Phase one: Studio Introduction

[Form]

313484
Dear Artist,

Congratulations on your acceptance into the FAKE Game Studio!

We are pleased to welcome you into our new Concept Incubation Team specialising in Environment Design!

You will be working with the following artists:

1. Daldbaatar
2. Jean Yves / Iwantjelly
3. Joe Wilson
4. Luke / Earendil
5. Marcus / Lez
6. Milo Christensen
7. Roberto Morfin
8. Taylor Clutter
9. Ulrich Faust
10. Thomas Gundersen


We have also placed the following artists on a Reserves List:

1. Dawn Carlos
2. John L



You and your team are being brought on board at a vital stage in production, as a concept incubation team. Our company is wrapping up production on its flagship title and we predict it will be quite succesful, so we are now bringing on additional concept artists to work on our second product.

You will be working as a group of environment concepters to generat a new IP (intellectual property) for the company, and based on our assessment of the new IP, you will move on to creating relevant production art.

Once again, welcome to Fake Game Studios, and I look forward to meeting you in-house soon!

Adam Paquette,
Creative Director,
Fake Studios.

You put the letter away in your laptop bag, confident you didnt miss anything you need to know for your first day at the studio. You tell the cab driver to pull over at the address on the letter and you jump out (tipping him appropriately, cabbies are human too!). Entering FAKE studios, you realise you are a bit early and have arrived before most others. Walking past reception into a room marked 'Art Department' you see a bank of 10 machines and, seated at the far end, an odd looking man at his computer. :carnifex:

He looks up from whatever he is doing and says Gday. You get the feeling he is probably Australian! He introduces himself as Adam, the creative director who you spoke to during your application. You go through a bit of formal introductions and then he shows you to your machine. The rest of the new art team is filing in and you make introductions. Some are new faces, some you have met and worked with before. A few of you even took art classes together previously with another, oddly enough, Australian man named Adam!

You all get comfortable and after a bit of chatter, Adam gets everyone's attention.

"Ok guys, it's good to see you all here. Welcome to the concept incubation team, please make yourselves at home. There's coffee and lulcatz out the back if you need them. As much as I would love to spend more time with introductions, we have a pretty tight schedule to stick to this year and our producer will be around to check on progress pretty soon, so we have to get to it. This first stage is vital and the reason we have brought so many of you together is to combine all of your unique outlooks and ideas into a fresh, interesting Intellectual Property to base our next game on.

For the first few weeks, we want to get you guys familiarised and working together, contributing ideas. This is the stage to get all of those wild and wonderful ideas you have been formulating out of your head. This week we want to start flexible and let you guys come up with a range of concepts. Although we have SOME idea of what we are looking for, we would prefer to give you free reign to come up with stuff first. You will find your briefs on your desks, please read them through and let me know if there are any questions. Good luck."

With that, your creative director resumes his position behind his desk, and you look down to see a printed brief on your desk. You are sure it wasnt there before, and suspect that a rogue forum moderator may be responsible!

Brief #001: Initial Concepts

Individually, we would like you to produce a range of quick sketches and thumbnails based on your own ideas for a Game Universe you would like to see. Although we have settled on producing a MMORPG, we are very flexible with the campaign setting and would like to see what you can come up with. Fantasy, scifi, modern day, cutting edge - anything goes.

At this point we only want sketches and ideas. You may include mood boards, reference research and so on, however we do not want any finished paintings. Think fast, come up with lots of ideas!

For the moment you are working individually, however it is always advisabel to discuss your ideas amongst the group to get feedback and fresh perspectives.

I will be checking in every few days, to see the work you have done. The dates I will be checking your work are

3 March
6 March
10 March

Since we are at thumbnail stage there is no limit to the amount of work you should produce, however needless to say more is better. I will give you feedback and push you in a certain direction if the company likes it, and at the end of this stage we will combine the ideas we think are most saleable and get you all working together on the IP.

Don't hesitate to head on over to my desk if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!

You are a bit anxious that the brief is so open-ended, but you also (hopefully ;)) look forward to the opportunity to get your own ideas out unrestricted by specific briefs, for now. You settle in and plug in your wacom.
Create!
A

[J Wilson]

Awesome presentation! I'm glad to be onboard. I'm hoping to get something started at lunchtime!

-The Dweller/Joe Wilson

[Gundersen]

*Thomas lets out a Viking war cry as he throws his legs up on the desk and pulls out a fresh sketchbook from his backpack*

Time to get this rolling lads!! To just explain where i think i might be moveing onto is a MMORPG set in the 12th century Holy Wars.

I already introduced myself as a mean bastard, but you know us vikings, we enjoy a hug after a good fight ;)

[J Wilson]

I think at this stage I'm going to be creating stuff kind of stream of consciousness, letting one idea inspire the next and see where it goes. I'll probably be all over the place, setting wise. I'll probably even throw out more than one sketch style just to see if a change of technique inspires anything.

*Throws in the new Horrorpops cd, inserts some earbuds, and gets to work*

[robmorfin]

Wow, awesome studio setup, love the desks, am i glad to be working with FAKE Studios!

This is exactly what I was looking for!

[Gundersen]

Damn i so picked the wrong desk.. Didnt think about this Australian sun.... Who do i have to ask to get some blinds?

[robmorfin]

Damn i so picked the wrong desk.. Didnt think about this Australian sun.... Who do i have to ask to get some blinds?

You have to earn them!

Or switch desks now that you can, only 3 of us have showed up, Go for it!

[~Faust~]

Damn! And just when I was not checking in for a while ... Well okay, mister australian CD sir, I will shit you out some ideas!

[Earendil]

*an evil giggling is heard somewhere in the room*

[robmorfin]

*an evil giggling is heard somewhere in the room*

Damn, Ear, with that Avatar sometimes I wonder if you are really alive or not

:skull: :devil: :skull:

specially when you evil giggle.

hehe

[Earendil]

I'm switching to a fulltime job, training a new guy for my old one, doing end credit animations, drawing, hand massages and drawing.

Never been more alive. :P Where's my GIR running around wild picture...

313699

:steph:

[Toxdel]

*stares at the freaky ghostly artist giggling evily, and running around the room in mad craze* "what have I got myself into?"

-I'm at work right now so I can't get to work ;) until I get home. Not sure where I'm going to go with the thumbnails. Might just play around until I have some themes going.

[Earendil]

*stares at the freaky ghostly artist giggling evily, and running around the room in mad craze* "what have I got myself into?"


Earendil is sad.

He always thought he was a being of pure energy, not a ghost.
*shrug*

"WeehOOo!"

*runs*

[robmorfin]

Rofl!

[~Faust~]

I am very sorry to be the party pooper, but I'll bring in some preliminary scetches I did today. Funny how my brain gets tired after the 20th thumbnail! I really need moer stamina. Oh, and for everyone who is interested, I added the Fake-Studio logo in png-format, makes the assignment so much more official looking :D can't toss anything out tomorrow I'm afraid, but I'll be back on saturday with the double-ratio!

EDIT: Something else, what exactly is a mood board? Googling it I find several randowm collages with a lot of reference. Is that it? Is there a particular way to do a mood board? I am sorry, I heard that term for the first time.

[Toxdel]

*realizes he misunderstood the appearance of the being of pure energy and apologizes for mistaking him for a ghost*

[Earendil]

Really like two of the thumbs Faust, but I'm having a very very hard time making sense of any of the other B/W thumbs and a few of the color ones. Don't be afraid to spend as much time as you need to get these to a "readable" state.

Edit: I think your thoughts on what a "mood board" is, are in the right direction.

[Gundersen]

Faust: Cool to see an early update. But as Earendil says its realy hard to see what alot of it is. The bottom page i understood was forest scenes when i read the part about Elfes on the side. I can see some sci-fi stuff on the top, or AI as you called it :)
Work them up a bit more so we get your ideas, good work though, keep it comming. I wont be posting stuff before saturday i think.

[iwantjelly]

*enters silently the room, sits down, puts his headphones on and begins to work without a word. Grunts slightly from time to time.*

I started with some city thumbs. I had in mind some very close future universe, like if we found some alien technology tomorrow. I mean, some very futuristic elements mixed with today's life environments. Half Life 2 is a good example of what I mean. I'll try to do new thumbs showing more this idea.

