Welcome to this weeks dev diary. Im David Horler, the Art Lead at Tinto, and Im very excited to show you what the art team has been cooking up in recent months.
In the last year the art team at our Barcelona studio has exploded, rapidly expanding to the 9 talented artists that we have todayincluding every discipline from 3D character artist to UI developer. We have so much interesting stuff planned for the future, but for now Ill introduce to you some of the work weve already done for Origins.
So what is the process for making art in one of our immersion packs? The first thing that happens is the brief, in this case Johan asked us to prepare 16 unit models and 2 missionaries for sub-Saharan Africa, a hugely underrepresented area in terms of previous art DLCs.
We opened up the game to see which cultures are missing art, and while East and West Africa already had unit models, we noticed a large area of southern Africa that was not already covered by unit packs.
Our artists started doing research for interesting and unique types of clothing historically worn by people in this area. Historical authenticity is very important in this kind of game so we were careful with our references. However, we permitted ourselves a little bit more creativity in later tiers, to create what-if? unit models, rewarding players who pull off amazing feats of technological progress.
After the research, concept artist Irene and 2D artist Ruben set to work making concepts for these characters. The goal was to start with simple warriors, and then as the ages progress they become increasingly complex in their appearanceeventually evoking the disciplined regiments of Napoleonic Europe but with a distinctive African twist.
Since these units would be used across many different countries, we needed to figure out where the country colours would go at this stage as well; in this case red is primary, yellow is secondary, and blue is tertiary.
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The first ideas are rarely the best, so the artists explore many iterations as we try to find the right shapes and colours, as you can see with our work on the Coptic missionary here:
Over the next few months we worked together with our friends at N-iX Game & VR Studio to turn these concepts into 3D models that are both functional and look great. To start with we make a very high resolution model in ZBrush with all the cloth folds and surface details that we want. This is made with a combination of digital clay sculpting and cloth simulation, both of which are essential processes in modelling characters for modern video games.
It looks beautiful, but with this many polygons it is impractical for realtime rendering, so the next step is to bake all those details into a normal map texture that is wrapped around a low-poly model.
Once baked, we start the texturing process. In EU4s past, we have laboured over dozens of layers in Photoshop, but recently we have adapted our workflow to use Substance 3D Painter, which is an incredibly powerful tool much better suited to texturing models.
When the textures are finalised, the models are rigged to a skeleton and finally imported into the game. In the case of the missionaries, we got to make brand new animations as well. We then implement it, its testing is managed by our internal QA coordinator and carried out by external QA teams.
For some context of how long this sort of unit pack takes to make, the entire process began in early April and was finished in September. And here are the final products! Let us know what you think of them.
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As well as new mission tree icons and the monuments you saw in October, we have also been busying our 2D artists with more advisor portraits in forgotten parts of the world.
Since Leviathan released with so much flavour for Aboriginal Australians, Southeast Asians, and Polynesians, the advisor portraits for those cultures have been high on our art request list. So for Origins we have made a full set of male and female advisor portraits for each of those regions that will add even further to the immersion of playing there.
And of course, a release wouldnt be complete without a new loading screen. We present Nzingha Mbande of Ndongo, a fascinating queen from Angola who resisted Portuguese colonisation, protecting her people from the Atlantic slave trade. A shrewd diplomat and accomplished tactician, she is remembered as one of the great inspirational women in African history, and was previously featured in our free Women in History DLC.
The loading screen will of course be included in the 1.32 patch; we will drop more info on the free update very soon!
Come join us at the Paradox Stream, on Wednesday the 3rd and 10th of November at 5pm CET for the first showcase of Origins! Mordred and Bjorn will be joined by Content Designer lvaro (Pava) for the stream, and will be able to answer any questions you may have.
I hope you enjoyed this dev diary, and I cant wait to see what you think of Origins when it releases in just over a weeks time!
[ 2021-11-02 15:19:24 CET ] [ Original post ]
- EU4 LINUX [50.69 M]
- Europa Universalis IV: American Dream DLC
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- Europa Universalis IV: Conquistadors Unit pack
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- Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado Content Pack
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- Europa Universalis IV: The Cossacks Content Pack
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- Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum Content Pack
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- Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man Content Pack
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- Europa Universalis IV: Ultimate E-book Pack
- Europa Universalis IV: Early Upgrade Pack
- Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
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Paradox Development Studio is back with the fourth installment of the award-winning Europa Universalis series. The empire building game Europa Universalis IV gives you control of a nation to guide through the years in order to create a dominant global empire. Rule your nation through the centuries, with unparalleled freedom, depth and historical accuracy. True exploration, trade, warfare and diplomacy will be brought to life in this epic title rife with rich strategic and tactical depth.
Main Features
- Make your own decisions: Nation building is completely flexible and the possibilities are endless.
- Use your Monarch Power: Experience the new system of monarch power where your choices are influenced by the caliber of the man or woman you have at the top and will direct the ebb and flow of gameplay.
- Experience history coming to life: The great personalities of the past are on hand to support you as you make your mark on thousands of historical events.
- Turn the world into your playground: Enjoy hundreds of years of gameplay in a lush topographical map complete with dynamic seasonal effects.
- Experience the all new trade system: The trade system adds a new dimension to the great trade empires of the period. Gain control of vital trade routes and make the wealth of the world flow to your coffers.
- Bring out your negotiating skills in a deeper diplomatic system: Use coalitions, royal marriages and support for rebels and explore the possibilities of the new unilateral opinion system.
- Engage in Cross-platform Multiplayer: Battle against your friends or try the co-operative multiplayer mode that allows several players to work together to control a single nation with up to 32 players. Featuring improved chat and new matchmaking servers.
- Create your own history & customize your game: Europa Universalis IV gives you the chance to customize and mod practically anything your heart may desire and uses Steam Workshop.
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2105 / AMD FX 4300Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / AMD Radeon HD 5850Video Memory: 1 GB RAMIDIA GeForce 9600 or higher. 1024MB graphics memory requiredHard Drive:6 GB HD spaceOther Requirements:Broadband Internet connectionAdditional:GLSL 1.3. OpenGL 2.1. Controller support: 3-button mouse. keyboard and speakers. Internet Connection or LAN for multiplayer
- Processor: Intel Core i3 3240 / AMD FX 8120Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 TiVideo Memory: 1 GB RAMHard Drive:6 GB HD spaceOther Requirements:Broadband Internet connectionAdditional:GLSL 1.3. OpenGL 2.1. Controller support: 3-button mouse. keyboard and speakers. Internet Connection or LAN for multiplayer
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