Log #2 - The hard life of a Mysthean architect
Hi, folks!
I’m Michele from Tabula Games, 3D artist and motion designer of the crew.
In my years at Tabula Games, I have worked on several 3D and video transpositions for our board games. Yes, I have a hand in a lot of videos, gifs and mixed media for our Kickstarter campaigns!
My job is already very exciting, but my dream has always been to work on making a video game. I’m getting closer and closer to it, it has to be said.
Why am I the main character in this log? There are many things I could tell you about, but I’ve chosen one in particular and it’s about building the world in which the game takes place (one bit at a time).
Let’s start at the beginning: the Mysthea universe has always and mostly been two-dimensional. Usually my job is to think and add the third dimension and bring new visions to life, a feat that becomes even more complicated when we’re referring to an entire digital game.
In the case of Volfyirion Digital, we started with the cities, the key locations of the game. That’s how I became an architect of Mysthea!
The process
Like any good architect, I needed a blueprint.
Problem: the space available to build was very limited. On a small screen like that of the most common mobile devices used to play with apps, I can’t represent all the details of a city like THIS!
So, the details needed to be reduced, but without depriving the city of its distinctive features.
We had to create a concise and essential version of the city and this is where our artist’s intervention was crucial.
The original artwork was not usable as a blueprint, but it was great for inspiration and for setting the mood. What we did here was take the most important elements and turn them back into sketches.
There we go! Now from these simple signs we can build something new, a model of the original that will stand out beautifully from the landscape.
The outcome
Here is the final outcome, a teeny-tiny version of the wondrous city that you will be called upon to defend with troops, equip with buildings or smash mercilessly.
For all the models, I’ve used Blender for a rough blockout of the main shapes of the city model, after that I exported it and opened it inside Zbrush to sculpt some more details. Finished with all the detailing part is time for a process called retopology in which I lower the count of polygons of the model so that the game engine can handle it properly. The final stage of all the process is the texturing, in which I finally put some colors on.
My story ends here for now, but I am very curious to hear your questions. Is there anything else you’d like to know about the design of Volfyirion Digital?
Let’s keep chatting in the comments!