Faust : I agree with what other said : very nice first contribution, but maybe your thumbs would need to be precised a bit.

Form : It would be great if you could give us the company logo on a transparent background (PNG maybe), cause I had to get rid of the brown background in a very crappy way...

http://www.iwantjelly.com/images/FAKE/01a-city_thumbs.jpg

[~Faust~]

Great thumbs, Jean! Very readable, maybe it's a good idea just to start out with a few of those. Although those enviros do not exactly feel like today for me. Especially the thrid one has a more 50s feel to it. the fourth is also a bit older since in a modern environment, I see much more glass and steel incorporated in the architecture. I'm not saying that those houses do not exist today, just suggesting putting in a glass giant here and there or a piece of modern architecure, with rounder forms. Like you've done in first thumb for instance.

Good job!

[iwantjelly]

Well, 3 more before lunch :

http://www.iwantjelly.com/images/FAKE/01b-city_thumbs.jpg

Just a thing : my first name is not Jean, but Jean-Yves : in France you can call a child with two names, but it's very old fashion. That's what my parents did...

[Lez]

*like the ninja I am I make a grand sneaking entrance, and without giving as much as a peep I sneak onward towards my spot.. With only half the way to go however ... I trip on a loose shoelace and with a great bang says hello to the floor while mumbling... "I really need some coffe..." *

Faust: I really enjoy your thumbnails actually - it gives a great freedom to see forms yourself and I think it might give directors and other people room to see own ideas within your images. Great way to do initial sketches i my opinion.
But presenting ideas which is readable is a good way to compensate so you not only have abstract pieces to show. It seems to me however that you've thought some things through :).

Iwanthelly: Cool, seems you really like trainstations ;). That last one is really great.

I went for a more organic feel, with a lot of natural elements. Like woods, caves, catacombs, highlands. I too have a thing for medieval design mixed with a futuristic feel, a bit... steampunky if you might say so. I did not, however, capture that feel in my thumbnails... Will certainly make more - thumbs is after all what I enjoy doing most - so creative.

[Gundersen]

I would recomend people to take up the good old pen and paper. It goes alot quicker then working Digitaly in a sketch face. As an architect student i know that starting of digitaly limits your speed and you get to much into details.
I have produced around 4-5 A2 pages of sketches today, will post them up later.

I know there are diffrent styles in sketching. But to sketch fast on a computer takes alot of skills :)

Nice thumbs from everyone so far. Dont feel like giving critts to much in a sketch face seeing that we all have our own sketch styles. But make sure they show what you want to.

And lastly, remember its a MMORPG so try to think how it would work aswell as trying to make it look cool.

[Gundersen]

Time to kick of some sketches of mine.

The first image was painted last week, but it fit very good to the topic I wanted to go for, so i thought id throw it in, dont kill me for it Adam :)

I am as i said looking into the middles east during the 12th century. MMORPG set in the holy wars.

Hope you like em... quick stuff

[iwantjelly]

Still doing thumbs, I tried a more medieval universe :

http://www.iwantjelly.com/images/FAKE/01c-medieval_thumbs.jpg

[Gundersen]

realy nice thumbs Iwantjelly. Are you gonna mix these togheter or are you doing several themes? I think you should narrow it down to one idea. To not overload yourself, and also to give you the chance to do alot of background study to one idea.

[Gundersen]

Need to go to a committee meeting for my Kendo club. But here is three speed paintings i did on the mood of my idea. Castles in the desert :P (i know there is not a castle in one of them hehe)

(and yes i totaly agree it rocks to put a logo on your work)

[iwantjelly]

Hey, these last painting are fine Gundersen, especially the third one

I think I'll continue to wander around a bit before choosing a definite direction. It's so nice to just draw what comes to your mind !

I'll try to do another serie tonight, at least 4. I think I'll go for the sea theme. A MMORPG with ships would be great ! Like a world of steam punk pirates. Piracy with steam and wheel-boats, giant ones...

[Earendil]

*like the ninja I am I make a grand sneaking entrance, and without giving as much as a peep I sneak onward towards my spot.. With only half the way to go however ... I trip on a loose shoelace and with a great bang says hello to the floor while mumbling... "I really need some coffe..." *

Faust: I really enjoy your thumbnails actually - it gives a great freedom to see forms yourself and I think it might give directors and other people room to see own ideas within your images.



Semi-Sneaky Ninja makes good point. :) Maybe I'll make some Rorscach thumbnails.

I'm at work, but i'll be commenting more later. :) Good stuff!

[Lez]

Some more quick thumbs - I never thought it would be this challenging to create some thumbnails on whatever... But it is - great training for value sketching and trying to in an early stage define a mood to a picture.

Earendil: Hehe you should, its great fun too just mashing out stuff. Will probably throw up a couple of my abstract sketches as well.

[Toxdel]

damn everyone! These thumbs are lookin' mighty fine! Lez I love that last page of thumbs, especially the big one at the bottom. Gunderson, awesome colors on those last ones, Maybe work on the readibility though.

as for me I got some stuff I did last night but I also want to get a few more done tonight. I'll post em when I'm finished.

later

[iwantjelly]

keep it up Lez, love the bottom right one.

sea themed :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/01d-sea_thumbs.jpg

[Gundersen]

Iwantjelly: your last image doesnt show sadly.

Good thumbs here people. Lez you where talking about a steampunk idea, Try to check out some steampunk, you seem to lack it in your thumbs :) But all in all its great thumbs!

I have stayed loose in my sketches so far, and will keep loose over the weekend, but will start to redefine them a bit more. I want to keep going in a certain line so i know what to research.

[robmorfin]

:wtf: Will somebody stop these guys !!! :ilaekae:

Get a job!

Just Kidding, great job everyone, keep 'em coming.

Dead great-uncle:[ , have to go to LA, will start thumbs tomorrow:painting: :painting: :painting:.

[Lez]

yeah Gunder, I snowed in on a more fantasy/medieval theme I guess.

And just realized something great Iwantjelly is doing... Actually numbering the thumbnails! Looks like a very useful solution especially when discussing thumbs since one can pretty much dish out a whole bunch of em and sorting with numbers instead of placement description is a lot better.

Think that's something I'll do too!

[J Wilson]

Here's a few greyscale roughs to get started. I have more ideas sketched out in pencil, and even though this is a rough stage I feel like I need to sharpen them up some before I present them.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh108/joewilson_illustration/Enviropics1.jpg

[Earendil]

Really like the strong edges you've got going The Dweller. I'd post more but I've got to keep making mine. :P

[Gundersen]

The Dweller: I guess you mean redscale .. hehe. Dont be affraid to post stuff that is not "straightened" up enough. It doesnt mather at all what your sketches look like as long as they can be read.

edit: I also want to applogize that i will not be very active the next days. Have a MASSIVE hand in on friday next week..

[Gundersen]

Ok did some quickies in painter. Wanted to paint the lonely desert mood, two of them has a storm blowing through the desert

[~Faust~]

Damnit gunderson and lez! This is pretty amazing whatyou guys cooked up there, I see myself not having any technique at all and just watching your thumbs gives me some ideas how to get those stripes rollin'!

Just some random stuff from me, I am afraid. I'm looking out for a place to stay right now and my current residence doesn't have internet. So I'll post some more tomorrow.

Great job everyone! I would still like to see more sci-fi, or at least more dark stuff. The desert-scheme seems to dominate right now. I'll try to be more diverse, throwing in really crazy ideas.

[Earendil]

The majority of mine are dark so far if you were referring to values. Should have something up soon.

[iwantjelly]

Some last ones :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/01e-nature_thumbs.jpg

[Earendil]

Here we go.

315182

[J Wilson]

A few more, color this time.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh108/joewilson_illustration/Enviropics2.jpg

[Gundersen]

Damnit gunderson and lez! This is pretty amazing whatyou guys cooked up there, I see myself not having any technique at all and just watching your thumbs gives me some ideas how to get those stripes rollin'!

Just some random stuff from me, I am afraid. I'm looking out for a place to stay right now and my current residence doesn't have internet. So I'll post some more tomorrow.

Great job everyone! I would still like to see more sci-fi, or at least more dark stuff. The desert-scheme seems to dominate right now. I'll try to be more diverse, throwing in really crazy ideas.

Thanks for that Faust, appreciate it. One tips is to stay very loose in your drawings, scrible down some quick brush strokes and see what it turns into. I dont realy have a plan before i get 10-15 mins into these paintings..

