Talk:2019-05-28 Developer Diaries: Weapon Modeling

Transcript

My name is Carson Steil. I am a Senior Weapons Artist here at Intrepid Studios. My job as a weapons artist is to make all of the weapons that you see in the game, and it's as simple as that. The process of modeling a weapon usually begins in a program called ZBrush, and that means I'll be sculpting what's called a "high-poly model", and that includes all of the little details that make a weapon special. And then from there I have to actually make a "low-poly model", which is what ends up in-game. And I use a whole lot of different software during that process, so ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag, each one of those does a different step of the process and the tools are just getting absurdly good now, so it's actually very fun. My favorite part of making weapons for the game is definitely sculpting the high-poly models in ZBrush, because it feels a lot less constrained; it feels more creative and artistic than a lot of the other actually very technical parts of making art for games is, so ZBrush kind of just feels like doing traditional art, which can be liberating. So weapons are a really nice compartmentalized piece of art that's kind of different from a lot of the other aspects of art that goes into games. You can actually in a matter of a week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or whatever, start and finish and just have like a - as an artist it gives you a really great sense of accomplishment. In Ashes of Creation, we want you to notice when your weapon is heroic; when your weapon stands out from other players. We want you to be able to attain unique materials, like gold, and platinum, and adamantine, and mythril, and we want you to be able to see that on your weapon. I think one of the things that we're aiming for in Ashes of Creation is having a more realistic look when it comes to weapons - not having these oversized weapons or high effects-driven kinds of weapons. Yes, there will be effects, and yes, there will be a component of distinguishing your weapon from others, perhaps in enchanting and whatnot, but I think generally the weapon itself is going to have a natural progression that players can see as they move up in levels, and it's also going to have some unique aspects to it that kind of set it apart from the other weapons in the world. Some of the cool things that Carson has been doing with the creation of our most recent weapon sets is kind of customizing their appearances to reflect the different cultures and races in the game, adding subtle influences that can be distinguishable from other weapon types based on what culture you may want your weapon to espouse or to show. That's kind of a cool way to add diversity among the different weapon groups that exist, and we have a lot of different types of weapons that are capable of being used in Ashes, and having that subtle difference available grants the kind of diversity we want to see among all the different weapon groups. And it's not just about weapons - part of the cool thing that we're aiming to do with characters in Ashes of Creation is having belt components; sockets that allow players to customize the appearance of scroll tubes or potions or different types of components that a character might use in their day-to-day activities represented on the character, not just in the character sheet. The weapon that I'm working on right now is a really cool staff that has a lot of both asymmetry and symmetry, but it just works in a way that I think is perfectly balanced, and it actually has a style slightly different from a lot of the other weapons I've been working on, and actually the moment that I finished the sculpt I sent an image over to the concept artist, because I was like, "man, this has got to be one of the coolest things that I've done so far", and of course he gets a lot of credit for that too. I would love to tell the players that I just can't wait to see all of the clips you guys post of the glorious weaponry that you get to use in Ashes of Creation.