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00:38www.mesmerism.info
00:38My name is Raph Grissetti. I'm the art director for God of War Ragnarok.
00:41Hi, my name is Marissa Cobbert. I am a character technical artist.
00:45Hi, my name is Angela Rico, and I am a senior character artist in God of War Ragnarok.
00:50Hi, I'm Della Longfish, and I am the lead of the character concept team at Santa Monica Studio.
00:55Come in!
00:57What in all yarns be to happen to him?
01:00As a character technical artist here at SMS, I rig most of the characters and props that you see throughout
01:06the world.
01:07As character artists, our job is to create 3D assets based on the beautiful concept art provided to us.
01:12We do this by making sure that the silhouettes on the models and the textures and materials stand out instantaneously.
01:18So when you see our characters on the screen, we want you to almost like them immediately or have a
01:23connection to them to some extent before even interacting with them.
01:27As art director, I get the chance to collaborate with all the departments in the studio from narrative to vis
01:32-dev.
01:32We want to make sure the factions feel correct, all the races belong to where they're supposed to be, like
01:38all the realms.
01:39I have very specific characteristics about them to make sure they all fit within the God of War universe.
01:45Sorry, one more thing. Although, these are gifts I'm giving to you, so I shouldn't be sorry and you should
01:50be thankful.
01:51Anyways, here, please be careful.
01:54In the God of War 2018, we saw Brock and Sindri and that was the tip of the iceberg of
01:58the Holdra.
01:59And in God of War Ragnarok, we actually get to go and visit Svartalheim.
02:03Where they're from and a great part of that too is we want to make sure that we expand the
02:06cast.
02:07You know, we've just seen a little bit of what was represented and that was something that we hadn't seen.
02:12Svartalheim is a beautiful place. There's a lot of different biomes.
02:15You go from wetlands to mountain springs and took a lot of inspiration from hot springs, from the minerals that
02:23you find.
02:23A lot of colorful minerals, a lot of resources.
02:26So the dwarves being the races that they are, we knew we wanted to play on that as well.
02:31So you see their influence on Svartalheim on every corner.
02:34It's a realm where you're going to find a lot of other environments.
02:37There's queries. It's a very industrial city. It's very organized.
02:40And you can see all the dwarves putting all the work into creating this great city where they live in.
02:46Knowing that they're blacksmiths, that that was kind of reflected within their clothing.
02:50And you see that within the houses in every inch.
02:53We want to make sure that both the environments and characters had a cohesiveness that felt like every inch of
02:57it felt like it went together and was designed specifically by them.
03:00And again, that's something that we haven't seen in some of the other realms and is unique to these characters
03:04and their location.
03:05And the hope, it all goes together and creates a feeling within a realm that you're excited to see, feels
03:10unique, and really creates that sense of wonder where you want to go back.
03:18When designing a character to match the geography around it, first, it's definitely dictated by the VisDev team and the
03:25narrative team and the story team.
03:27They make sure the character is designed for features that fit in with what they need.
03:32When designing the Grimm's, we took a lot of inspiration from the environment.
03:36So we took a lot of inspiration from lizards, creatures that kind of belong to that environment.
03:39They have those big claws, there's small critters to the big ones and really building up that race, making sure
03:46they kind of belong and that that realm feel lived in and that ecosystem felt like very diverse.
03:51Making sure that it feels natural and believable is a big part that goes into the design elements.
03:56So our artist, Steven Oakley, pulled a lot from the environment concepts that Luke Berliner and his team were doing
04:02and pulled a lot of those into actually the skin texture, even the bulk and volumes that you see in
04:07the characters.
04:08So it really does feel like not only do they belong in there, but you're able to see them and
04:11they stand out for the combat experiences with the character.
04:18Character design is all about storytelling. In the example of Derling, his design was really tailored to convey his own
04:25personality.
04:26He's a bookkeeper from Svarlheim and because his job demands, he's very organized, he's very rigid and he's a very
04:33play by the rules kind of guy.
04:35But then in contrast, you have his friend. So when you see Derling connect with his pet, we see that
04:42he's not all just this rigid librarian guy, but that he's got a softer side to him.
04:47I do believe that we're all storytellers, no matter what we do, even in the tech side of things.
04:52I mean, we work to make these characters that then tell a story and we can also kind of put
04:57those features and traits on our rings.
05:01The prophecies say Fimblewinter leads to Ragnarok. War is coming.
05:06Svarlheim, the dwarves, working with different races from different realms. So definitely seeing Ragnarok and the impact of that into
05:12the realm, it puts them into this position that's very interesting to see which side they take.
05:17And things that they're building. So as you go through the level, you find out a lot more about this
05:22race and the political situation that is happening while Ragnarok and Fimblewinter is taking place.
05:27Hey, dwarves!
05:32Oh, they're running away.
05:34One thing that our hope is with the cast of characters within every realm is not that it's just enemies
05:38there to kill you. We want to feel believable and that there's a wide world out there.
05:42But we want to kind of plant these seeds within any cast of the realm that there's more outside of
05:46what you're playing.
05:46And we want the fans to feel like they can go back and really visit those areas and want to
05:52go explore.
05:53If the geysers and smell here are worse because of Fimblewinter, maybe the earthquakes are too?
06:00Hi!
06:02Going into Sparlheim, I'm really excited for players to experience all the new races that live in that realm. How
06:08they play, they play very different from anything we had before.
06:11There's wildlife, it's something that kind of goes unnoticed, but we took a lot of effort to make the realm
06:17feel believable. So there's a lot in Sparlheim, a lot to explore.
06:20I'm really excited for Sparlheim. It is a gorgeous realm. After looking through some of the cinematics and playing some
06:27of the cinematics and playing through some of the puzzles, I'm so excited how water plays such a big feature
06:32in that realm. And that is so cool.
06:35I'm most excited for fans to finally get to see how the dwarves live. Brock and Sindri were fan favorites
06:41in the last game, so I think that all the work that we've put into Sparlheim is going to make
06:47all the other dwarves shine just as bright as the brothers did.
06:50The best part I have is turning on the YouTube and seeing all these callouts and all the attention to
06:54detail that the fans pick up on. That's one thing that we keep in mind when we're designing characters, to
06:58make sure we do right by the fans.
07:00And knowing that all the work we put in will be seen and appreciated, that's not always the case, but
07:05our fans just get every little nook and cranny on that. And we love that, and we packed a lot
07:10of that in for this new cast, and we hope you guys get the same feeling with God of War
07:14Ragnarok.
07:29PlayStation.
07:31PlayStation.
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