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2s hello everyone and welcome back to the
4s sixth episode of deconstructing this
6s month community manager Megan Everett
8s sits down with environment artists Brian
10s you and Lionel kaigu as they chat about
13s what it takes to design environments for
15s a game like warframe sit back and enjoy
32s [Music]
34s welcome back to the deconstructing
37s podcast my name is Megan Everett and
40s today I have with me Brian you I am an
44s environment artist there for four years
46s and Lionel and I'm also an environment
49s artist and I've been here two years
51s oh very nice all right we're gonna jump
53s right into these questions because you
55s can't see but these two are extremely
57s prepared for this podcast more prepared
59s than even I am one of the broader
61s questions is what exactly is an
64s environment artist because I know you
66s hear the word environment artists and
68s you probably automatically assume
70s literally environment like trees and
73s foliage are like an environment so what
76s exactly is an environment artist well it
80s depends on the studio right so like I
82s used to work at dice and they have a
85s term called world builder so they do
87s other things they can do layout they can
89s do prop dressing ID eat a little
92s different so we basically do almost
94s anything except from except characters
98s and weapons we don't do like large
100s creature either but we do you know rocks
103s asteroids spaceship interiors you know
106s monuments spaceship itself sometimes
109s person yeah we could do like a lot of
112s different we've even done creepy very um
115s I've done two fishies done a couple of
117s fish to think as well so it's pretty
119s broad yeah it's it's huge wide gamut of
121s a lot of stuff and how did you both get
124s your start in environment art I didn't
127s go to school for it initially initially
129s I went to school or I didn't know what I
130s wanted to do in university I'm not
132s choosing my university it was more of a
135s I like Photoshop at the time so I went
138s to the University fair and was like hey
139s are there any programs that had
141s Photoshop in it and like hey this one at
143s Ryerson I'm like okay cool I'll go to
145s something called new media it was new
147s and nothing to do with the news so when
149s did that yeah it was a lot of everything
151s actually which kind of prepared me for
153s this it was like robotics some
155s programming websites motion graphics and
158s I chose 3d for one of the courses and so
162s I forgot my first taste there and I
166s don't know I just love the immediately
167s ended up graduating with my bachelor of
169s fine arts and then worked graphic design
172s for a little bit got let go up my crappy
175s design job yeah
180s then from there apply to Seneca for
183s gamer and animation got in eight
186s grueling months and then got into
189s working in the industry but mostly form
192s a professor or freelancing mhm and then
195s to cut the story short ended up here
198s yeah I know how about you long story
201s short I used to you can actually record
204s it will be easier long story short I
207s basically started as a character artist
209s for many years for about close to 10
212s years and then scanning happened and I
216s was not very challenging creatively so I
219s decided to go into environment art and a
222s recruiter told me oh I have a job for
225s you in Canada and I applied and that's
227s how I got here and all over the place
229s then yeah yeah everything Sweden and
231s Spain and all right back to warframe now
236s let me know your past what were the
237s first environments that you worked on
239s for warframe as a project basically when
242s I got into the studio I got a pretty
245s challenging task they basically told me
246s all you need to create some orc and
249s fishes like what is that oh that's her
252s first house that was my first task and I
254s had to do the design open to make the
257s models and he had to reuse the
258s animations from the fishes from the
260s planes right so it was gonna have a
264s swimming animation like a wiggly tail
265s something
266s but Steve was like I don't want them to
269s look like fishes I want them to look
271s like creatures that process coolant like
274s wow so we're talking sorry we're talking
276s Valles fish yeah and and also there was
281s this tier system where basically if you
283s catch a rare fish it's gonna be having
285s more ornaments so basically I had to
288s come up with a system where let's say on
290s this fish called the Synod for the
291s people listening they might know which
292s one it is it's rare the crest is
295s actually growing so if you have a rare
296s rare one the crest is actually very like
300s long it's almost like a circle right
302s okay that was tricky to make that's
304s where I worked on first and what I got
305s here that's it that's pretty crazy to be
307s thrown into warframe be like we're doing
310s a new open world here you go oh you know
312s you find some fish that don't look like
313s fish yeah cutting fish that aren't real
