Hi everyone,
This week, we have asked three questions to our artists about: the art of Endless Legend (because we know you all want to know more about our new game!). You guys have asked questions we actually answer to in our game design documents, so you'll have to be patient...
Anyway, a huge thank you to the art team for their replies:
- Corinne, art director
- Mathias, FX artist
- Bastien, lead animator
- Ronan, 2D/3D artist
How did you find your inspiration for the art of Endless Legend? Was it in the Endless Space concept arts, the universe design documents written by Jeff, or movies & literature?
Corinne:
From the very beginning, when we did our research, we thought of the idea to have Endless Legend set in the same world as Endless Space – a common universe, but seen through a different scale. It was therefore very important to create a strong visual link between these two projects. Legend takes place at another level. By going down to the surface of the planet (Auriga) et by keeping our stance: we were not looking into photo-realism, indeed, we chose to give more emphasis on this feeling of wonder, magic world, with a pinch of bizarre. In other terms, we are going towards a stylisation rather than an overload of details.
It’s all about creating a believable universe, giving players a feeling of familiarity, a sensation of being on known territory and surrounded by the archetypes of the fantasy genre, while at the same, surprising them with unexpected references.
I get my iconographic inspirations from diverse sources, I must say ^^, even more for Legend as we are dealing with the representation of terrain, cities and buildings, as well as characters/creatures, etc… I have gathered references that come from the history of architecture and costume, modern illustrators, industrial design sometimes… and basically everything that I think could give nice ideas, no matter the source.
I have to admit that I try to get iconographic references from existing games; I’d rather try and fill out graphic needs with other sources to avoid repetition.
As for the way we put our research in shape: just like for Endless Space, SpaceTroll, Slowhand and I work together at the beginning of a project by basically throwing the ball at each other. For the different factions for instance, several graphic possibilities would have been fit for the descriptions given by Jeff (Slowhands). Then, Jeff or Romain would give feedback to my proposals. It goes back and forth until the look and personality of each setting and people becomes more refined.
What artistic elements are you bringing in Endless Legend that were not in Endless Space?
Mathias:
The most important aspects are terrain, cities and 3D characters!
We keep the notion of random generation we had for the galaxies but we adapt it to 3D terrain with way more variety: terrain types, biomes, altitudes, oceans…
The anomalies, strategic resources and luxuries are also an important heritage of Endless Space.
In Endless Legend, they are directly visible on the map, and the player will have to construct specific buildings to exploit them.
This “construction” aspect is linked to the city development: each faction has its own city design and numerous buildings.
Our objective is to make each city unique, make them reflect the player’s progression, power within a game.
Last but not least, the 3D characters! We’ll find a lot of creatures from the Endless Space universe, the player will be able to create armies, make them evolve and fight with them…
Bastien will now talk about how he make those little babies alive
Bastien:
Endless Legend takes place in a planet where several creatures and factions will rise and fall. This implies that we have the task to give life to a bestiary; each faction will have its own way of evolving and moving in this fantasy world.
Endless Space did not technically have a proper animation system, so we had to start everything from scratch and ask ourselves a few questions:
- What type of animations did we want for the game (artistically speaking)?
- Would those animations fit the game design?
- What interactions with their environment and factions do we want?
- What about the technical direction? Meaning that in the animation field, the technical decisions affect the production greatly.
In a more global point of view, the huge challenge we have to deal with is to make all these factions co-exist in the same environment despite all their different personality traits, and way of living and moving on Auriga.
Challenge: quick drawing in 10 minutes of your favourite character/hero/item/city/anything in Endless Legend.
Ronan:
Next week
We will discuss the Games2Gether.
If you have any questions on this subject, don't hesitate!