00:01PEGI 18
00:24There's this tremendous amount of energy that's going into this project
00:27where people get so excited on a day-to-day basis.
00:30Not only because of the scope and the size of it, but also because we're crafting a new IP.
00:34The opportunity to design a fantasy world, an entirely new fantasy world,
00:38is really something I think not a lot of people in this business get to do.
00:42We didn't want this just to be another generic fantasy world.
00:46We really wanted it to sing and show something that people hadn't seen before.
00:52One of the goals of the team has been to specifically say,
00:55oh, that's Reckoning.
00:56We really wanted to have a signature style that was recognizable
01:00and that was carried through through all the different elements of it.
01:02It's not just about making great-looking sword, for example.
01:05It's got to be a sword that looks like it fits in the universe,
01:09but also works with these armor sets.
01:10It also works with these effects.
01:12It also feels like it's got some age and wear.
01:15and the beauty of it is that we've got all this fantastic material to draw from,
01:18from the lore that's been written and from the narrative designers,
01:22so that we can say, okay, this sword is not just a sword,
01:24but the glyphs on the sword actually mean something,
01:26and they're part of a language that was built.
01:28And the materials, if there's a gem in there,
01:30well, why does the color of that gem matter?
01:32It does.
01:33In a lot of games, it's not as deeply considered.
01:36We knew early on we really wanted a game that was colorful and lush.
01:40We felt that that was something that was really neat about our game.
01:43It set our game apart from other games in this genre.
01:45It fit right in line with R.A. Salvatore's line about,
01:49you know, when you ask someone to save the world,
01:52you want to give them a world worth saving.
01:53We really wanted it to have that dark storybook kind of sensibility to it,
01:57so that it wasn't trying to recreate reality.
02:00There was one piece that I did where it's sort of this
02:03large half snake fish lady attacking a hero,
02:07and she's surrounded by these smaller kind of fish man soldiers,
02:11and they're in this swamp.
02:13And when you look at it, you can kind of tell,
02:16okay, there's a story here,
02:17and I want to know more about these creatures and these characters,
02:20and what the environment is that they're in.
02:22There's two different directions that people generally take.
02:25Either try to really try to make it photo real,
02:28or they try to design it, like design every element.
02:31And we went the second path.
02:34So the role of a concept artist is basically to take initial ideas
02:39that come either out of brainstorming meetings or from designer documents,
02:44sort of visualize them in 2D.
02:46A lot of times it can be a lot more schematical,
02:49where we're literally doing drawings of characters from different angles
02:52so that the modelers can take those and do sort of a one-to-one translation.
02:57And other times it's really just sort of a way to inspire the team,
03:01and they're more of like look and feel type pieces.
03:04As an art director, a lot of what you're doing on a day-to-day basis
03:07is working and interfacing with not only the artists on the team,
03:10but also the designers and the engineers,
03:12and making sure that everything comes together as one cohesive piece.
03:15We really try to focus on making sure that when we're creating a piece of concept art,
03:20that it serves the goals and that it's sort of speaking to the process,
03:24as well as being a great image, right?
03:26And so we have to remember that not only are we making great-looking images,
03:31but there has to be solid design behind it.
03:33A lot of it is trying to service the needs of the overall art of the project,
03:36but then also really taking a look at the design and what the narrative needs are,
03:40what the gameplay needs are at any particular point,
03:42and also keeping in mind the technical considerations and constraints
03:45of actually producing a game that we can put on a box that people can play.
03:51Not only do words tell the story of Amalur and the story of Reckoning,
03:56but the visuals tell stories.
03:58Specifically, we'll do things like stained glass windows
04:01that tell a story or fable that's told by generations of the Fae,
04:06or come into a dungeon, an ancient dungeon ruin.
04:10We leave clues as to, you know, who used to live in that place
04:13and why did things go bad and, you know, why is it now in ruins?
04:17We don't want to just sort of say, oh, it's just ruins.
04:20Let's just make some crumbled rocks.
04:21We try to leave little visual clues of, you know, what came before
04:25and how did things get the way they are.
04:28There's so much material in this project.
04:30It's hard for people to understand that are on the outside of this
04:34to really get a sense of, like, how many creatures we have in the game,
04:37how many armor sets, how many different places in the game
04:40that you can physically go to.
04:42Some of the times we talk about this, it's like someone laying out an entire state,
04:46you know, like road by road, signpost by signpost,
04:49making sure that all of it feels filled in and cool and cohesive and all put together.
04:53We don't want to just go, okay, you know, everybody knows what a troll looks like.
04:57We really want to think about the creature and the design of it from the ground up.
05:00One of the things that typically is difficult about putting large creatures into a game,
05:06you don't want it to look like you're just sort of hacking at their knees.
05:09We really want to bring the most important or most interesting part of the troll,
05:13which is his big massive head down closer to your level.
05:16So he's this really, he's sort of this hulking beast who's stooped over
05:21and he's got this really long sort of massive looking jaw that just swoops down towards the player
05:27and has this really aggressive look to it.
05:29The Bolgan, which are these big red heavy set creatures, are just so well executed from,
05:36you know, the initial design to the document talking about what their backstory and their lore was
05:40to the models, to the animation.
05:42I feel like he's so unique and yet at the same time there are elements of things that we're familiar
05:48with
05:49and so we know exactly what the Bolgan is when we see him.
05:53It makes you think of things that you're familiar with, but at the same time it challenges, you know,
05:57your preconceived notions of what fantasy is and should be.
06:01And it takes you to a completely different world.
06:05A lot of games and movies today, you know, very little is left to the imagination of the viewer.
06:11And while, you know, there's a lot of really fun and exciting and amazing things in the world of Reckoning,
06:16we also want to leave them with this hint that it's all part of an even more massive and compelling
06:24world.
06:25One of the things that's been said a lot, you know, that there's this 10,000 year history that R
06:28.A. has developed,
06:29it really is there.
06:30And if you go through and you play the game and you see all the individual bits and pieces
06:34and you start to talk to the individual NPCs in the game and read the books that are there,
06:38you start to realize, like, wow, they really did try to reference all that stuff.
06:42It really is in there to find.
06:44While we may not tell everybody everything, it makes people have questions in their mind
06:50and say, well, what is this world about?
06:52And what's the bigger story? And what else is going on here?
06:54Everything was considered and I hope they walk away with that.
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