Graphics Team

Graphics Team

If you are reading this thread, you are most likely an artist that has joined the ambitious project that is Thrive! If so, then welcome aboard! This thread is designed to best ease you and other new artists into the process of developing the game, and providing you with all the relevant information you need. This thread is for keeping track of art assets that have been made, and organizing work towards future art assets. The content on this thread will be for all stages of the game. 

GitHub

Most of our work is done via GitHub, and this includes art as well. The following link will take you to our current task list, where if you sort by tags you can find tasks requiring art asset creation (which is where you come in):
https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive/issues

Important Guidelines:

• Please make sure to first offer to do any tasks before doing them, so that artists don't go ahead creating assets that aren't necessary. Also make sure what you offer to do has been confirmed as being necessary.
  
• Make sure to post screenshots of your work IN ADDITION to posting a download link for the model itself.
  
• Keep the triangle/polygon count on models as low as possible, ideally around 1000, while making them look as good and realistic as possible. Remember, it's always about finding that perfect balance between performance and quality. Also make sure to post the poly count of your model when you submit one.
  
• The following formats are all acceptable for submitting models:
  

Spoiler:

• Make sure that you submit the textures for your models as well, because some of the above filetypes do not include textures.
  
• For any textures or backgrounds, make sure they are seamless and tileable. Also make grayscaled versions, so they can be recoloured.
  

Related Topics:

This thread is basically a rehash of the following threads:
https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t1131-art-team-we-need-you
https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t1036-microbe-models-images-textures
https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t676p45-models-and-textures-project#28523

If there is anything important on those threads that is lacking on this thread, please say so and I will update it. Since we now have this thread, the above threads can be archived.

The concept art thread is very important. Make sure to use it to plan out how models will look like before you work on making them.
https://thrivegame.canadaboard.net/t4-concept-art-thread

What is This Thread For:

Post here to join the art team and start producing assets. Use this thread to showcase your work and give links to it so we can add it to the main repository of art assets. Also use this thread to discuss how to improve the art assets, and suggest what new assets we need (as of now the task list is empty). Also, if you want to help in managing the art team's efforts, use this thread. This thread will basically be the go to topic for the art team.

Lastly, remember to use the concept art thread to discuss and plan out models before making them. Or, if you want to, simply post the concept for it here, decide on a final version, and then create the model.

I didn't know if the rock was supposed to be part of the scenery or a rock for tools so I decided to make 3 rocks of varying sizes.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Here's the model files.

Spoiler:

I didn't add any color so the rocks can be used for different kinds of rocks.

@tjblazer: Good. Do you have skype?

The list of stuff to do is very uncomplete, so tell please tell me if you/anyone thinks there's something else that should be on the list.

Cheese, I think it's redundant for me to have such an OP and then you to have a post containing much of the same information. How about your post be the task list, as well as download links to all that has been created, and I use the OP for the guidelines, artist list, and everything else?

Also, we should now begin a discussion on what art assets we need for the game's various stages, so we can begin to draft a list. At the moment what I can think of is:

For the microbe stage, organelles, sand particles, bacterial film layers, water current effects, light and heat spots, and compound clouds and agent clouds.

Multicellular and aware: Rocks, plants, textures for different terrains, a model for a vertebra, a long bone, and some basic organ-esque models that can be used for various purposes.

For Awakening and onwards: A whole heck of a lot of models, especially function parts, so I don't think we should worry about them now.

NickTheNick wrote:

For the microbe stage, organelles, sand particles, bacterial film layers, water current effects, light and heat spots, and compound clouds and agent clouds.

I know a bit of Paint.NET, so I can see what I can do for any of those which are 2D (I'm assuming light and heat spots, compound and agent clouds, sand particles, and the film layers are 2D).

Can you give me an idea of what the light and heat spots are supposed to look like? They sound rather simple.

How about we add 3D models of twigs and 2D images of heavenly bodies to the list?

NickTheNick wrote:

Cheese, I think it's redundant for me to have such an OP and then you to have a post containing much of the same information. How about your post be the task list, as well as download links to all that has been created, and I use the OP for the guidelines, artist list, and everything else?

Ok.

tjblazer85 wrote:

How about we add 3D models of twigs and 2D images of heavenly bodies to the list?

Added.

Well, since I was bored and I figured they would be easy to make, I went ahead and tried the Light/Heat Spots anyway:

Heat Spot:

Light Spot:

Imgur decreased the quality, here's a .png version of the Light Spot:

PNG Light Spot:

Versions with transparency:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70826176/Thrive/LightSpot_NoBG.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70826176/Thrive/HeatSpot_NoBG.png

While working on heavenly bodies and twigs can help later, I feel like we should focus all the artists on producing assets for the microbial stage. On that note, are we making sure that every microbe in the microbe stage can be built in editor? Or will there be a couple of basic microbes that we should make? Is the organelles detailed in the animation around what we would be looking for in the product?

