THE ARTIST ROLE IN GAME DEVELOPMENT
The term Game Artist seems pretty self explanatory . Sure, they take care of all the artwork involved in creating a game but it’s a whole lot more than just creating art. Next to playability, the look and feel of a game is unparalleled. Their work includes detailed creation of the characters, scenes, surfaces, environments, textures, concept art and storyboard. The type and quality of art created also depends on the platform on which the game will be played and the game technology. Some games demand the artwork to be as realistic as possible while others do not. Either way this demands a high level of creativity.
There are several types of artists in game development. Let’s just take a look at a few of the popular ones
Concept Artist : His specific task is to imagine what the item will look like and sketch out preliminary designs for it based on the script. The subsequent artwork by all the other artists is based on the concept art. Their work literally determines the visual direction of the game.
3D Modeller : He develops the concept art with more detail. He also balances the visual richness based on the game’s desired feel.
2D / Texture Artist :He creates the appropriate textures to environments and other game items to make it as realistic as the game requires. This involves a high skill in lightening, perspective and visual effects.
Drawings and creations are fleshed out in 2D and 3D using computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Auto desk Maya. Game artists use programs such as these to handle texture, animation, modeling, and rendering in order to create game on-screen worlds and populations. Although this is a computer graphics focused process, you still use traditional hand sketching in the beginning stages of things like character development and background layouts.
Bigger companies tend to have specialist artists working on different aspects of the same game (3D modelling,environments, textures etc). These people are all under the supervision of the lead artist. For up and coming game devs like Leti Arts, it’s usually one person doing all of these things.