When it comes to the desert theme I think I am the only one doing that atm :). Will keep going with it atm, since i enjoy it :) hehe Gonna paint some castles now!!

Iwantjelly: You got great thumbs!
Eearendil: Good to see you alive again
The Dweller: Nice use of colors, i am a sucker for strong colors. But i think i liked your "red scale" sketches even better! :P

[Form]

Adam stands up from his desk, and wanders over to Jean-Yves station. He hands him a completed request form for a working file of the FAKE logo. At the bottom is a link (http://www.paquette.com.au/fake.pdf) to the file.

He then wanders around the room, pleased with the consistency of the work. Although you are not due for review yet he gives a few pats on the back and says that things are 'looking good'. However he is a bit concerned that Milo Christensen and Daldbaatar are asleep at their desks. Not a good way to impress the boss upstairs! Adam heads back to his desk and gets to work on what look like a bunch of temp. contracts. Hmmm....

[Gundersen]

/me passes out

omg Adam have invtended a paper with a clickable link...

[Gundersen]

here is two castle sketches, The "muslim" one is made in Painter, and the "christian" one is made in Photoshop

[~Faust~]

Wow dweller, those are mad nice! I also liked the grayscale ones! Very simple, yet effective!

Gunderson: Sorry, but I do not see the big difference between the muslim and the christian thumbs, regarding the architecture. You kept those much better in the quick lines the other post. And thanks for the tip!

Earendil: wow those are indeed very dark. So dark that I can hardly make anything out :(

[J Wilson]

A few more, just pencil this time.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh108/joewilson_illustration/Enviropics3.jpg

If I get a chance I'll probably do a few more very rough just in greyscale. I've been incredibly sick all week so we'll see if I can manage to get them in before tomorrow's first review.

Thanks everyone for the comments. I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow to make any comments, just so everyone has a chance to bring together what they are working on.

[Lez]

Good going everyone... Got a question actually - can you borrow concepts from thumbnails that your co workers have done and do something with it yourself?

So I tried a more post apocalypse theme... Damn fun doing with a lot of sharp shapes.

*edit*
couldn't help it, just had to draw a couple of extra lines here and there >.<

[Gundersen]

Good going everyone... Got a question actually - can you borrow concepts from thumbnails that your co workers have done and do something with it yourself?

So I tried a more post apocalypse theme... Damn fun doing with a lot of sharp shapes.

I guess you can borrow as long as you say you have used another persons thumb. But i dont see why you would borrow a thumb. Get inspired by one and paint one yourself :)

[daldbaatar]

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9936/initialsbe1.jpg

sorry guys....this is a nasty start....man...im deeply sorry for this...and i want to tell adam i wasnt sleeping...i was processing....but will catch up in no time..i swear.

[Killroy]

Oh shit I slept through my alarm again! *leaps into desk, whips out wacom and begins scribbling like a madman*

[J Wilson]

I guess you can borrow as long as you say you have used another persons thumb. But i dont see why you would borrow a thumb. Get inspired by one and paint one yourself :)

I tend to agree with this. While you can certainly see something and get inspired and give an offshoot idea a go, but at this stage it's more about bringing out a variety of ideas rather than refining any of them. Just my take on things.

[Earendil]

Earendil: wow those are indeed very dark. So dark that I can hardly make anything out :(

Doh! :ore: I'll do some compensating, and keep that in mind on my next set.

Very nice edges Lez! I see someone has been watching his Whit Brachna. ;)

I agree with Gund and Killroy, let's just create and sort it all out later. :P

[Lez]

oh, think my choice of words were more than clumsy - think borrow should be replaced with inspired as Gundersen said :) and the Dweller certainly brings up a good point, these are after all - initial sketches.

Clarifies a lot, thanks!

Earendil: hehe yeah, he and a lot of other great artist really opened my eyes to the potential of the marquee tool in photoshop ;).

[Gundersen]

useing the Marque tool is the same as useing maskeing tape on a traditional painting... its a great tool! hehe If you check out the blog of IdiotApathy he also has some insane skills with this tool :)

[Toxdel]

Ok, I wanted to post more by now but things didn't go quit like I wanted. Here is my first three though.

[Killroy]

Here's something. Friggin amazing stuff so far... I'll be honest I'm feeling kinda inferior xD. But I'm learning juts by looking at y'alls stuff so its all good. =D Only have 3 done so far. I had this big idea to do like a native american themed game... like shamans could travel to the spirit world and stuff and then fight eachother with animal spirits or something. but I only have three so far. =/

[Toxdel]

Here is a few more in the event that I can't get anymore done tonight.

[Earendil]

Really liking what's being submitted here. I can tell this class is going to really push each other! :)

Here's a 2nd set. This may be my last one before tomorrow I have a short film thing that needs to get finished.

Incidentally, are we supposed to use the attachment manager or outside host? The attachment manager helps keep a nice archive of this class in case our outside host disappears...however, you can't see attached images in the reply box when making comments...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/2306660840_dfeab3fd2c_o_d.jpg

[J Wilson]

There's some really good stuff so far. I wish I hadn't been sick all week so I could have done more work. I'm looking forward to hearing tomorrow's first feedback.

[Toxdel]

I want to say Earendil that the stuff you've posted has been really tight, keep up the awesome thumbs. :)

-haha and I just we all seem to be having a bit of creative merchandising on the company logo. :P

[Earendil]

Thanks Toxdel. Like I said earlier, I really like what's being submitted and look forward to us pushing each other further.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3175/2307100026_61b913055a_o_d.jpg

[Killroy]

finished more stuff... just a random question for you guys: I got a new tablet for christmas that's this huge widescreen but it doesn't seem to work for me as my small graphire (now broken) used to. My laptop screen isn't wide screen. could this be the problem?
And again, you guys are blowing my socks off.

[Earendil]

The depends on what "the" problem is. :)

I'd imagine there's a setting on the tablet properties that locks everything to a non-widescreen area, however, I'd also imagine you'd lose the sides of your tablet as usable drawing area. Just what I'd imagine tho... Like the Native American angle.

[Toxdel]

Killroy - If you go into your tablet's driver you can setup how to orient it to the screen. If your monitor isn't wide screen I'd suggest using the driver to crop off a bit of the tablet area to match the screen, that way it won't stretch your drawing.

- In your thumbs try to pay attention to atmospheric perspective a bit more, maybe do a couple in black and white to get your tones down before you try something as complex as color. Good work though, can't wait to work with you, and everyone else more.

[Killroy]

Thanks both for your advise. I'm looking forwards to working with you guys too.

[Gundersen]

Nice thumbs people

Earendil: after you have painted your images go to "filter - sharpern". I know many people think "oh no dont use filter", but trust me, you get rid of all those "blurry" parts in your image that you dont realy want. (attached an example, right side is after its been sharpened)

I need to start producing again tonight, had a day yesterday where i didnt manage to get out anything... so decided to see a movie about holy wars instead to get some inspiration, "Queen Elizabeth: The Golden Age"

[robmorfin]

OK, I'm back,

Got really carried away with the "Game Universe" that I want to see, so before the thumbs, I decided to plan and think through how the universe was going to be, what kind of planet, atmosphere, environments, culture, etc; Otherwise the thumbs would have been way too random (which maybe it would have been better, who knows, so here is the thinking behind the thumbs:

PLANET TYPE:
Two planets collided into each other, one being 3/4 the size of the other, this created ripples in the collapsed area, half of the new planet is water, the other half is land divided in two continents, there are to twin moons rotating around the smaller collapsed planet and there is one smaller moon rotating around the twin moons.

ATMOSPHERE:
8 Kilometers of Oxygen (moons have their own atmosphere of oxygen, each one of 500 meters thick), there is a ring of sulfur gas around the bigger planet area, surrounding the diamater at 1 km from the surface, it is 500 meters wide by 250 m thick.

ENERGY:
All energy is created by the absorption of sulfur from the atmosphere's ring by Vacuum Power Plants, there are four of them, Energy Structures and Terminals installed all around the planet supply free energy for all, anybody that tries to monopolize, sell or sabotage this system receives the death penalty; The ring's sulfur regenerates itself, keeping the same sulfur volume always.

