Pirates of the Burning Sea : Environmentalism
Since my last devlog, the team and I have been hard at work on new features and content for the expansion as well as upcoming updates. Part of that work is focused on new port battle rooms and town redesigns. I thought you might like to get the inside scoop on the process we use to build them.
Creating new environments is a collaborative process that follows a sequence of steps to ensure that the best ideas are brought forth by all members of the team. Even though it is the responsibility for the designer to drive the design, collaboration is the key to success. Each department (Design, Art, Sound, Engineering, Test) must contribute as early as possible so the environment won't advance too far along in production before problems are recognized. The more eyes on it earlier, the better the design will be in the end.
Defining the Goals for the Space / Brainstorming the Design
This phase is really the most important part of the process for the Design team. Defining the goals at the beginning sets the foundation for all subsequent work. We start by brainstorming and answering a battery of questions to focus on what is most important for the goals of the space. Design, Content and Art departments start working through the questions and generating ideas for the functional and visual aspects of the environment. We discuss some of the high level directives and usually walk away with a rough layout of the environment on a whiteboard or a piece of paper. Then we collect visual references and data to flesh out the design.
Some of the questions and issues we address pertain to gameplay needs like, "Will this room be big enough for Colossal ships to maneuver?" While others are more aesthetic or story-driven, such as "What makes it memorable?" Asking these questions ensures we focus on innovation, while also helping us define the back story of the location. The answers also provide inspiration for the artists as they create the visual details of the environment. Every playable location needs to be fun and contain the right functionality to support good gameplay, but the best environments also have a compelling story to tell.
Star fort (left) and volcanic caldera (right). These images were selected as inspiration for port battle environments.
Document the Design
Communicating what the Design team needs from a gameplay perspective to the artists who will create it is vital. We compile the best ideas for the room into a design document that becomes the blueprint for the environment. It is an integral tool to drill into the details and define what the vision is and what needs to be built. The rough thumbnails are redrawn digitally and all of the key locations are defined in diagrams. A supplemental write up describes the reasoning behind the design and any specific or unique functionality. Metrics, such as the size and scale and relative distances between areas in the design, are also critical to think about early. Reference material is also put into this document to help communicate the vision.
Prototype the Environment
This is when the environment artists get to make the design into something real. The design is handed off to BradW and the Environment Team in ArtCo to create a three dimensional sketch of the space, called a greybox. They do this by taking the top-down illustration and 'lofting' up the geometry so we can see how all of the pieces fit together in 3D. The artists use the illustrations from the design document as a guide for placement and scale when constructing in Maya or 3D Studio Max. Quite often, the idea we had on paper will not translate as well into 3D and needs to be adjusted. The artist's own interpretation of the design also creates some interesting results. Although the teams work closely, there are times when differences in interpretation leads to challenges in construction. There are other times when the serendipity of this process presents new solutions that are better than the original. Embracing these moments leads to much stronger results.
Once the greybox is complete, we review the result to see if there will be any gameplay issues. Scale is adjusted and locked down, sight-lines are modified for biggest impact and many little iterations and ideas emerge at this point. Eventually the greybox is approved so it can advance to production.
Build the Environment (Production)
Once the greybox is approved, BradW's team begin adding textures, camera volumes, lighting, nav mesh etc. to bring the environment to a finished state. In the images below, you can see how the artists take the greybox for a new town and start replacing that rough geometry with higher resolution models. The other pictures shows how we color-code different areas of the town to break down who will work on what. Each artist then is responsible for the completion of their part of the finished product. Once textures are completed and tuned, lighting is implemented at the very end. Finally, the Content team takes over to add NPCs, activate doors to interior rooms and hook up missions inside the town.
Test and Polish
Finally, the environment is play-tested repeatedly by both the Design and Test teams to validate and find potential flaws in the environment. These tests focus on everything you could imagine, including player and camera collisions, lighting issues, broken content and performance concerns. We fix as much as we can before sending the new environment to the Testbed server for you to see. Then we do a final round of polish and tuning based on Testbed feedback before we release it to you on the live servers.
Throughout the process, the environment touches many hands and many people have the power to influence the direction it takes. When it is all said and done, it takes a lot of hard work and time to build an environment for PotBS, but I think the results the team are delivering are nothing short of spectacular. We hope you like them too!