We've all appreciated the lovely GC trailer introducing the remake of Yukio Futasugi's Phantom Dust, which is being developed exclusively for Xbox One, and today we get to see the concept artwoprk for the urban level showcased in the trailer, created by One Pixel Brush, the studio led by former Naughty Dog Senior Concept Artist Shaddy Safadi, who worked on the Uncharted series and on The Last of Us as well.
Interestingly, we get to see the concept in both its original intact state and in the final devastated version.
The studio also revealed the process behind the creation of the concept:
1. No matter how simple something seems, in this case a city park, there is always a shocking amount we don’t know. The team spent a few hours looking at references of parks to get a feel for how the floor stones should be arranged, what kinds of materials and structures are appropriate in a park, and how those individual pieces are formed. The client had a pretty clear layout of where the action in the trailer had to take place, but it was our job to take what was real and fit to their staging.
2. In this case the Maya 3D was designed to match the perspective of a great statue photo. The team didn’t have time to figure out or model the statue from scratch so we improvised moving the camera around until the shot matched our reference. The trees were free models found on google warehouse.
3. Next was a black and white comp based on the 3D. Of course the comps INITIALLY started with moving the sunlight light around in 3D space to put the tree shadows in a place that would frame our fountain in the most pleasing and natural way. The statue was cropped in as well as photo reference from our initial gathering. The stone textures were referenced from photos but high rez versions found on CGtextures.com
4. After all the essentials were worked out and we got client approval we set to compositing in all the pieces in for real, and this version is the rough pass before the team really set to adding lighting, color and fog in a nuanced way. The last color adjustments are always tricky but they go a huge way towards getting a realistic cohesive look. The client was happy, ZERO revisions and we moved on to the apocalypse version!
Below you can check out the trailer that was created from the concept artwork, and you can also see more of One Pixel Brush's work on many relevant games at on its official page.
//www.youtube.com/embed/d0YKmI9DCC0