Disciples II: Dark Prophecy Designer Diary #9

Entry #9 - 08/06/01

By Raphael Beaupre
Artist, Strategy First

Welcome back to another Disciples II designer diary. My name is Raphael Beaupre, and today I'll discuss the units in Disciples II. I was recently hired by Strategy First, and I was very happy to hear that I would be working on this game because it's not only a great game, but it's also a game that places a huge emphasis on the visuals with realistic backgrounds, highly detailed units, and tons of nice-looking spells.

My work here consists of modeling and texturing all the characters in the game. As you probably know, the world of Disciples II is filled with more than 200 different units. Right now I am reworking the unit models and making changes to them to get them to look as good as they can be. To edit and create the 3D models, I use the latest version of 3D Studio Max. I usually start with a simple box, then I add vertices to it, and then I extrude a face, head, arms, and legs. I do this until I get the look I want. Unlike 3D games, Disciples allows me to model without any restrictions on the number of polygons I can use. This means that I can put a lot more detail into the units than would appear in an online game where the polygons are limited. The great benefit is that the units in the game look much better than they would if they were in 3D. One of the problems I've encountered was in using the "hair and fur" plug-ins for 3D Studio Max. They really didn't help me create the look I was aiming for, so I had to create my own hair models. This resulted in models with huge polygon counts, but who cares! When I render the model, it appears in the game as a simple animation, and it looks great from every possible angle.

My art style tends to be a little darker, and this is another reason that Disciples is a great game for me to work on. Patrick Lambert is the lead artist on Disciples II, and his art style is also very dark and very high in detail, and his drawings are very perturbing. By that I mean that they are extremely detailed, which makes my work a bigger challenge. I have to ensure that my 3D models respect his concept art. The illustration and design classes I took really came in handy because they helped me keep my work in line with the concept art. I think it's essential for a 3D artist to ensure that the characters they are modeling actually look like the concept art and not what they want them to look like. I compare it to observational drawing, which has more than one method: The first way is to study an object and then work from memory. The second method is to look straight at the object and draw it on paper without looking at your paper at all. The second method is better to get the actual shape of the object. These might sound like strange techniques, and the drawings can look weird, but it is a great exercise. For example, I do my best to ensure that the 3D model of the Squire looks as close to the concept art of the Squire as possible, and not what I remember him to look like.

Making the characters look like the original concept drawing is one thing, but modeling a unit so that the animator can animate it easily is another. I do my best to make the character as easy to animate as possible. For instance, I limit the number of layers of clothing to eliminate any problems when the arms are bent. And I don't bother working on parts of the unit's body that are covered and won't be seen anyway, like the arm or leg. As for the mapping and texturing of the units, I create the muscles, faces, and the different material of armor in Adobe Photoshop with a drawing tablet. Using a pressure pencil is wonderful since there is no need to mess around with color tubes or to clean the brushes after you've done your painting. You can zoom in on the eyes, for example, to work on the more detailed parts and then easily zoom back to ensure that the overall image looks good. Once a face is painted in Photoshop, I go back to 3D Studio to ensure that it fits properly on the polygon model. I'm always switching back and forth between programs. I must admit that this part of my job is really fun, and I really enjoy looking at the final image and saying, "Another good-looking unit added to the game!"

And as happy as I am with the new unit models, I can also tell you that the rest of the art in the game is also coming along nicely. The battle backgrounds, the capital cities, the structures on the isometric map, and the rest of the art are in a state of evolution, and it really looks good! And because of the great look of the game, I know that eventually I will meet a lot of you online in Nevendaar (the Disciples world). Until then, you can enjoy these new screenshots.