Dragon Age: Origins Art Interview

Rather than worry about Dragon Age II, the folks at Pixologic have went back and interviewed several members of the Dragon Age: Origins art team about “the amazing characters and creatures” they created for the RPG and its addons using the company’s ZBrush tool. It’s a lengthy Q&A, so I’ll quote a few of the questions:

What is your production pipeline like for creating characters, armor and creatures in Dragon Age?

Shane Hawco Lead Character Artist: First we start off with the concept art based on the writers’ and designers’ needs. From there we make sure that they are approved from every stakeholder so that we are sure that the concept is able to work as we intended before we being the costly development. Departments such as animation, character art, VFX and design play a big part in the decision making process at this stage. From there we make what we call a proxyrender mesh so we can flesh out the size and shape of the character along with looking at the topology to ensure that it can animate the way we want it to. Then we bring it into ZBrush for the detailed sculpt. Once it is done to our liking we make the final in-game rendermesh so we can begin the texturing process and start projecting the normal maps and ambient occlusion from the high detail source. Then we bring it into the game where we can make any final adjustments to the shader for the final product.

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The Architect has to be one of my favorite creature models ever. Could you talk about his inspiration and creation?

Shane Hawco Lead Character Artist: The Architect was a full collaboration between the design team on Awakening and the character artists. We aimed at not just creating a visual threat but also touching on his sadistic personality which physically masks his grotesqueness. Jae Kuem was the artist responsible for not only modeling him in such great detail but also coming up with the concept art. The whole team was inspired to carry forward his art style into the other minions of the Architect: the Disciples and the Armored Ogre.

How long did it take to create the Architect? How many polygons did he hit? Did he pose any unique challenges, and if so how did you overcome them?

Jae Keum Character Artist: He took almost a month to create from the concept art to the final 3D mesh and textures. The in-game mesh of the Architect is approximately 11,000 polygons. The most challenging thing was to show his personality and character through his appearance. He is highly intelligent, decisive, cold, manipulative and he has little understanding of humanity. When I made the concept art of the Architect I tried to find some inspirations from traditional art masters such as Francis Bacon. It helped me a lot when figuring out shape and details.

Quite a few behind-the-scenes images are included in the article, as well.