WEATHER:
Stable Core, no eartquakes, no tornados, storms are very predictable by the weather man, they are always stopped by flying vehicles that surround the storm and fly in the opposite direction of it, while vacuuming it up to a stop point; Tide change is very considerable, 25 meters difference every 32 hours; A day consists of 64 hrs., moons rotate around the planet every 8 hours, the planet rotates around its star (year) every 48 days (time flies); Gravity is equal to 4.86m/s2 (50% the Gravity of Earth); Waves from 6' to 42' break in a spiral breaking mode; Temperature ranges from -40dC to 90dC; Sea Water is drinkable.

RELIGION:
One Master God, he can be seen but he is inmaterial, can't be touched or replaced, he names the other Gods and replaces them as will he has a palace in one of the twin moons, there are 5 more Gods (2 men and 3 women), they are human and can be replaced through death each one has its own palace and its own city.

PEOPLE:
Everyone flies after they are born, they have only human strength.

ANIMALS:
There are no animals.

VEGETATION:
Jungle Vegetation in both continents, planted as food farms of different types, random growth in the mountains.

BUILDINGS:
-Defense Towers,
-Main Temple,
-Palaces,
-Healing Buildings,
-Plazas,
-Factories,
-Vacuum Power Plants,
-Energy Terminals,
-Food Farms,
-Water Plants,
-Energy shield transformers,
-Stores,
-Housing.

TRANSPORTATION:
All transporattion is capable of Flying, Running, Floating and submerging.

Well, as I said, Carried Awaay.

Here are few pictures of the sketches, they are unreadable, I will upload the scans tomorrow from my office (don't want it to just sound like an excuse).

[Earendil]

Earendil: after you have painted your images go to "filter - sharpern". I know many people think "oh no dont use filter", but trust me, you get rid of all those "blurry" parts in your image that you dont realy want. (attached an example, right side is after its been sharpened)

It's because I saved it larger than what I painted it as. It should be better now.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/2307351612_6f1fb6d988_o_d.jpg

[Gundersen]

hehehe why do you got so small canvases? Paint on big canvases and save it small instead, thats alot more logical :)

But the shapren filter is very important non theless for everyone

[Earendil]

hehehe why do you got so small canvases? Paint on big canvases and save it small instead, thats alot more logical :)

But the shapren filter is very important non theless for everyone

Because they're thumbnails, which are meant to be read at that distance. Zooming in, I'd be more prone to adding details and niggling a lot.

[daldbaatar]

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/3791/set2rd4.jpg

Set 2. All guys are truly improving and kicking some serious ass here...i'll say keep up the good work all ya'll. Will comment tomorrow. my idea for the game will be "far futuristic"...but will feature an idea that nobody attempted...i guess u guys can see what it is...i still need to polish my ideas...

[Form]

It has been a long few days at the office settling in, but you are starting to get comfortable with your surroundings. The window in front of your desk gets some pretty nice sunlight in the afternoon to wake you up after lunch, and you are particularly taken with the attractive new intern you have seen wandering around. Too bad about that whole 'no fraternising' rule hey?

Its March 3rd and you know the C/D is due to check up on your work today. Everyone has been active and trying to get their ideas out before the first review. As the day draws to a close, Adam walks in from the meeting room with a smile on his face. He saunters over to his desk with a sly grin - clearly he knows something you dont know, but he isnt going to let it slip just yet!

A while later he gets up again, this time its for the first review. Walking from desk to desk he seems pretty happy with the work that has been produced so far. He offers a few critiques to the class in general - suggesting to refer to the 'Class 1 threads' for a bit of refresher - specifically on pushing atmospheric perspective and compositional/value heirarchies which are important at the thumbnail stage. He stops at a few desks and picks some of the thumbnails he likes, making a mental note for later. This is only the first review and as such, he is holding back on feedback that will limit creative freedom at the early stages.

He makes his way around and eventually comes to Roberto Morfins desk. Unlike the other desks, clean and visually organised, Rob's desk is a mountain of notes, loose sheets of paper, reference books, post-it notes and cans of beer. Ignoring the last (potentially fireable) offence, he sifts through some of the notes, and quite enjoys what he sees.

He takes a bunch of the thumbnails, along with Rob's notes, into the office of the Director. You have never seen or heard from the Director but you have heard he is a pretty impressive artist himself. No doubt he will come down and introduce himself at some point ;)

Adam returns a while later and gives you the rundown on his meeting with the Director. The market is demanding an MMO that covers a broad range of interests. They are becoming bored with typified genres like fantasy and scifi and are looking towards concepts that blend genres in interesting ways. Rob's idea of a planet collision inspired some interesting discussion and the Director and C/D would like you all to pursue a direction over the next few days.


"What we really enjoyed was the idea of two whole planets colliding, and yet not destroying each other. The idea that two planets could somehow find their way into the other's orbit and sort of 'piggyback' onto their rotation, joining at such an equivalent rate that they became one mass. It may not be scientifically possible, but it is plausible as a game setting and we would like to see more. Particularly, we were intrigued by the idea of each planet being at a very different level of evolution. Perhaps one planet is at the point where it has space faring technology, and the other is still shamanistic and primitive. But perhaps the modern planet has a very small population? What if one planet was forced to take care of the other? What if they went to war? We would like you to explore this idea of twin planets, and come up with some interesting combinations of cultures and tech levels. Think laterally! Good work so far guys!

With that he hands you some brief notes he typed up with some pointers on thumbnailing, and then heads back to his work.

Quick Lesson 1: Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing in production art serves a very important and specific purpose that has to do with the way the entire pipeline holds together. Since games are produced on tight financial and chronological budgets, it is important for signoff to be achieved at each stage to prevent backtracking. Thumbnailing allows the creative leads to quickly assess ideas and choose whether or not to commit to them before time is spent painting up.

It is important that you realise the difference between 'communication thumbnailing' and 'idea thumbnailing'. Idea thumbnailing are the quick scribbles that you do to fire up the brain and start seeing shapes. These are quick and free and designed to stimulate the cognitive part of your own mind. However these tend to be readable only by you, and are not useful as a means of communicating an idea to your employer.

Communication thumbnails are essentially produced as a means to convey your idea in the most efficient and expedient way possible. Here are some tips:

1. Work fast, but not too fast. Block in your perspective grid or boxes to give yourself a solid start and dont go too messy. The reason thumbnails are done small is so you dont spend time rendering or messing with detail. That doesnt mean they should be done carelessly.

2. Think about silhouette, and the large shapes. If they are readable at a small size they should be succesful when taken to a larger size.

3. Think outside the square - to avoid cramping inside the edges, draw your thumbnail box in a larger area and use big strokes that go outside the box. Then crop away the outside, and the shapes you are left with inside the box will feel more dynamic and 'suggest' what is out of frame.

4. Dont use texture brushes - at this stage they will only serve to confuse the value heirarchy.

5. Make sure your depth and source of light are evident. Aim for basic but solid geometry.

[Form]

Out of character: lols.

You guys are doing really nice stuff. Dont be afraid to keep exploring your own ideas parallel to the twin world idea - nothing is set in stone yet.

Lez your thumbs are coming along great, i like the suggestion of atmosphere and some of your shapes are really distinct.

Luke i like yours too man - the two with the trees featuring are quite evocative.

Gundersen - nice productivity mate, would be good to get you spending a bit of extra time establishing the structure as i know you can. Good to see that your thumbnails now look like your finished paintings did when you started class 1!

Jean-Yves: nice quantity mate, good batch there.

Dald: nice to see you using colour confidently off the bat.

No more feedback for now - this is just a very early review.
Cheers guys.
A

[Form]

one more quick thing for Taylor: watch your midgrounds - they are tending to pop forward as they are the same value as your foreground elements, and also in some places lack overlap.

-out.

[~Faust~]

Wow, thanks for the quick lesson, Adam. I'll get onto it now.

[iwantjelly]

I did this : don't ask me why...

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/vaisseau.jpg

It is a bit pointless for this early stage, I completely got carried away and spent way too much time on it.

Now that we've got this planet collision theme, I'll try to do thumbnails again.

[J Wilson]

Ah ha, a little structure to apply our ideas to :P I always find that ideas flow for me a little faster when I'm working within a framework. Why is it that total creative freedom can sometimes be stifling to creativity?