316s and don't move the same as real fish
319s Yeah right Brian yeah for me it's
323s nothing that glamorous but for my first
325s time it was for the war within set or
329s the question anyway yeah I worked on the
333s Grenier asteroid set where there was
335s like this giant door and you had to join
339s the gameplay you have to stand there
340s while the doors slowly opening or so
342s right yes yeah and so I worked on that
344s and also worked on this stone door I'm
347s not gonna have any spoilers but it's in
349s that quest in the mountains and hey
352s stone door I worked on that and those
354s are like my first two actual hey these
357s are your own props start from scratch
359s kind of thing mm-hmm
360s were there any challenges when you were
362s thrown into that oh yeah because I've I
365s had to design the stone in a certain way
368s because it had to have structure but
370s also look like stone right and so the
373s concept you're only given so much and
375s you have to translate that into 3d and
377s make it work with the environment and
378s whatnot and at the time I didn't have a
380s lot of experience with ZBrush which is a
383s program we use for sculpting and
384s modeling so that was probably most
387s difficult one I would say mm-hmm yeah so
390s you guys get to work on obviously a lot
392s of things fish Doris you know it's not a
395s lot of doors at the beginning it is like
397s door guys like yeah one Thor I
399s was the door it was one door and that
402s working like to corpus doors the grineer
405s asteroid ship doors don't door and
407s they're probably like one or two more
408s yeah at the beginning did you do
410s friendship doors I wish I almost me I
414s mean we could have made one in Cedars
415s but we could scrub that a friendship
417s door I don't know what could have been a
419s friendship door it was must be a door
421s underneath the market that was a secret
423s too Oh instead we did the cave thing
426s yeah yeah okay gotcha
429s no spoilers kind of find the cave now
431s whatever so what have you worked on that
433s you are most proud of that you can
435s remember on warframe what's for me like
439s your Realtor Roca the fish look at this
444s fish totally different now yeah oh yeah
446s the fish was like it was a cool
448s challenge specially because Steve was
450s like okay make me something that does
452s not look like a fish every time I was
454s like sending him like a sketch mm-hmm it
456s was like too much like a fish didn't
458s printed it oh it was that another one oh
459s that's the other one okay
460s yeah so basically I'm working on a fish
462s then I'm actually printing okay it's
464s gonna be a physic 3d printer okay
466s is it like a warframe fish yeah but it's
468s not in the game so it's one that I made
470s in my spare time but it's not we
471s couldn't actually squeeze it in because
473s there's too many fishes in there you
474s know it's never enough fish never enough
477s fish no who knows maybe we'll put it in
480s at some point will be pretty much team
484s 650 well yeah like the the rail jack
487s interior because it was when we started
490s like having conversations about what it
492s was gonna be in the style the first
495s question was like how we're gonna pull
496s this off so it's like organic stuff
499s nobody has made it before in the game
501s industry how are we gonna produce it
503s well there's a reason why sure exactly
504s there's a reason but it's extremely
506s tight because it's really hard and it's
509s really hard because it's essentially
512s automotive design so you have a lot of
515s like curves and flow and you know
518s creases to catch like highlights and you
521s know you work on like parts of the ship
523s and then you put some other stuff and
525s you realize oh it doesn't fit so you
526s have to do a little back and forth a lot
528s of iterations yeah I would say like the
530s the bar was really high
532s and I'm happy with what we delivered I
535s think it's different I think it's
538s something that people haven't seen like
539s a spaceship like that and I think it's
541s offering like a new kind of player
543s experience and seeing like the reaction
546s of people like a telecon was really so
551s yeah definitely that one I mean what
553s about you Brian the same honestly it'd
556s be rail jack cuz I spent a lot of time
558s on that I think I spent was working on
560s that for like a year to two years real
564s Jack and also the Cetus fish but for the
566s real Jack I think specifically in that
568s space it's probably the airlock room I
573s would say was my favorite and and what
576s I'm most proud of because we spent so
577s much time designing it and it was like
580s the dry dock like what you show in the
581s dojo know the airlock room in the actual
584s real Jack which room is that I can't
588s think back to the demo like so you have
590s a room in the back of the ship where it
592s has changed a bit never the Kanan was
594s you know that's that's the top yeah so I
597s was like on the main floor all the way
598s back they showed it briefly they didn't
600s spend a lot of time back there oh the
