Concept Art Thread

Remember that this thread is for artists to post concept of what modellers will create. It's not just to post fan art.

NickTheNick wrote:

Remember that this thread is for artists to post concept of what modellers will create. It's not just to post fan art.

I wouldn't blame it on him, the title of the thread is extremely misleading.

I wouldn't say the title is misleading, since it is concept art for the modellers, and fan art is not concept art, but the OP could be improved to clarify this.

In thar case I'm sorry. Since there is no fan-art thread I'll try to come up with something that could be modeled. I'll look if there are some ideas for what could be needed anywere on the forum.

MirrorMonkey2 wrote:

I'll look if there are some ideas for what could be needed anywere on the forum.

This may be interesting to you.

I haven't left. I've just been busy with homework.

And it just so happens that some of my homework involves a small alien monster!

Concept art:

Render 1:

Render 2:

Render 3:

I've been learning a lot about 3D modeling and animation this past few weeks, and this has yet to be animated. The final project will involve a hair sim.

That is amazing!

I was a little bored today in class and I've drawn this 4 eye-feathered-velocirraptor-with a horn:

Spoiler:

Is supposed to live in forests (nope jungles) with tall trees.

PS: If somebody makes a 3D model i'll be so happy

So, I was looking through here for some concept art to feed to a new modeller for things like compounds and whatnot; and I couldn't find any. If we have some stuff already, could someone point them out? And if not, here's what I think we could use right now:

• Oxygen (currently a placeholder)
  
• Carbon dioxide (also a placeholder)
  
• ATP (as far as I can tell, it has never been tackled)
  
• Glucose (I remember seeing some sketches somewhere of hexagons, and we currently have a model, I'm not sure if this is final)
  
• RPase (we have art, but if anyone can make something that would make a better model, then sure)
  

Thanks!
EDIT: Wait wait scratch that the compound models are all temporary anyway. So I'll make a different point:

We have loads of concept art for cool creatures. This is good. However, in the end, we're making a very heavily PCG-oriented game. Creature models and sketches can't get turned into game assets directly, they must be distilled into the little bits that could. What, going forward, will be more directly usable by modellers and programmers is sketches like this.

So, going forward, we'll need more of those. Pick something (FP, external body bit, bone, muscle, clothing, whatever), figure out some ways we could procedurally morph it, and start drawing variations. Thus,when we get to making such a part, we will know how to transform the model (deformation math), and how the user will do so (handles, UI).

This way, we can drastically lower the number of iterations before a model made off a vague concept becomes acceptable, which means fewer frustrated concept artists, fewer frustrated modellers, and fewer frustrated programmers :D. Everyone wins!

moopli wrote:

So, going forward, we'll need more of those. Pick something (FP, external body bit, bone, muscle, clothing, whatever), figure out some ways we could procedurally morph it, and start drawing variations. Thus,when we get to making such a part, we will know how to transform the model (deformation math), and how the user will do so (handles, UI).

I'll do some concept art for specific organism parts.

After some tweaks, I am ready to contribute to to the concept art thread! I would love critique as I can easily make improvements to it.
My first concept art, volcanic apocalypse:

I think you're mistaking concept art with fan art. Concept art (or at least, how we use it) is for when we need assets in game, such as models, GUI, animations, etc, and we want an image of what it will look like that is easy to make, hence a concept image/art.

Although drawing dinosaur like creatures can be fun and cool, it doesn't relate to the development in any substantial way (correct me if I'm wrong).

Agreed -- though don't be too discouraged. With a bit more effort, fan art can be turned into concept art. For example, this dinosaur drawing you posted showcases a couple things (this list is probably incomplete):

• Fog effects -- the fading into green
  
• Terrain generation -- the pattern of the cracked mud
  
• Plants -- the grass, which in this case isn't very dense (reflecting, doubtlessly, the population density of the species in question)
  

As for the creature:

• Armour plating -- we can't just use squishy-smooth skinning for all the parts, armour is much more geometrical
  
• The body looks like it has fur, while the belly seems to be covered in a series of segmented scales, so your picture is telling us we'll have to be able to mix and match different kinds of surfacing
  
• The mouth sawtooth-tusk apparatus: clearly, people should be able to go nuts with whatever mouth designs they want, but how will we decide what a good mouth is?
  
• I could probably draw some conclusions about the limbs and claws, but I'll leave those to you.
  

So, yes Nick is right -- if you want it to relate to development, that is, if you want it to be worth posting here, then when you post an art like this, list off the design decisions you made, and add more pictures to showcase each design idea. I'll let you off the hook cuz you just made an art like almost all the art on this thread, so it's not like you really did anything wrong knowingly.

I think it's high time we had a new thread for concept art, one that's more stringent, which outlines what would make more useful concept art. I'll get right on it.

Edit -- @RabiesPig: you're already doing a better job than most on here, because all your concept art over on the GUI thread has been very useful concept art. So. No need to regress

Thanks, didn't realize this was the wrong thing to post here. Oh well, I'll get back to GUI then.  :D 

Quick sketch for a Thermoplast model, been looking at pictures of chemoautotrophic bacteria found in hydrothermal vents.

Spoiler:

@RabiesPig It's your choice where you contribute, so I won't force you to either try more concept art or to stay away -- what I was getting at is that if you posted a drawing like yours here, but you also added a bunch of discussion points and maybe some simple sketches to outline specific features of your drawing, so there's more clear concept in the art, then it's all good.

@Tritium The third is nice (first and second could be mistaken for mitochondria at a glance, and the inclusions in the fourth aren't as defined), what sources are you working off of? What are their sizes?

I honestly dont know what that was, of course ill keep doing concepts. Is CAv2 (concept art v2) still a thing?

Yes. CAv2 is now open for business. With some clear guidelines from the get-go, we should be able to get much more useful concept art. I'd suggest we go through this thread and crosspost the good examples over there, to get the ball rolling, and so we can close this thread.