I like the idea of two worlds whose destinys have literally impacted each other. I can see one very tech oriented and the other very spiritual or magical. Now that I'm finally feeling a bit better, and we have a little frame work to hang ideas on, the creative juices are flowing.

[robmorfin]

Haven't had a chance to read Form's post, will read it later, here are the more readable thumbnails.

[Gundersen]

I agrre with Form that you have a great idea. Two planets that have merged togheter in some sort of way. Turok has a similar thing, where there is the primal beasts against the sci-fi elements. Maybe this is a thing to look into.

Time to push this idea forward togheter people! :)

[iwantjelly]

I've been thinking a bit about this planet collision Idea, and the more I think of it, the greater I find it.

I've been typing "planets colliding" in google, and found some interseting things. First, an article about the future collision of Andromeda and the milky way (in a very, very long time)

Wouldn't it be great to expand the idea of planets collision to galaxies collision ? I'm fond of space strategy games and would personnaly love a MMORPG with a mix of role playing and space battles... And this would be the opportunity to draw epic spaceships battles, which could be great fun <3 !

If we chose to do the galaxy collision thing, the center of the game universe could be the only two planets which collided (because it's very unlikely to happen, as I learned reading the article above), And the center of the great war between the two galaxies would be those two planets.

Ok, for my next set of thumbs, I'm definitely going for something cosmic...

[Gundersen]

Did some quick thumbs

Was thinking about a desert planet highly tech advanced collides with a jungle planet that is inhabitated by a savage people and wild animals. The plant world is slowly growing over to the desert world...

[J Wilson]

Throwing out an alternative idea to the two planet thing. It could be a planet where one side is in perpetual darkness and the other perpetual light. The darkside of the planet could evolve completely differently than the light side, creating the possibility of two very different environments and cultures on the same world. Possibly even two very different dominant intelligent species.

I just can't mentally reconsile two planets crashing together without destroying all life on both of them. The closest I can come to that is perhaps a small planet making a very close call and getting caught into the orbit of a larger planet, but with no actual contact. Perhaps debris from another object that caused the planetary displacement could hit both, causing both to undergo massive changes to envirnments.

I'll do up some sketches for both ideas later.

[Gundersen]

The only thing i dont like in the space theme is painting planets.... hehe I hate that scale, everything is so flat and impossible :P hehe

Time to get some cosmic books from the library then, see what they can show.

[J Wilson]

Here's a quick concept on the "dark side" planet

[Gundersen]

*edit* removed the copy paste and put up something i did to redeme myself...

Its just to show the idea when a jungle is upside down above you in a city rather then the sky.... :P

[Gundersen]

I've been thinking a bit about this planet collision Idea, and the more I think of it, the greater I find it.

I've been typing "planets colliding" in google, and found some interseting things. First, an article about the future collision of Andromeda and the milky way (in a very, very long time) link (http://www.kidsnewsroom.org/newsissues/051807/index.asp?page=Science)

Wouldn't it be great to expand the idea of planets collision to galaxies collision ? I'm fond of space strategy games and would personnaly love a MMORPG with a mix of role playing and space battles... And this would be the opportunity to draw epic spaceships battles, which could be great fun <3 !

If we chose to do the galaxy collision thing, the center of the game universe could be the only two planets which collided (because it's very unlikely to happen, as I learned reading the article above), And the center of the great war between the two galaxies would be those two planets.

Ok, for my next set of thumbs, I'm definitely going for something cosmic...

The problem when you google it is that you get the hard impact as one fly superfast into the other. I think the idea robmorfin talk about is more that they move closer and closer in an orbit, until they just "lean" on each other..

But i think we can explore both, even if the collision would demolish all life possibly hehe :P

[J Wilson]

Twin Planet concept. Not exactly crashed, but more they came very close and the smaller crept into the larger planet's orbit.

[Earendil]

'splodies! :P *runs off to paint...is incredibly pumped from new job*

[Form]

hey guys just to clear up a bit of confusion...

when i said 'dont use texture brushes', that was a bad choice of words. What i meant was 'dont JUST use texture brushes'. Sometimes people with thumbnail just by using a big texture brush to scrub in or suggest shapes. This results in a chaotic and unreadable value heirarchy.

But if you are working your thumbnails at a larger size and then rezzing them down you can by all means use texture brushes if you need to. Just keep in mind that suggesting actual texture in the thumbnail is a bad idea (generally).

Just make sure your values read.
A

[daldbaatar]

ok guys...here is my idea. in massive multiplayer online game...all of the characters are all on the ground right? But im my idea there is a gas world that lets the characters fly around. But only at a certain limit of space---but still huuuuge tho. Its like flying in a huge sphere of gas or air just like fish underwater or in ocean. But of course there will be lots of houses shops floating here and there...maybe even a shapeless city buildings chained to each other without making them fly out of the gas sphere. So that means there will be no gravity in those worlds...pretty neat idea huh? ( gonna make a challenge in designs here ) i will start putting thumbs of them soon.
The other worlds however will be just like what we have seen so far...on the ground, jungle, desert etc...
There will be manny clans that fight each other and race to reach the goal that they're assigned to by the admin or whoever in control. The society is mixture of so many kinds of creatures from many worlds. But it would be nice to tell that this world im describing here is not our world...its where the karma rules everything and all the characters we see are ghosts---not material creatures...and some creatures are so huge, like the boss from "painkiller" but most of the times they are harmless...etc. Still not sure on what culture i should base them on...but most likely to be something that came from ancient world cultures like "egypt, india, china, syria, greek....etc"
Thanks...comments wil lbe welcomed

[Gundersen]

hehe dald nice you have your own idea here, but you should read Forms post about what direction we are going in atm, we have an idea we are following now, "Two planets that have orbitet so close they have become attached to each other in some sort of way, leaning on each other"

[daldbaatar]

oh ok...hehe thanks gundy....Will do...got some ideas!!!!

[iwantjelly]

Keep the goodies coming Dweller and Gundersen, I'm affraid I've slowed down a bit my pace but I'll try to do more stuff soon.

Dweller, your idea of a non-rotating planet is exactly the plot af a french comics by caza called Arkadi, where the night side is very, very cold (deadly for humans).

Gundersen, I think it's a bit too early to stick to a single idea, and I like what Daldbaatar suggests, especially the floating city. That makes me think of something : what if one of the planets is a giant gas planet like Jupiter, which slowly swallows a smaller earth-like planet ?

In my modest opinion, I think narrowing the universe to two planets is a bit disappointing, it would be great to have a space MMORPG, a mix of genres (space strategy and RPG). I think mixing genres is a good way to have something really new. And this way we could have all these ideas of planets (jungle creeping on the desert, immobile planet, gaz planet with very low gravity, all of these ideas could be awesome if designed right) in one game.

I still want to try my galaxy collision idea. But enough words, visuals are definitely required to express all these ideas. I'm at work right now, but I will try to do something at lunch break...

[robmorfin]

*How could he have found the beer cans?, maybe hiding them behind the kleenex box wasn't such a good idea, will have to be more creative next time*

Here are some sketches of a Civilized and a Primitive cities each in one of the planets, by the way, the collision occured millions of years ago, lifeform just randomly started to evolve 400,000 years ago.

[Gundersen]

I am not sure about the "floating" part.. Sounds a bit like Second life where you can already fly around, and it makes the game pretty cheesy :P

BUT i do like the idea that you can rage space battles inside a mmorpg! Would be cool if you cold start colonies with other people on planets, and develope cities and then rage wars against other planets!

hehe. Try to sketch it out IwantJelly, look forward to see it

Robmorfin: I think the idea about a sudden collision is alot more interesting then something that happend million of years ago. If it happend so long ago you loose the "omg wtf will we find there" element. Cause a 400.000 year old civilazation would surely have discovered the other planet and found out all stuff...

[Gundersen]

ohh and one more thing: since its a MMORPG it needs to be a "stable" universe, It might be hard to have something as a planet slowly eating another planet.. Its more a single player shooter then instead of a mmorpg. Its easier to have a story line in single player shooter, in mmorpg you need to be able to play FOR EVER :P

[Earendil]

Some theorize that the asteroid belt was created by a planet(oid) collision in our very own solar system. Both ideas are good, but I'm more interested the aftermath, and the varieties of systems acting on each other to produce unique biological/cultural/technological rhythms and systems. And it would seem to me to take much longer than 400,000 years for life to exist on planet after colliding, but at this point anything should be possible.

