Game
The Maestros
9 years ago

The Maestros RTS- Devlog 04: Creating the Environment


Hello everyone!

My name is Michael, and I am the Lead Environment Artist on The Maestros, a high action team-based RTS game. You can visit www.maestrosgame.com for more details.

Today I am going to walk you through my process of creating an environment asset from Concept to Final Product that is to be used in The Maestros.

Step 1: Concept

Here is a drawing of a large arkanium crystal surrounded by a wooden fence. This asset is meant to be a major landmark in the center of our 1v1 map, Fissure. Alex, our Lead Designer, is involved with this step to make sure the asset follows certain constraints and is a good fit aesthetically.

5d0be79a5514c.jpg

Step 2: 3D Modeling

Once the concept is approved, I can start modeling the asset. There are a few things I always keep in mind during this step to help push the asset to its full potential and to help make things easier for myself down the pipeline.

Silhouette

By applying a black shader, without any lighting, I can see the asset’s silhouette. Using this technique I can see how interesting the overall shape is on its own. The camera in The Maestros
is in a Top Down view so we need our assets to be readable before we even apply textures to them. I can also see how stylized the overall shape is and can push the shape into a more or less of a “cartoon” direction.

Optimization

This is really important. If all of our assets exceeded their polygon count and texture size set out from our engineers, the game would run slow and ruin the player’s experience. Everyone on the team works towards a perfect balance of quality vs performance.

5d0be79ea3c7f.jpg

Polygon Count is something I always watch for. I want to get the polygon count as low as I possibly can without changing the silhouette. One technique that I use is to remove unseen faces. The camera in The Maestros is in a fixed position. The faces that will never be seen, usually the bottom and back, can be deleted. Not only does it save in polygons, it helps make UV Mapping much easier later on.

Step 3: Texturing

Here are the steps I follow while texturing assets for The Maestros.
UV Mapping - Pixels are precious! I try to unwrap the model using as much uv space as possible. I overlap any sections that are being duplicated to help increase uv space
Base Prep - This is where I assign flat colours to sections of the asset. I also overlay any bakes I have to help boost the overall look.
Details - This step is where the magic happens. I paint in all of the details to make the model come to life.
Other Maps - Normal, Specular, and Gloss maps are made from the final texture.

Note: I turn off any lighting to better see the texture

5d0be7a0ac0c6.jpg

Step 4: Final Product

Here we see the final product inside the game. I created a custom material that uses the environment to make the arkanium reflective and glossy.

5d0be7a50be12.jpg
5d0be7ab3a402.jpg

Closing

We have many maps with many different types of colourful terrain and unique pieces like this for you to see. I hope you enjoyed reading and maybe learned a thing or two about the art used in The Maestros. Thank you and be sure to look for our next Dev Log in the future.



1 comment

Loading...

Next up

The Maestros Update 1 - Bots, Bots, Bots!

The Maestros - DevLog 01 - a Resourceless RTS with Transforming Armies

The Maestros has released on Steam Early Access!

Short intro of us 💕✌️

We're an eletro duo based in Seoul 🇰🇷 Heavily influenced by the 90s.

Our new album #Xennials is all about the nostalgia of that era 💽 CD listenin 📟 beeper beepin 💾 floppy disks floppin days 😎

Stream now! 🎧

https://open.spotify.com/album/3YwWhnHWVy5cA8XOpbaGRA?si=8E9awqU…

Smile! Here, take some happy pills! ✨💊 #Blender #3DModelling #3DArt Buy me a Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/barbarafb_

Successful landing

#screenshotsaturday

Updated the chest in the maze, adding sound, particles and better animation. But what's in the chest?

Strange Umbrella

Back in my art school days I used to ride the 710 COPSA line from Parque Del Plata to Montevideo almost everyday. This is the Marcopolo Viaggio G4 Mercedes Benz model from the late 80s, one of the older bus models that was running on the line.

Horror WIP A track that will be featured in a future horror game soundtrack! Stay tuned!

Likes appreciated ✌️

#gamedev #composer #horrorgame #indiegame #IndieGameDev #soundtrack