Meet the Team: Concept Art - Part 2
Hey everybody! We're back with part two of our little series introducing you to the team behind The Lays of Althas. Continuing with the concept art team introductions, we have some artists you may know, some you may not, and three great concept pieces to show off.
Bård
"Hello!
My name is Bård, and I make concept art for Epoch Games. So far I have made some creature concepts as well as an architecture piece. I am also studying "Virtual art and design" to become better at this concept art thing.
Here is one concept I made for the game. Hope you like it!"
-Fawn concept
George K
"Hello there! My name is George and I'm a concept artist for Epoch Games. Most of my work concerns designing the armors for different characters and troops. Here in Epoch we give a lot of attention to how our game should look, and we do our best to create weapons and armors that are a believable mix of realism and fantasy. And here is a piece of my work, the Thenodrim Spearman. I hope you enjoy it."
-Thenodrim Spearman (variations)
Loraevia
"Hi everyone! I'm Sam and I recently started developing concept artwork for Epoch Games. So far I've been working on Helm Theotan, of Clan Wulfas, a grizzled war veteran who I hope you all like! I especially had a lot of fun researching scars for him. I'm looking forward to contributing a lot more to the team in future.
I can't wait to show everyone what else we can do, so please stay tuned!"
-Theotan facial ideas
And last, but by no means least, our two concept artists-in-training, Owen and Ruo Yu
Owen
"(Insert cheesy introduction and greeting). Most of you probably already know me, but what can one little quote hurt? After MERP's downfall, I was extremely motivated to help out in any way I could. I joined the Epoch Games team back in January and it has definitely been a great experience. The rest of the team has really helped me improve and while I'm still no expert by any means, my skills have grown exponentially since I first browsed the forums. I really hope you fans like what we create as much as we love creating it."
Ruo Yu "Insanity"
"Since most everybody starts out their quote with a greeting, I'm just going to ignore everyone. What? I can't do that? You're no fun... but fine. I'm Insanity, as you might have noticed. I'm a writer-slash-newbie-artist here at Epoch Games, and my art sucks. Well, sorta. Honestly, speaking as an ascended fan, it's amazing to be working with the guys here at Epoch. There are so many incredibly talented people and I love the team (and you had better too). It's been a great learning experience and I am definitely optimistic that we will create a great game for ya'll."
So that's it for the concept artists of Epoch Games. Hope you have enjoyed this little introduction. But we aren't done yet! The next update we will be introducing you to the new and old 3D art talent of the team as well as bringing you some really big news. So stay tuned.
The concept art looks fantastic so good work guys! Also Insanity I saw you post on moddb but I never knew you were a concept artist. Guess this is why this series exists :P
Anyways I can't wait for this "really big news" in the next update :D Also almost always I wish I had the time to work on Lays of Althas even if it was only to see everything that you guys are up to.
Well, now you know! I randomly throw in sketches for stuff to help out, like armor. I'm not very good yet, but I'm (hopefully) improving. I hope some of my work will actually be good enough to show, someday :P
And oh, the big news is big ;D Lots of progress going on atm. If you had the time to work with us, what would you do?
Certainly modeling and maybe leve design assuming I can somehow learn how to use cryengine well. Also assuming you guys stay with CryEngine since I probably know more about it than any other decent engine and it appears pretty easy to use. Although I haven't used cryengine for more than checking if my models looked right so I'm not an expert.
Also I actually tried to do a public claim for LoA before running out of time and never finishing it. BlownKapz walked me through the majority of the process so thank you BlownKapz!! Mainly he helped me with creating textures as I understand modeling decently well.
It would be appreciated if you ever feel that you can contribute to the project. There are also tools to help with texturing and such work - you might want to look into software like DDO (http://dev.quixel.se/ddo).
Okay I finally got around to downloading the trial version and messing with it for a few mins and it seems like it can do a lot but I have no idea how to use it so I'll have to learn that. :D
Also would I have to buy a license to use this for LoA or personal projects? And would this only be beneficial to working with engines that support this so for example if I were to say make models for Skyrim would this still work just as well or do I need the latest version of something like CryEngine?
Sorry if my questions sound stupid and/or basic enough that I could have just googled them. Likely LoA modelers know more about this than you so I'm probably asking the wrong person but you did suggest this program to me so...
The quixel suite outputs the standard maps used in games (diffuse, normal, specular) as well as a bunch of other ones for specific purposes, so you can use them anywhere. Also this open beta (lasting till September) can be used privately as well as commercially, so you dont have to buy it, but if you want to use it past September you would have to. Its worth the money though IMO. Its a bit hard to get into and I'm a nobn as well in it, but go to quixels YT channel, they have some tutorials there. And here, have a look at what I did messing around with it for 2 hours: Abload.de
Its pretty goddamn sweet.
Very nice indeed! I'll look at their YouTube channel when I get home. Also what exactly does it do to textures? The program sure looks promising but hopefully it doesn't take a lot of time to set up.
Hah, no problem, glad to help out :p