Update:Blog - Where Pretty Things Come From

This official news post is copyrighted by Jagex. It is a direct quote from the 8Realms website.
This update was authored by Mod Jamie and was released on 03 February 2011.

Where Pretty Things Come From

The Art team are focused on populating the 8Realms world with loads of exciting visuals. There’s a vast amount of graphics required for the game, so a streamlined production pipeline is essential. Some of the assets currently in production are based on real-world places and items, so initial reference can be taken from the real thing. Our concept artist interprets the items into the art style of the game: caricatured, bold and vibrant. The artist creates quick sketches to simplify the design and pick out the defining features.

The design is then passed to our modeller, who creates a basic 3D version of the item. This allows us to quickly define shape, proportion and perspective with the ability to make changes on the fly. Modelling the assets also allows us to create renders of the items with different views and sizes, providing an accurate base for the 2D artists to work from. This is ideal for creating promotional art and website graphics.

Finally, the 2D artists complete the assets by painting details over the render images. It is important for the 2D artists to bear in mind that the assets are used at a fairly small scale in the game, so simplicity is the key. We hint at the details without drawing every brick, as such fine details will not be visible.

The assets are then scaled and exported into sprite sheets, ready to be loaded into the game.

Mod Jamie

Art Lead