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Conan dungeon design, content creation and conversation - interview
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
Courtesy of KatsBits :
| kat: We never really talked about this the last time, so, lets talk a little about you. What's your role at Funcom? What did you do during the development of Conan?
Mr Lycon: My title is "world designer", but it's basically the same as a "level designer". During the production of Conan I touched many aspects of the art process, from textures and models to level design. My main focus is and have always been level design though, this is where I design, block-out, detail and light the level used in game. I've also did some managing. As we never had a "level designer" (someone solely dedicated to that process), during the last year or so of production on Conan I was effectively the level design 'technical co-ordinator' where I had to take care of technical design of the project and the mentor of a few team members; as we never had anyone in charge of 'level design', there was never anyone managing the level designers from a profession perspective, we had producers who told us what to do but never anyone with specific level design experience. kat: A project 'lead'? You mentioned above about having to 'train' the guys to use the tools? Mr Lycon: In the role of 'technical level co-ordinator' I helped our programmers to design technology like the portal system we used as our culling system in the levels; I had a lot of experience with portals from other engines so this really helped them (that was only one of many things I helped them design and implement). I also trained other team members in the use of this technology once it was working. At the beginning of the project though, we used Radiant to make a lot of the geometry and as most of the level designers at Funcom had never used Radiant before (quite surprisingly) I had to do a few training sessions with the tool.
kat: Conan makes quite effective use of normal maps, what processes did you use to create those? Rocks in Max, carved letters on walls, the nVidia Photoshop plug-in? Mr Lycon: The normal maps where created with several applications; 3DS Max, Mudbox and the nVidia Photoshop plug-in. There wasn't an overall application preference, it was more along the lines of what the artist who made that specific textured preferred using. I made a lot of the textures in Cathedral though and like you say, the rock was made in 3DS Max, ornaments painted in Mudbox and then some plain noise textures where done using the NVIDIA filter. Quite time consuming to make sometimes. All the textures 'per set' were usually the same size, either 1024x1024 or 2048x2048; as there's a lot of content it's meant the installation of Conan is a bit on the large side as a result.
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Hit the link at the top for 3 pretty interesting pages of info!
Comments
Thanks for the link
Great to see the work that goes into the settings we run around in.
Good graphics are like going to an expensive art gallery. It's all nice, but after you look around for 10 min. its time to go home.
Good graphics are also like having a Hot Rod. Everyone wants to test their car, but what's the point the speed limit is still only 55 mph.
That was quite an interesting read. Thanks for the post.
Art doesnt have to be expensive to be good or appealing. Its like a pint of beer, you appreciate it the more you drink it.
AoC's graphics are great, better than any other mmo out there in my opinion, I can log in and enjoy them on average over 50fps per game session
You make sacrifices when you have multiple graphical layers to worry about. Overall, great artwork also cuts down on content overall. So ultimately a game gets tired in short order and you end up with only one starting area, very little content and an MMO, beyond artwork, that is very mediocre.
Great artwork may sell a game 'initially' however it's gameplay and content that decides if the MMO is ultimately successful or not.
From what I've saw of AoC's graphics though they are superb and I bet the people who can run them at full quality have some nice treats to keep them busy until they get to that content part. From what I heard AoC's content is lacking past level 40.
splat
Graphics cant hide terrible game mechanics and terrible patchs.
Very true, only a great game can really make these graphics shine, too bad AoC isnt great, its a mediocre game at best.
All the amazing graphics just mask a crappy game engine.
I think that is one of the most insightful posts and not to mention the beautiful graphics and I think it is safe to say that the AoC community is spoiled by the detail and time these graphic artists put into their work. I dont know very much about computer art but it must take a long time to build these areas which is why it is great that AoC has such a longterm engine in play to accomodate the years of production the 6 tiers of epic dungeons will entail.