602s resource things were coming in the boxes
604s oh it's all my main level though that's
609s a pretty recall like it was very tight
612s like I wish we had the quality
614s everywhere ship like it's hard to
616s sustain I think oh there's new fridge
619s deferred rendering might be able to do
621s more it's more like from a production
622s perspective I could think it's very time
624s consuming like you can see there's a lot
627s of tricky curves and detailed and
629s whatnot that air is contained but then
631s if you put it everywhere it'd be too
632s much meteorology or too many curves and
635s other times like it's with you curvy so
638s yeah we had that problem too we had to
641s introduce more structural and more
644s strict and rigid elements to kind of
646s balance it yeah it's like the mind of a
649s an artist right they're too curvy need
651s more ridges like I would have never
653s maybe not never noticed it but like
655s never thought of that
656s yeah you guys obviously have to because
658s you're artists hey Steve brought it up
660s to like that we because we in the
663s channel we share everything with Steve
664s and he has opinions
666s so sometimes Steve like for example he
668s he's the one who said I want a window in
670s the cockpit on the side he's the one who
673s said I really wanted to see the exterior
674s more so we tried to cut it in and design
677s it right so it was the same for some
680s part of the ship where he was like guys
681s I don't feel it it's too curvy and I'm
683s like yeah you know what like it's hard
685s to see what you're looking at to
687s understand the space especially that
688s lower area with your giant machine
690s because it all is pretty cool it doesn't
692s make sense but it's pretty cool warframe
696s yeah that's pretty cool yeah a bunch of
698s giant like three giant holes that looks
701s like I don't know you could do anything
702s there and then I was like hey or someone
706s was like hey we need to redesign this
708s and we designed it more structures more
710s rigid okay looks like a machine or some
713s like orokin or not Robin but some
714s warframe type organ looking thing yeah
717s it works now yeah exactly yeah no one
720s must streak you my god yeah well
722s speaking of tricky what are some of the
723s hardest challenges you've had as an
725s environment artists could be no con give
727s me a rail jack and fish me specifically
730s as a kind of broad stroke not anything
733s specific but I can't get into specifics
734s I'm sure you can it's more on the design
738s part cuz my design skills aren't strong
741s though I am getting better at it and I
743s have a lot more opportunities like right
746s now I'm I think given a level in
748s sentience stuff so I even though I'm not
750s a level artist hmm it kind of freed up
754s and so it took the opportunity and I'm
757s working in designing that level and
758s speaking of the level designer why not
760s to make sure we get the gameplay across
762s and also working on the main prop that's
765s in that space mm-hmm but definitely
767s design whether it's designing the level
769s or we have a rough sketch of something
771s or maybe even the concept is concrete
774s and we put in the level and it just
775s doesn't work and we have to like hey we
777s don't have to design something else for
779s this or that I'd say that as a general
783s bubble would be the most difficult
785s challenge for me mm-hmm
787s yeah a lot of the players are people who
789s don't know about the dev side of things
792s and how things work there's a lot of
794s thought process and rework and revisions
796s that go into it you just go through so
798s many iterations and
800s sometimes we love this sometimes we
801s don't like for example like the Acme
805s holes that people that you're dropping
806s out of now initially we didn't really
809s have those it was just you go to the
811s airlocks which is in the operator area
814s which we never use yeah and that's how
816s you got out which is like okay if we
818s have we're in a firefight we have to go
821s from other the side turrets or the
823s cockpit with the run all the way back
825s right so we started putting those
826s everywhere to make a more convenient a
828s lot of times it's like either you've
831s balance between realism or what you want
833s as an artist and designer and if it's
836s fun and game play mm-hmm so it's a
838s spectrum a lot and actually those helped
840s a lot from a demo point of view because
843s we could use you can see two different
844s parts or three different parts of the
846s ship and we're both like exiting out of
848s the ship right so you see more and also
850s at one point it was broken where if we
852s all use the same one it would crash well
860s good thing we have four other exits to
861s use yeah there's there's six actually go
865s through the cargo I can remember oh you
867s can now okay but you guys haven't really
869s shown their cargo you've briefly breathe
871s yeah the very beginning it was like
872s really quick tour of yeah what we could
875s because actually other than showing off
878s the rail Jack and that beginning where
