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Copyright © 1985-2007 David Lettier. All rights reserved.

Creating Digital Illusions
[11.11.06]

When faced with creating art content for video games a set procedure should be followed to make sure the asset comes out as wanted. Whether it is 2D or 3D, game art should allows start with a clear vision of the artistic style that the piece should be portrayed in. Photo realistic, enhanced reality, cartoon, abstract, etc are all art styles used to depict life in a digital medium.

Once a clear understanding of what art style is wanted, references or at least inspiration should be gathered to form a good foundation to begin creating the 2D picture or 3D mesh. References are usually pictures of items similar or in the same category of what your trying to produce. References can also be descriptions or data measurements. Always having a reference near by keeps your work in check by making it faster, as some details are already filled in, and also provides a base or framework to build upon so it turns out right instead of miss-shaped or colored wrong. References and inspiration also provide a conduit for thought and imagination to conjure up ideas.

References in hand, it is time to lay the blueprints and sketch your concept to visual your idea into something tangible. There are two real ways to do this by either drawing it on paper and scanning it in the computer or using a digital tablet and pen. If you can afford it, I would recommend the digital tablet and pen. At this point, some worry that they poses little to no artistic ability, however, they must produce art assets for their game. Programmer art ensues and they become disappointed with the art and themselves. However, this is because they didn't lay down a foundation to build on and rather just dove in with no references, sketches, blueprints, and/or clear vision of the art style wanted. In this area of production, it is wise to have some traditional art skills but remember that you do not have to be a Vangough but good enough to sketch some kind of drawing as to build upon in a 2D or 3D art program. Art skills can be learned and do take time. Remember, you want this to look good so take your time. For learning some traditional art skills I recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Betty Edwards has some very interesting ways to teach drawing skills and just after the first few chapters you will probably see a difference in your drawing skills. Unfortunately, I have yet to finish the book myself. If you already have some traditional art skills or are just confident in your abilities, begin sketching what you need (a character, weapon, house, etc.) in different poses, positions, or an action shot. Go over it and see if you can improve any areas; other people are great in this area as everyone will want to change something and may make you see it differently. When doing 3D work, you're going to need some kind of blueprint to work over when laying down the polygons. Sketch a front, back, side, top, and bottom view. Graph paper works great for this as it helps in lining up, getting good proportions, and symmetry.

At this point, 3D art creation breaks away from its 2D roots. Creating pixel or 2D art is extremely tedious so some create 3D models and use snapshots of them in different poses and positions for the needed 2D art. Nevertheless, creating the 3D mesh will now be extremely easy with the concept art and the drawn up blueprints. Note, that before you begin, if the art is going to be high poly I would still model using as few polygons as I could as this makes it much easier to work with later on because you can always increase the poly count with subdivision. For modeling programs I recommend two free programs known as Blender 3D and Wings 3D. Some prefer Wings 3D to Blender 3D's style of controls. However, I have not used Wings 3D much so I am not sure about this. Remember when beginning to model, use a primitive shape that matches the more complex shape you are modeling in 3D. Creating one mesh is fine but getting to scale with the rest of the assets can become difficult. Blender has very little to help with scale so I recommend creating a scale room that is textured with a checkered pattern with common items placed through the room to provide a keen sense of scale. Passing all assets through this room will help to create a consistent scale through out your asset collection.

Your mesh is created and needs to be painted or textured with a 2D image. To do this you must lay the mesh flat or UV map the mesh for texturing. In my experience, Blender 3D has become very well suited for UV mapping with the unwrap feature in conjunction with seams and also the Archimap UV Projection Unwrapper script. If you're trying to avoid using Blender 3D there is always shareware applications out there that deal with just unwrapping. When unwrapping, this tip always helps: imagine the seams as where you are cutting the mesh with a scissor watching them pull apart trying to lay flat. This will help with picturing where to be the most efficient when placing seams around your mesh.

Once the mesh has been made, with proportions adhering to that of your style, and it has been laid out flat, via UV mapping, it is time to texture. If your style is at the far end of the spectrum at photo realistic, it would be best to paint the texture using real photographs and manipulating their color, hue, etc. to get the correct look. If your going for abstract or a stylistic approach, simple details and colors are best and photographs may not be needed. For an image manipulation program, I cannot recommend anything but the GIMP as it can do all that the very expensive applications can do plus it is free and free is very helpful if you're developing an independent title on a minimum waged budget. After you saved the UV map, load it into your appropriate image application and begin filling in the details. One tip I like to listen to is to first fill the texture with a checkered pattern to notice any kind of stretching or pinching around the mesh. Better to know this before starting than afterwords. For more tips and tricks I recommend getting a book on texturing to ferment some ideas and learn what's needed to fool the eye. I personally own 2D Artwork and 3D Modelling for Game Artists. I find the book OK for getting a head start on making textures for your games and just getting an idea of how to get started, however, the author uses many different very expensive applications to get the various tasks done and thus it is hard to follow along if you do not own such programs. Overall, it is a better book for texturing than modeling. If you can find it cheap I'd recommend picking it up. At this point, this may be the final task for many creations but for some animation is needed.

You've picked out your art style, collected reference materials, gathered some inspirational pieces, sketch concept art, drew up blueprints, modeled your mesh, UV mapped, textured your model, and, now if needed, it is time to animate it. For this task I recommend the tool Blender 3D once again. Blender's animation system has been revamped recently and works well. Once you create the skeletal system, the actual part of animation can be difficult. However, as with all things, take your time and if it doesn't look right to you go back and rework it. Also, make sure to revisit your goals of art style. Realistic models require realistic movements while abstract creations require abstract animations. Realistic movements will be the hardest to emulate but a cool trick is to play out the animation in your mirror or even video tape yourself performing the action. Remember, you don't have to specify every frame of animation but just the key points when an abrupt change should occur. The program you're using will interpolate between each key frame.

Creating art for your game whether it be 2D or 3D does not have to be a chore nor something to be afraid of if you THINK you do not posses artistic skill. Even drawing stick figures can be helpful with storyboarding. Remember though, to follow the procedures outlined up above. More planning equals less production time. Doing it in any other order, I find, leads itself to poor results every time. You wouldn't to animate your mesh before you texture it or begin modeling with out first sketching on paper. In further articles I'll write more in depth on the various steps talked about here. For now go to your local public library and rent some books on 3D animation, texturing, modeling, and drawing and begin practicing your skills to create some great digital illusions.

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