I didn't get the impression we were narrowing anything down, so much as saying "this looks interesting, let's explore". So let's explore! There's nothing specifying what type of planets are colliding, so two gas giants colliding could produce interesting super giant, or a weird figure 8 thingy in which you can fly around, and what little landmasses are created, actually float and move around...

Hey I'm gonna go draw that. :)

[Lez]

Well, narrowing down a mmo to only two planets isn't that bad. Think it gives enough freedom to actually give a huge world.

What I though about when I saw the two worlds idea was a lot inspiered by the world of Prester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester) (Last Exile). My thoughs goes something like the gravitation of the two planets affect each other in such a way creating a huge storm that divides them. (I will try to illustrate this when I get back home tonight).

-or-

That the gravitation creates a area around where the two planets are close or touch each others where stuff is allowed to float, say when they crashed together a lot of stone and debri was forced of the surfaces and is now floating forming a dense stoneline connecting the planets.

I like the possibilities to play with the rules of nature.

[iwantjelly]

I was only able to doodle for 10 small minutes : here is a view of the two galaxies from a distant nebula :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/galaxies.jpg

Lez : you're right, two planets is a pretty huge universe already. The point is more about how we want people to play, not really the richness of the universe.

In a nutshell, do we want space battles AND planet exploration/fighting, or only exploring the world and fighting as a single character (like in most MMORPG) ? Maybe it could be interesting to let people fight also in space, even with a little fleat and strategy.

But maybe not ! What do you people think ?

[Toxdel]

I'm a little more keen on the interaction between two planets being bridged in a couple of different fashioins. Kind of like what daldbaatar said. One idea is to have a desert planet meet a water planet. The two get so close that the water from the water planet gets drawn to the gravitational pull of the much larger desert planet and creates a whirlwhind area between the two that is used to travel between them. On the surface of the desert planet is a large swamp area where the planet is closest to the water planet. Its the only space on the large desert planet that has vast amounts of plant life. I'll have a thumbnail up hopefully tonight, along with some other ideas I had.

-later

[Killroy]

My idea was that one planet would be technologically advanced, and the whole planet is just covered in buildings and infrastructure because the population is totally out of control in relation to the size of the planet. Nature is barely surviving. The other planet is the opposite, mostly wild jungles with savage primitives. The savages are physically stronger because the wildlife on their planet is much more fearsome than on the first planet, so although they are not as technologically advanced as the people on the first planet, they are physically stronger. They also have a deep connection with nature and can use "magic." The city planet predicts the collision and allows it to occur, because they intend to take over the wilderness planet. However, the mother nature on this planet is much more fearsome and cannot be controlled by technology, also the "savages" aren't as stupid as they assumed.. For a MMORPG I think this would be a good balance allowing for a full range of different classes... and maybe be similar (not TOO similar of course ;) )to the hoard vs alliance dynamic from WOW, but in a new environment. and the game could be about which planet would engulf the other. Of course on both sides, there are those who are willing to take the best of both worlds, are are willing to fight for compromise.

EDIT: I just remembered that Gunderson had a similar idea with the wild jungle planet concept.
I'll get my thumbs us soon.

You guys have some pretty tight ideas, too this is so much fun. =D

[daldbaatar]

yo yo yo fellas...arent both of the planets are still rotating mashing each other's surface as they roll? if they arent rotating then there has to be a night side and a day side? or if they be rotating-sticked together, then there will always be some days that makes sorta eclipse or what? and there will be a place like ever eclipsed zone right?

[J Wilson]

I think at this point we're all allowed to explore our take on the general concept. Less words more pictures!

[Form]

and remember, this is an environment painting class at the end of the day, not a game design course. So think what would work visually. Enjoy the freedom while you can :P

[Gundersen]

Here is one vision i have of this world/worlds.

"Planet 1" was once a great human civilization on a rocky/desert planet. There was large skyscraper cities and technology was highly advanced. As "planet 2" started to come closer and close the human race started going crazy in fear of death, and alot of wars raged over the planet, destroying most of the cities, and killed alot of people. Now the human race are in small millitary colonies, defending themself against each other. As "planet 2" started comming close enough to almost touch, plants started to grow from the jungle planet over to "planet 1", forming a sort of bridge connecting the two planets. The planets becomes one massive planet. "Planet 2" is inhabitet by some ferosius aliens, whose technology is simple, their power is in their number (Similar to Zerg on Starcraft). In humans battle against the invadeing planet the question emerges, did this planet come here by accident, or was it purposly controlled into orbit by the alien race?

Sorry for more text, will start to paint hehe, but i have a hand in for an architect competition on friday, so will be little time for this sadly ;(

[J Wilson]

Concept showing one planet from the surface of the other. I've been playing with the idea of ancient machinery that has long since been abandoned, and nature both over growing it and incorporating it into itself. You see that theme in some of my other sketches so far. In this one I just have a lone machine out in this remote serene landscape. From a game play point of view players could perhaps eventually scavenge and learn to use some of what it around (and rogue ancient war machines may still roam the landscape, evolving almost like organic beasts). From a design point of view I think it adds an interesting element that hasn't yet been done to death.

Edit: Art is mislabeled. Not a Dark Side planet concept, but a Twin Planet concept

[~Faust~]

Damn I am a fucking homeless buzm with no internet right now. And I forgot my stick so my nifty concepts will have to wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, here is my idea ; One planet Technologically advanced (Mid 20th century, architecture fairly stalinistic) meets planet of primitives who don't even have huts to live in and have an average lifespan of 30 years. Those are living in a dream-world though and everytime they turn to sleep, everyone of their tribe that sleeps also can use other's body to walk around. Something like a soul-trade :) So you gain stats strickly with mental shit like telepathy and stuff like that whereas your physical stats can change with your body. Sometimes you are a child (So you can crawl into small places) and sometimes you are a woman (So you can be raped by the stalinistic police).

Anyway, or you play the tecnologically advanced race and throw beercans at the primitives.

Edit: Oh And gunderson, that jungle upside-down is neeeeeeeat!

[Lez]

Like storms or something... turned out really messy but I hope they are readable anyway.

[J Wilson]

Lez, I really like 22. I can feel the energy and I like the debris in the storm.

[Gundersen]

yeah 22 is realy cool, well made dude! :)

Here is some sketches i did today on the jungle upside down in the city concept ... hehe

[J Wilson]

Looks like I'm not the only one with nothing new to show just yet. Now I don't feel quite so bad about taking the night off last night to see a great band. I'm going to try to produce at least one quick image today while at work, and then do a bunch tonight for tomorrow. I've got a few specific ideas I want to flesh out.

[iwantjelly]

A quick one before dinner :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/plante-inverse.jpg

[iwantjelly]

Another one :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/plante-inverse2.jpg

These rocks are the remains of a small moon that would have crashed when the big background planet came close.

Ok, I need to do real concept now; this is only random doodling... I'll try to do something with real new ideas tomorrow.

[Toxdel]

The Dweller: Don't feel bad, you've done more then me so far, I too am going to try to do a TON tonight though.

you all are allowed to call me mean names if I don't. :P

[iwantjelly]

I continued the last one :

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii178/iwantjelly/plante-inverse2bis-2.jpg

[Earendil]

Thumbs.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/2314071704_4a3d83a1b3_o_d.jpg

[J Wilson]

My latest batch. Following the same theme of ancient machines being over grown, and fossils. My concept is this world has seen many ages rise and fall, and the land reclaims each. There should be evidence all over the place. Visual themes would be fossils on most stones, and plants over growing and entwining with ancient machines. I still don't feel like I've completely captured that feeling so I'll explore more of that next time.

[Toxdel]

heres a couple things to illustrate what I was saying in my post about the water planet meeting the desert planet, the thumb is of the swamp created between the two

[Lez]

made durign a break in school this morning. Its a continued concept from one of my earlier thumbs... Just think I saw some potential or something.

[daldbaatar]

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/8207/set3dd7.jpg

Ok guys...i tried to depict the merge ( collision ) zones...and i hope u guys will like it. More concepts are coming up soon.

