The Lead Artist Environment World Of Warcraft
So, Gary, why do not you start to tell us a little about yourself and how you got into the game industry?
Gary Platner: I just answered an ad in the newspaper, it was back in 1993. This was the announcement from the company Sega. They then needed an artist, but I just got a higher education in this part, so I decided to write them. But they did not take me to work because I have not studied at the Art Center (College steep for artists and designers. - Approx. Interpreter). Apparently, I approached him on all counts, but they did not take me because I did not finish Art Center. But this ad has pushed my interest in the world of video games. Then I just settled on the first available job in Costa Mesa, and worked there for several years. Then I worked at Interplay, where he was art director at work on Fallout 2. I was a leading artist in the development of the first Fallout, and a little more involved in the development of Torment. And then I just went and got a job at Blizzard in May 99. And so to this day, for 11 years, I work here.
Rob Simpson: Cool, cool. Tell us what is the responsibility of the lead artist environment? What do you do it you?
Gary Platner: Team to work with the environment is small enough, we worked only 4 people. Our task is to create peace. As I usually say is, we have added the word "peace" in World of Warcraft. We create different natural elements of the game - the trees, rocks, ground textures and clouds in the sky, not even water, in general stuff like that. Furthermore we do and other things. For example, draw a boot screen. A short introductory videos that you see when you create a new character - is also our job. But our main goal - to provide our creations level designers from other teams.
Rob Simpson: Stunningly, it turns out you are giving into their hands a lot of components from which they then create the whole world.
Gary Platner: Yes, we give them their pictures. We do a lot of paint. First, we draw an outline of how our view should look created by location, and then with the team for level design, we discuss that the appearance and detail.
Rob Simpson: Tell me about what part of your job are the software tools and what the program has your team? In fact, after so many years creating various elements of the environment for World of Warcraft you probably developed a kind of gentlemen's set.
Gary Platner: Oh, we often resort to using such tools. We have our own editor - WowEdit. This program over the years changed and updated many times, almost every month there appeared something new. We have a very active team in creating such tools.
So WowEdit very much changed. He became a great tool for the job, it is very convenient to draw. Using the Wacom pen can paint and then apply the texture on the game objects, and you can change them to move, to increase in size or draw directly on top of objects. This is a very handy program, and in recent years it has been very well improved.
Rob Simpson: After so many years of work, the difficulties you face in the light emerged and future additions to the game? Especially before Kataklizom.
Gary Platner: There are difficulties - where do without them. Well, we were pretty hard at the beginning of the renovation of the old world. A lot of things if we could not do. Most players probably has no idea, but the reason we decided to update the old world - it limits the game engine. You can not see objects very far away from you - there is such a thing as a level of detail. It makes sense to reduce the number of polygons for the mountains - when you look into the distance, you can not see details, so it would be reasonable to remove a couple of polygons. We had to edit the model of the mountains, but now we no longer need to worry about such things - the players were able to see much farther than before. And after this intervention into the game we went back to the basic idea - to make the world a more detailed, at the level of Northrend, or even better. If you remember, the mountains in Northrend look much more attractive than in the old world.
In the Underdark, too, had tricky. We wanted to do in something like a giant cave-like planet, but were not sure how to correctly implement. In our opinion, the game engine needed a new technology to make the surface not only under, but over the player. Ultimately, we convinced ourselves that, without such technology can not do, and forced the team to develop the engine to finish the feature. And while they were working on implementing it, we concluded that this technology actually we do not need and can do without it. Reaction team was about the - "Hey, we killed a month for this feature, but it turns out you do not need? ". To which I replied: "We need somewhere we use it, but not this time. "
Rob Simpson: What were the rest of your steps on the initial outline of the history of the Cataclysm to visualizing ideas and update all aspects of the game?
Gary Platner: Every time you give the artist the opportunity to work at his old job of his natural desire to greatly improve the old stuff. While working on Cataclysm we stuck around a circuit. We discussed each area and discussed what we would do it over, and then all of these ideas are reflected on paper. Because we are artists, it is extremely important to us to see the final version of what we discussed. Simply great pictures that we would like to see in the game. And when you draw the appropriate option for this or that idea, we immediately see that that's exactly how it should be. So the figures we had really a lot. They helped us to draw Justin Kantz, Gus Schmidt and Mark Gibbons.
When we have on hand all the necessary art, we can begin to sculpt out of him playing. Concept art - it is for us a sort of plan. We must think of the color area, lighting, ground textures look like trees and so on. People probably do not know that when you do a game like World of Warcraft, then you have to do it so as if it worked on one single person, but at the same time on different aspects of the game are different people working. Different people do the building, different people create lighting and everything else, too, do different people, but at the same time these people try to stick to one style throughout, though the game does just one person. Try to make the game look like a finished painting.
Rob Simpson: From the environment that you created in these years, which created or modified elements of the environment you most like the most?
Gary Platner: Oh, so many of them. Of course, all of them I really like, they really are all good.
Rob Simpson: Well, pick the most-favorite.
Gary Platner: Easily. I have a "favorite" - is Vaysh'ir - it is great! When I first heard that we need to do is completely submerged zone, my first thought was: "What shall we do with it, it's nonsense one. " But in the end it came out very, very well. I also like Lost Islands, Kezan and starting location of goblins.
But perhaps my most-favorite band - is Gilneas, and starting location Worgen. It turned out great. Then, as entered in the zone structure, clothing Worgen in the human and wolf form - it all perfectly in harmony with each other, creating a unique atmosphere and emphasizing the uniqueness of this location. It is simply mesmerizing.
Rob Simpson: Was there something that you can do now, but previously could not? Tell us about new tools and other things that will appear in the process.
Gary Platner: It was. In fact, such things were a lot of. I have already spoken at BlizzCon about vertex shaders - this is my favorite innovation. Thanks to the vertex shaders, we can add to the play of colors and lighting, we can draw anything, anywhere. For example, the use of shaders to highlight something or for shading, which gives a greater amount of game objects -
wow power leveling.
In the Cataclysm, we had such a thing as spotlights. Take for example a lamp, we can put it anywhere in the game, and it will cover the plot, character or to paint them another color. Or to hell with the lamp. For example, we want to change the lighting of the entire zone (example - when the location of flies Deathwing, the whole area takes the purple-red tones. - Approx. Interpreter) - with the spotlight we can do it, but before that could not. Really cool!
But that's probably the best out of all our innovations - is LiveUpdate. The idea is that if you did something WowEdit, you can fly to patch your game, come and see how it will look like in practice. I can not keep your client open World of Warcraft, this time to draw something in WowEdit, and then switch to the window with the game and see what I've done. Very convenient to immediately see the fruits of their work from the eyes of an ordinary player. So that's the tool perhaps the coolest of all, that we have.
Rob Simpson: Well Well, Gary, thank you very much for taking the time for us. See you in disaster!
by: videogame
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