880s rub loads into it yeah most of the time
882s walking through that was so Danielle and
884s I could load into it and not crash also
888s cuz it's really cool to look at you know
890s showing something new but yeah yeah this
893s was we had two exits and now we have six
899s if you don't include the cargo bay
900s mm-hmm when canning being the best one
905s yeah I was definitely the funnest to the
910s whole and then with the electricity
911s whoever did the effects that came out of
913s nowhere I wasn't expecting the effects
915s to be like yeah he punched punch through
917s the holes like oh who are do the effects
919s genius yeah yeah cuz the way they did it
921s it's kind of like great what do you
924s expect from like a superhero movie yeah
926s he had like punchy sound effects to to
929s follow that now yeah when we were doing
931s the demo it was like that wasn't there
934s then I was on the next run it was there
935s oh god what did we do different nothing
939s who does added this crazy lightening
941s effect
941s so speaking of rail jack do you have
943s anymore memories from Ted Oh Kahn that
945s you remember working on or just like you
947s said the reaction from the crowd any
949s kind of memories well so I mean this
952s year it was cool but I have an anecdote
955s from last year last year so basically I
958s was I was in the crowd right and last
961s year there were like two kids in front
963s of me I think they were like 10 12 and
966s when we showed the demo with the
967s spaceships right one of the kids in
970s front of me he jumped in the air out of
972s excitement I was like wow like if you
974s can you know trigger that kind of
976s response that's crazy right yeah so like
979s for me to see how gamers react to what
982s we do because you know we work like
983s pretty much in a sheltered environment
985s like you know we work on our stuff like
988s you know we don't see we don't have any
990s feedback from the world like from gamers
992s right this year you know and then they
996s have like a huge reaction it's really
998s cool to witness a thing and also a lot
1001s of the players they usually react to not
1002s so much the environments you it's with
1005s bugs or weapons or characters not so
1008s much environment art a lot of the not
1010s just more from particularly but a lot of
1012s environment art artists if we're doing
1015s our jobs right either they notice it's
1018s like oh this is fantastic or they don't
1020s say anything good they just pick up on
1022s the bad stuff if we it's kind of skewed
1025s and weird if we do a good job and no one
1027s notices any of the flaws or things that
1029s we might have missed or put in then we
1032s did a good did like a fantastic job yeah
1034s all right back on track here
1037s what sort of influences did you draw
1039s from when working on different
1040s environments like maybe some video games
1042s movies or other artists for the
1046s listeners here maybe they know this but
1048s like the Tenno side is is highly
1050s influenced by sea creatures you know
1053s like calamari and squids and stuff like
1055s that if you look at volts head you can
1057s see it right yeah and basically we look
1062s at like fauna and flora so you can look
1064s at animals and plants for the real jack
1067s interior for
1068s we really looked at car design
1070s automotive design and we looked at car
1073s designs that were kind of organic
1075s looking so now because of new
1076s manufacturing technologies they can
1078s actually make heart that look much
1080s curvier right and so one of them is
1082s infinity they make really cool cars they
1085s have some very cool concept cars are
1088s very you know curvy and flowy and some
1091s nice creases to catch some highlights so
1093s we try to to use that because we have
1097s this new tech with the Deford lighting
1100s system and we can we can have really
1102s cool reflections more complex lighting
1103s so it was a cool way to make the
1106s surfaces interesting where you know you
1108s have like this this nice curve and then
1110s you have a little modulation in the
1113s reflection right we look at like para
1115s design so it could be like I don't know
1117s like a perfume bottle it could be toys
1119s there's a lot of people at work who love
1121s Gundams there's a channel like I don't
1127s dislike populate oh yeah people and lots
1130s of people like like cats for example
1132s she's crazy about God she's named so
1135s yeah like we look at different things
1136s right so we don't really look at games
1138s strangely enough like we we want to do
1142s our own thing and I think that's why the
1143s game looks so different because part of
1147s there's a culture at the office where we
1151s try to think out of the box we want to
1153s go into into the uncharted territories
1156s right we try to see like is it different
1158s enough can we make it more interesting
1161s idea what like how do we push this to be
1163s porous right weird like Matt for example
1167s or Steve they really push every time oh
1170s yeah courageous and brave in that regard