The idea of war on the top right is: Both planets are advanced...The green planet is where the humans live and the culture is not so different from the culture we have in 21st century now. And the other planet's culture on the other hand is kinda bug meet high tech culture. As u can see that humans are using nukes and aliens are using lazers more. And the lower right pic depicts a stranded or a spy coming back to the humans and the helicopter is there to get him. And there will be tons of tunnels leading to each other by digging through the merge zones and making it like ant tunnels---ideal place to make tunnel wars.. The air landing is made impossible due to heavy military concentration around the merging area. This is the WAR side of the planet-what if scenario if they wage wars.

[Earendil]

Nice concepts guys!

[J Wilson]

One more, same sort of concept. I think my next batch needs to explore other ideas.

[Gundersen]

The dweller: A tips for you idea, find pictures of old industrial machines and get them into your paintings. Atm i cannot see any old machines covered by nature..

[Gundersen]

two concepts, The Arrival and The Cave

The Arrival: from one planet to the other...

The Cave. Civilization has been ruined, and we are now hideing in caves outside the "infected" cities

[Earendil]

Two more.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2274/2315417407_02e0ea92f7_o_d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/2316246668_e697c3eee7_o_d.jpg

I think the 2nd one may be more effective with the character way closer to the foreground on the lower left 3rd point...not sure...

[Gundersen]

Earendil: Post bigger mate! :) When it comes to the 2nd one its always effective to put the main focal point in the midground, so if your character is your focal i think its ok as it is now, but if the character is watching your focal point, then id move it back.

And also watch the values, your front element is lighter then your midground atm. Meaning it reads a bit wrong. Keep the black close to us! :)

[Gundersen]

Looks around the room, Wondering why the Art Director wasent in yesterday, and havent seen him so far today.
Asking Dalb: Hey have you seen form?
Dalb is to stuck into watching britney dance on Youtube, so i dont get any answer..
Well well, just have to wait for Adam then..

[Earendil]

Earendil: Post bigger mate! :) When it comes to the 2nd one its always effective to put the main focal point in the midground, so if your character is your focal i think its ok as it is now, but if the character is watching your focal point, then id move it back.

And also watch the values, your front element is lighter then your midground atm. Meaning it reads a bit wrong. Keep the black close to us! :)

At Revelations Jason said Black in foreground, light in background produced boring "art school" images, so I'm just experimenting. You can read notes on his color theory lecture here:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1604210&postcount=40

Maybe if I drew it more like rocks you'd say "oh it's rocks reflecting sunlight in the foreground, which would not be black."

Definitely keep the focals away from the edges of the frame that's fur shure.

I'll do some big ones JEEZ. If post them bigger as they are now, I'll get "they're too blurrrryyy". :mittenbop:

Big bold strokes? *scared*

[Gundersen]

EKOes: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i think you are posting a bit wrong. READ posts before you post, this is a class with 10 students. If you need a mentor then ask in mentor thread :)

[Gundersen]

At Revelations Jason said Black in foreground, light in background produced boring "art school" images, so I'm just experimenting. You can read notes on his color theory lecture here:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1604210&postcount=40

Maybe if I drew it more like rocks you'd say "oh it's rocks reflecting sunlight in the foreground, which would not be black."

Definitely keep the focals away from the edges of the frame that's fur shure.

I'll do some big ones JEEZ. If post them bigger as they are now, I'll get "they're too blurrrryyy". :mittenbop:

Big bold strokes? *scared*

Hehe sure, just experiment :) But read his notes again, hes says this "-Basic color theory creates boring, "art school" images." Values and Color theory is not exactly the same in this sentence. Basic color theory is more about what shadow to use to what color, and stuff like that. Values is the saturation of the color. :P


Paint bigger! :) larger canvas!

[J Wilson]

I'd say tone/value is the element of color that has NO regard for saturation, personally.

As for painting bigger, we're all still doing thumbnails and sketches so I don't see any reason to press anyone for painting bigger actually. At this stage, whatever you feel most comfortable with for getting an image down. I don't believe we're here to critique each other's work style so much as the concepts and images.

[Gundersen]

I'd say tone/value is the element of color that has NO regard for saturation, personally.

As for painting bigger, we're all still doing thumbnails and sketches so I don't see any reason to press anyone for painting bigger actually. At this stage, whatever you feel most comfortable with for getting an image down. I don't believe we're here to critique each other's work style so much as the concepts and images.

Dont have me mistaken, I am not criticising Earendil, Just giveing a tips if he wanted it.

Value is defined as the relative lightness or darkness of a color

well well

[robmorfin]

Gundy, be nice to others and they will be nice to you, remember, you are not the Creative Director (mentor), let's all have fun together and help each other, that will create a better working Environment here at the office, and by the way, thumbnails are suppossed to be small, fast and without too many details.

:wink:

[J Wilson]

I understand there is no malice or over criticism meant, I'm just trying to keep criticism on the right track.

Saturation to me is the intensity of the hue/chroma, and has little to no relation to it's value or overall darkness/lightness. A bright blue can be either dark or light, as can a dull blue. Your original statement of "Values is the saturation of the color" seemed confusing to me so I added in my understanding of the subject, but I'm sure I actually just read what you meant incorrectly. I should actually read the notes you are both discussing as it sounds like a very interesting topic.

[Gundersen]

An hour painting, Felt like doing a bit more then a thumb

[Earendil]

Hehe sure, just experiment :) But read his notes again, hes says this "-Basic color theory creates boring, "art school" images." Values and Color theory is not exactly the same in this sentence. Basic color theory is more about what shadow to use to what color, and stuff like that. Values is the saturation of the color. :P


Paint bigger! :) larger canvas!

For thumbnails?! Head 'splode! O.o

Yeah actually I should've read them, because the notes written are a paraphrase of what Manley said. When I was there I remember him using the whole "darks in foreground, lights in background" as an example. The notes don't (and probably can't) cover every word from Mr. Manley's mouth. :)

Nobody's being overcritical here. Gundy's just keeping me on my toes. ;)

[Earendil]

Also, I suggest reading the information contained at www.huevaluechroma.com

It's very good.

Now...where is...*looks around for that one guy*

[Form]

Its a little past midday and you are all getting a bit concerned that your Creative Director has been eaten by wolves or possibly abducted by space faring she-demons. Actually... you aren't concerned at all, and the idea of your asshole of a boss being digested inside a giant alien mothership is starting to grow on you, when alas, in he walks. Sporting a 2 day beard and red baggy eyes, he takes a few steps in the door, burps softly, and walks over to his desk.

You notice on your fancy Fake Calendar that it was in fact his birthday. Understanding his plight and being totally willing to forgive and support him, you ignore his tardiness and keep working really hard!

(;))

After a brief afternoon snooze he takes a wander around to look at the progress of the last few days. Noting the general improvement in the clarity of thumbnails, he still seems as pleased as he was on the 3rd. Lez's storm thumbnail 22 catches his eye and he mumbles something about possible cover art for the game box. You hope he remembers that after the hangover tomorrow...

Looking at Jean-Yves thumbnail in post 117, he seems to be a little confused. Jean-yves loads up the newer version a few posts later and it clicks. Adam reminds you all that describing scale is another very important part of thumbnailing. Looking around at alot of the thumbnails for the 'collision zones' he notes similar absences of elements to indicate scale. An area where two planetes collide would be gargantuan in scale and should show dramatic atmosphere and a grand/epic evocative landscape. He would like to see this are pushed further in terms of establishing this sense of grandeur.

Walking over to Earendil's computer, he leans down towards the thumbnails to get a better look. Earendil pipes up: "what's the matter boss, too small?". "No, i think the problem has more to do with making sure your shapes and forms read well. Keeping your value ranges a bit tighter and not so high contrast so the focal point can be made clear and the forms read in a heirarchy. At the moment there is a bit too much detail at that scale which confuses the first read. The third thumbnail is great with a big dominant foreground shape that jumps out, whereas the other 3 fall short because all the areas are equally demanding on the eye. The size isnt the problem however."

Thumbs from the Dweller catch his eye in particular. "I quite like the idea of an organic planet 'taking over' a world where technology has either run amok or is abandoned. The idea of nature taking over machines as a contrast to the standard 'industry vs nature' themes is an interesting one. I wonder, could you do some closeup sketches showing how the organic stuff might physically take over/control the machines? This would be very interesting to see!"

