to gather reference images relevant to job.

Try not to get to bogged with the details initially and work with simple silhouettes and shapes until you've got something your happy with. You can then start to work in some details and/or simple color blocking.

Most importantly if something isn't working don't be afraid to throw it all away and start again.

I'd say a good 95% of most environment art has some concept one way or another but we`re lucky enough to have some very talented env artists here at Jagex who will push a rough set of concept art into something amazing

04-Jun-2013 17:07:36

Mod Aob

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Matt Z:

I'm assuming after you've finished a project and it's been released into the game that you would come onto the forums to see players' feedback.

-Do you start to worry at the last minute that people wont like what you've done?
-Does player feedback have much influence on your future projects?
-What is the most rewarding part of the job?

1: To be honest, we rarely have time. Normally the moment the project is finished we are moving on to the next project. But in most cases the projects that we finish are not release for weeks or months later. For eg: I worked on CastleWars, and that was not released for for a further 8months after i finished, by then i was after moving onto a further number of projects.

2: Player feedback is helpful , but normally not to much for us artist, as we make what is giving to us. The feedback would have been taken into account before we would have received the concept.

3: Getting the job finished and stepping back and seeing how well you did the job. And if you see the work a few months down the line and still puts a smile on your face, you know you did a good job.

04-Jun-2013 17:10:36

Mod Honeyboo

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Hey there, just wanna ask how you decide on what area your going to update next?
also, maybe any hints of the next place thou i know your'll would of been doing ascension and quest ect.
howabout varrock and fally getting updated? perhaps bigger as the 'cities' only have a few buildings....

A.) Our decisions on area updates come from a few things, but most notably from feedback on the forums from all of you. It also comes from what is happening in the overall story line of RuneScape and all the quests.

04-Jun-2013 17:15:24

Mod Alec

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

"Do you design chatheads for every npc made? If so do you think it's a shame we don't get to see them all? "

We Generally only create chatheads for npcs that have speech, so usually npc's that are quest specific rather than general npc's around the world that you just kill

04-Jun-2013 17:16:43

Mod Labl

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Q) I'm assuming after you've finished a project and it's been released into the game that you would come onto the forums to see players' feedback.

A) After we release a project we've lead or worked on, we make a conscious effort to get in game on our Jmod's to talk to players in order to get feedback. You'll usually see us about near the start of the quests or dungeons just after the update has gone live if you want to try and find us!

Q) -Do you start to worry at the last minute that people wont like what you've done?

A) I worry about this all the time, even when I'm assured by other colleagues and people who have play tested the content that it looks fantastic, it still worries me that its not good enough!

Take the new slayer dungeon, I've been busy working on that for a while, and even though I'm quite happy with it, I still see area's I want to improve in it, add more detail to. For example, around the centre piece, I wanted to raise the height of the caves and really give it a snug overwhelming feeling.

I could only give the claustrophobia feeling by making the passages thin, but had to heavily consider even that due to the mechanics of the monsters movement. The fog helped though! The things I would tweak to look better are endless, but that could be because I'm rarely completely happy with my work. I mean, it can always be better right?

Q) -Does player feedback have much influence on your future projects?

A) - Player feedback always has influence on our projects and future projects. Even though sometimes we're quiet about things, I really want to assure you, we read all the forum posts, listen to it all and it really does change how projects are done.

Q) -What is the most rewarding part of the job?

A) - I enjoy seeing players just enjoying the content that's made most, its nice running around on my choob account and people saying, "this place looks awesome" not knowing im a jmod. Its very satisfying when people enjoy your work and are talking truthfully instead of being shocked that a jmod is in their presence.

04-Jun-2013 17:19:55

Mod Labl

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

Q) -Is there an area or thing in the game that you guys are absolutely itching to redo? If so, what or where?

A) I want to redo Ardougne... its such a cool idea for an area, and given a chance to redo it, it would look AWESOME. It has soo much potential!

-Are there any areas of the game that have already been reworked recently, but you're not completely satisfied with?

A) So far we only release area's that we are satisfied with. We've behind the scenes updated far more than is ready to release, but with the quality control and many various other reasons, they don't go live as we don't want to give you something we don't feel happy about.

04-Jun-2013 17:26:28

Mod Aob

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

, the World Guardian Halfingr:

Q)

-How influenced are the artists by player concepts and conceptual fan-art, if at all?

-If given the choice, would you guys rather work on the art for Prifddinas, or the Eastern Lands?

-Once RS3's HTML5 capabilities are implemented, will the art teams be focusing on creating literally deeper environments to fit the new depth of vision? Not buildings like the Dominion Tower, Citharede Abbey or the Wizard's Tower, but more mountainous mountains, larger trees, deeper lakes and other such things? For example: White Wolf Mountain. Currently, it's pretty...short. =P

-Approximately what percentage of the art that you guys do does NOT become a final product?

A)

1: I dont think the designers and concept artists would be too influenced by the player fan art. We have some amazing concept artists that help us out with the mood and designs of everything that is needed from massive buildings and landscapes to the Gods and other small creatures

2: Eastern Lands.

3: With the release of HTML5 coming up, we will be pushing the art style as much as possible to make it a much more in-dept game, from vast landscapes and huge buildings. With the larger draw distance in html5 you can see further so would be nice to take advantage of it and add loads of Height to the world.

4: We try and keep that % as low as possible. When we get all the graphical assists needed, we sit down and time them all up to see how long each piece will take to make and try very hard to stick to that. IF we run over, then animation run over, and QA run over and so on, till everything is running behind. So we keep that down and try and nail ever thing 1st time, untill we get to the feedback stage.

04-Jun-2013 17:28:06

Forums

Art Team Campfire - Answers

Mod Phoenix

Mod Aob

Mod Honeyboo

Mod Whalefis

Mod Aob

Mod Honeyboo

Mod Alec

Mod Labl

Mod Labl

Mod Aob