Falthron wrote:

I feel like we should focus all the artists on producing assets for the microbial stage.

I'm already starting.
Finally something I can do. (even if it isn't that good...)

Compound Cloud:

Spoiler:

Falthron wrote:

While working on heavenly bodies and twigs can help later, I feel like we should focus all the artists on producing assets for the microbial stage.

I agree on that and I'll mark 'em with different priority colours or something.

@AwesomeSiebran: Nice, could you just smooth out the part down in the left-down corner a bit?

@FalmerbloodElixir: Good.

tjblazer85 wrote:

How about we add 3D models of twigs and 2D images of heavenly bodies to the list?

2D images of heavenly bodies? Do you even know how the space stage will work? And no, broken plant parts are something we do not need right now.

@FalmerBloodElixir:

Good work on those. However, how could we create different shapes and intensities of light/heat spots?

@AwesomeSiebren:

some of the edges of that cloud are too sharp. Also, a compound cloud will be dynamic, so would a 2D image cover that?

@NickTheNick: Thanks.

They're very easy to make, actually. If you have Paint.NET, just pick a color and use the Paintbrush tool with a large size, and scribble around a little bit. This is if you want oddly shaped spots. If you want circular/elliptical spots, use the ellipse tool. Then just do Gaussian Blur a few times. The lower the amount of blur, the more intense the effect will look.

Paint.NET is free, by the way, so if you don't have it I'd recommend getting it.

I meant in the game, because in-game there won't just be a circle of light here, a circle of light there. Rather, light will be spread out across the whole tidepool in varying intensities, in a fashion not unlike that of a fractal noisemap. Areas with higher intensity will shine brighter and areas with lower intensity will be darker. There won't just be discrete "spots" of light.

NickTheNick wrote:

I meant in the game, because in-game there won't just be a circle of light here, a circle of light there. Rather, light will be spread out across the whole tidepool in varying intensities, in a fashion not unlike that of a fractal noisemap. Areas with higher intensity will shine brighter and areas with lower intensity will be darker. There won't just be discrete "spots" of light.

Ah, I see. I'm not sure how I'd do graphics for that, unfortunately.

FalmerbloodElixir wrote:

NickTheNick wrote:

I meant in the game, because in-game there won't just be a circle of light here, a circle of light there. Rather, light will be spread out across the whole tidepool in varying intensities, in a fashion not unlike that of a fractal noisemap. Areas with higher intensity will shine brighter and areas with lower intensity will be darker. There won't just be discrete "spots" of light.

Ah, I see. I'm not sure how I'd do graphics for that, unfortunately.

Why not just use actual light sources in the engine?

Couldn't you do light, with actual light, and just put it far off in the distance, or closer to get a fade between intense and faint?

But it needs to exist in measurable intensities in accordance with a random intensity pattern. Please, if you are going to suggest something, be more specific.

Well, intensity could be measured that way, based on how far away the layer is from the light source, making the center of the area the most intense, as that would be the peak point where the player is closest to it, and thus, the most intense. And the closer you make the light, that will also increase intensity, while moving the light source further away from the plane the player is on, would also decrease intensity.

Savvy?

.3.

I know how light intensity works. You don't need to explain that. I'm talking about making light that is hybridized with a noise map, such as the above perlin fractal noise-map, in which any specific point on that map will have a percentage value of light intensity that the engine can measure. A single light source would be incompatible with this.

NickTheNick wrote:

I know how light intensity works. You don't need to explain that. I'm talking about making light that is hybridized with a noise map, such as the above perlin fractal noise-map, in which any specific point on that map will have a percentage value of light intensity that the engine can measure. A single light source would be incompatible with this.

That sounds like something more for the programmers to do. Don't see how any artists could help.

If I may interject, how about setting some sort of grid, where each square will have its own light source? The intensity can then be changed randomly over time, maybe?

NickTheNick wrote:

tjblazer85 wrote:

How about we add 3D models of twigs and 2D images of heavenly bodies to the list?

2D images of heavenly bodies? Do you even know how the space stage will work? And no, broken plant parts are something we do not need right now.

The 2D heavenly bodies are for the night sky before the space stage and I thought that the twigs could be gathered by the player for tools in the tribal stage. Just a suggestion. :D 

@Falmer:

Yep, well, I just want to know that if such a pattern was being pursued, would particle effects for the light still be needed?

@Immortal:

I'm not sure that is how perlin noise functions. Also, light intensities will be fixed, with maybe small shifting to make the underwater atmosphere more noticeable.

@tjblazer:

Even before the space stage what you see in space will be 3D models. Twigs and branches won't be separate entities because twigs and branches come from trees, which are already entities which will be modelled under plants.

@NickTheNick: Ok, thanks for clearing that up.