1173s because I mean if it fails and you know
1174s a fails and we learn from it we try yeah
1177s and then we rework it and you know we
1179s get some fantastic stuff like the dog
1181s lazy event was freaking fun even though
1183s like they're afraid of water
1184s but we're still using Marga that wasn't
1188s genius I was not expecting that it was
1190s so cool yeah yeah yeah to touch on what
1193s Lana said we don't really look at a log
1195s game it's the only time we did was we'd
1198s have her designs I mean most the time of
1200s our Mars we don't
1201s designer stuff from from scratch most of
1205s the time we get it from concept artist
1207s and that's if it's like hey all the
1208s customers are you know bogged down and
1210s they're busy and we need some cowl or
1214s whatever to fit over this year then
1216s we'll design but usually it's we have a
1218s concept already and going from there
1220s sometimes we're making us like this kind
1224s of looks like something you'd find in
1225s another game and so from there we'd be
1229s like okay we need to change it or design
1231s it so it doesn't look like it's from
1232s something else more so then hey let's
1235s look at this and see if we can pull any
1237s ideas or stuff from it warframe is so
1239s different from everything else that we
1241s can't really pull sort of things right
1243s maybe the general sense of the idea we
1246s can but yeah usually not especially like
1249s sentient stuff for examples just so
1252s weird yeah which is so weird and
1254s different yeah yeah they put a lot of
1257s work into that because there were a lot
1258s of different take on that design kind of
1261s visual language and I remember like it
1264s was interesting but maybe it was not
1266s iconic enough and they pushed I get the
1268s break it's not singular enough so they
1271s actually spend many many months doing
1272s concept art explorations right and I
1275s think it's probably when Marco I think
1278s he made a concept that everybody was
1279s like okay this is what we want yeah it
1281s was like a kind of the tipping point oh
1283s yeah we for the sentient stuff this is
1286s another tangent but I think from
1289s whatever we went through like three or
1290s four big iterations as their sleeve we
1293s had one artists like Amy three years ago
1296s we started to dabble it hey what was a
1298s sentient how does that look like and it
1301s looked like innards and bowels and stuff
1303s like that where you'd have like fleshy
1305s bridges going from place to place and
1307s then that got kind of shells because
1309s we're working a lot of stuff and then at
1311s one point it reminded me of like the
1314s movie aliens and some of it you know
1316s because it's very high repetition very
1318s noisy and dark and kind of like gross
1321s and and shiny and looks like it's sticky
1324s or slimy slimy yeah wet was it go it was
1327s pretty cool it looks like it be nasty
1329s being there it smell gross but and then
1332s when I got brought on the project
1333s Michael it's so different now
1335s yeah it's the new direction which which
1338s I feel it's more unique than what's
1341s already out there mmm yeah I'm excited
1344s for that I've seen it's a lot of work I
1346s know what Jeff was saying on the one dub
1348s stream where we showed it off for the
1350s first time yeah
1351s the fact that it went from I think that
1354s like that tile said originally which is
1356s gonna be for the new war quest and
1359s that's like no we're gonna make a whole
1361s new whole new everything new you know
1364s enemies and all that and it was it's
1367s kind of what happens here is you get one
1368s idea you think it's cool add it into
1370s something no no this needs to be its own
1372s entire thing let's do something wild
1374s with it alright so I'm going to ask the
1377s last question of where people can find
1379s you if you want people to know your
1381s social medias so I have a an art station
1384s you guys can check out its atomic boy so
1388s atomic lowercase and no space you can
1393s find me there and my name is lion-o CRE
1396s ju t you can probably find me anywhere
1399s my name is that it's just Brian you
1402s spelt the correct way Bri en incorrectly
1407s because some people spell with the Y and
1408s that's incorrect
1409s Oh doing really sorry some people spell
1411s Brian with a why yeah weirdos it isn't
1414s Brian Adams who the why yes yeah yeah
1418s probably incorrectly so you should send
1422s him an email so is just be Brian you on
1428s our station and then I guess on like
1430s Twitter of stuff that's up young but
1432s it's spelt 3 py 0 and making it real
1435s difficult it was from like 2004 tells me
1438s 5 p.m. it's an epi on it's based on the
1440s gundam epyon
1443s back to Gundam
1445s yes yeah alright thank you to Brian and
1449s Leno for joining me on deconstructing ok
1451s so much for having us no problem and we
1453s will see you next time thanks guys a big
1457s thank you to Brian and Lionel for being
1459s on the podcast today and thank you for
1461s listening
1462s tune in next time for another episode of
1464s deconstructing