Daldbaatars 3rd thumbnail with the helicopter is a very interesting shot design, and Adam notes the effectiveness of having two contrasting planes. Turning the ground plane at 2 different angles gives the environment a feeling of vertigo and can make for dynamic shot designs. The thumbnail gives the sense that the man is looking straight out in front of him and sees a helicopter flying almost straight down, two 'characters' in different gravity situations. Very interesting!

Gundersen's next two are interesting, and the top one has a nice overall lighting setup and a good sense of scale. Earendil's two thumbnails are nice too but the bottom one could use some more overlap to get everything reading correctly with recession in space.

As he is commenting on some of the thumbs, the team starts to raise some questions and gets a little heated. Adam reminds them to keep it simple - thumbnails don't have to follow any particular rules except one - they need to communicate. It is hard to test this yourself, and the best way is to show them to someone else and ask them what the thumbnail is depicting. If they cant tell you without any hints, your thumbnail is not succesful. Beyond being 'readable' in this way, there are then degrees of success based on the strength of your idea itself. But at a bare minimum, we need to be able to tell what it is. Use whatever you need to get this across.

Everyone seems a little disgruntled at the vague answer but Adam SEEMS to know what he is on about and he assures them to keep at it.

Adam then mentions that the director will be looking in on the work in a few days, and that the time is drawing near to settle on a concept. He urges you to develop your ideas as hard as you can between now and the 10th and try to be as creative as possible. There will be a meeting on the 10th with the Director and a final decision will be made on the concept.

With that he swats a few of the flies buzzing around his head and falls asleep at his desk.

[Earendil]

Earendil nods, scribbles a few notes, face palms, and passes out on the desk. They say sleeping on something helps you learn it. ;)

[Gundersen]

/me notes down he ONLY GOT ONE SENTENCE feedback!! hehehe

Where is the rest of you guys? There are 5 guys that havent posted thumbs since last time!

[J Wilson]

*The Dweller notes the interest in seeing some close ups on the plant/machine concepts, and starts planning out ideas along that route. He also caught the birthday reference and makes a mental note to buy Form a beer during the next work lunch. Dweller then begins thinking that a lunch time beer sounds perfect right now and excuses himself to go get one.*

[~Faust~]

Hmmmmm yes, my updates as well as my communication were too small the last few days, so I`ll throw in some ideas. I also got to like the Nature vs Tech thing so I`ll try to dwell on that. Made some thumbs on that matter:

[~Faust~]

In general, I think the concept is very hard to make sense of, since two planets colliding would mean that every sort of life would be obliterated on either of them. But, on the other hand, there have been very nice ideas so far.

Trying to give some opinions as long as I am in the internet:

Gundi : I particularly adored your pics from post 128. They are simpe yet beautifully describe what you`ve written there (I actually looked at the pictures first) your last one, on the other hand, does read to me, but it does not really convey something useful for me. I would not know what to make out of it, other than a guy in a cave. Maybe you could make the place somewhat more characteristic with defining the rocks a bit more? I don`t know.

Earendil: I do not think your thumbnails are too small. The last two are somewhat undefined, though. As I see it, the first is some kind of alien-invasion in a city-scape whereas the second is unclear to me. Is there a water-surface or are those floating islands? I actually saw the character after I read that you implemented a character in there. That figure is very abstract and blends in too much with the grass if someone asked me. Oh, and there is smoke coming out of the background-

Dweller: Beatiful. I should start making pictures like you do.

Toxdel & lez: nice work, although I am somewhat confused by Toxdels idea with the swamp-desert-water thing. You should make somewhat more of it, I need more thumbs on that.

Daldbataar: Nice pics, I like the war-one very much. Your description is also quite good to visualize, but I miss the visualization on your part. What is the architecture of the bugs? The landscapes on their planet? How does the zone between the planets look like from a bit closer? I think that I should not make stuff like that up, but you should provide me with some visuals.

[Earendil]

Thanks Faust, methinks I'm getting too sloppy. I'll keep it tighter on my next set.

[daldbaatar]

ok Faust...will do

[robmorfin]

some more thumbs.

[~Faust~]

yay me too me too!

robmorfin, those are indeed full of contrast! :) But surprisingly, I do have associations looking at them in a cave-like sense.

[robmorfin]

Crickets Chirping in background..\w/ /m\

[Earendil]

Honestly, if I had the time, I'd try and act as substitute, but too many things are going on at the moment. What do you guys want to try?

Let's think people.

*goes and thinks*

[Lez]

My timeframe doesn't allow for more commitment either, its a shame...

[iwantjelly]

I guess people who want can just keep on developping the concepts.

Maybe Form could post a kind of guideline that would describe all the steps he formerly planned to make us do (or someone else that has an idea of how this kind of project would develop in a game development company, personnaly I don't...), and we just freely follow this guideline, at our pace. We'll see what we have in the end !

[Gundersen]

I wont be able to continue on this project. I have gotten work in the industry now, and will give that all my focus.

Cheers

[J Wilson]

Unfortunately, neither will I continue on. I also have a habit of getting involved with more projects than I should while still working on things personal to me. I was looking for something structured to polish up my environment concepting skills, but with Form stepping away I can't justify continuing on when I have so many other things going on.

The experience was still a very positive one, and I wish everyone the best.

[algenpfleger]

Umm, you guys, when I said "You all better appreciate this", this is not what I meant :-/

[Toxdel]

darn, this ended so soon. too bad Form couldn't continue with us. oh well. Later guys.

[daldbaatar]

yeah same here...i got tons of other shit...it ended so soon...but i was spending my spare time in this...anyways...Form. Respect Fa Ya( for you )

[robmorfin]

Honestly, if I had the time, I'd try and act as substitute, but too many things are going on at the moment. What do you guys want to try?

Let's think people.

*goes and thinks*


I want to continue, I was thinking Form gives us his notes like iwantjelly mentioned, no strings attached for him, we should follow his guidelines and let other people check our stuff, not only one teacher, we can invite some of the big guys from CA to critiq or guide us, with the effort of creating a database of knowledge for everyone in CA, maybe Form can talk to some of them, and that way nobody is really committing to put all their time into it.

[Earendil]

A rotating art director?

[robmorfin]

why not?, or invited Director of the week

[Gundersen]

Feel free to invite me one week :P

[~Faust~]

Damnit.

[algenpfleger]

putting that aside people, if i were you, i'd trick myself into thinking that form is just testing you. how can you give up just because he doesn't show up for a few days? just keep going so you have something to show when he comes back.

[~Faust~]

word. I will push out more concepts anyway, until Form is officially telling us that he is quitting the teaching. Actually, reading all your comments I was thinking Form had posted a resign somewhere but actually you guys are all just panicking.

Stop panicking.

[Lez]

I never said I'd give up - think my "no more commitment" was more directed towards simply put more time than I already do... I would love if form posted guidelines we could follow and maybe we made a schedule of some sort to follow and give critique as we go.

That would actually be sweet. Since i have no intention of drawing less than I do now.

[J Wilson]

putting that aside people, if i were you, i'd trick myself into thinking that form is just testing you. how can you give up just because he doesn't show up for a few days? just keep going so you have something to show when he comes back.

Actually he sent us private messages saying he was very sorry, but that he has to drop out from doing this. I won't go into all the details, but he has very good reasons for doing so.

I think I too will drop out of this, as I was looking for something very focused with feedback from someone with a lot of experience in this area. If I had tons of time I'd continue on as an exercise, and be happy with peer crits, but I actually do have other things I should be working on. It's tough because there are lots of things like this that I'd love to be taking part in, but eventually you have to realize that you just can't keep up with them all and still get your own personal projects finished as well.

It's been a great experience, and I think I already learned tons just from taking the time to really give environments more consideration.

[Andersi3]

I know that this thread is dead, but its new to my eyes! Im up for building off where these Gents left off!

Got another concept for the Merge Zone!
"The area of the collision is barricaded of from the rest of the planet by a millenarian government, leaving some of the population trapped behind the dividing line(massive wall, fence, minefield, etc.). Due to the strange forces of gravity in the area between the two massive planets, native creatures evolve in unconventional ways. I see massive population centers becoming dead zones, ravaged by the strange new elements caused by the collision, and the wilderness becoming more and more overgrown and mysterious.

A little hard to explain in words. I post up some thumbs asap!
Anyone feel free to join in! Throw out some ideas! Make some sketches! Listen to what has been been said so far! Theirs alot of valuable info!