Knack 2

Project Date: 2017
Created with: ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Photoshop, & JStudios Proprietary Engine
Responsibilities: Environment Lead, Creating natural vistas and non-gameplay environments for cinematics, Hero props for cinematics, In-house outsourcing direction

Environment Breakdowns: I was responsible for creating cinematic environments, which typically had to wrap around, extend, or otherwise interact with existing level art from JStudio’s in-house team.  This process typically started with getting the level art from that team, creating a very, very optimized export that our animation team used, and then blocking out the artwork.  Depending on the importance and time sensitivity of a cinematic environment, that blockout would either get sent to outsourcing (where they would bring the environment to 75% completion and then I would finalize them) or I would take the blockout and begin to create final art on top of it.  Most of the individual rocks, trees, and structures were created by JStudio’s team, but the large scale terrain, mountains, and layout of the natural landscapes were done by me.  Some of the environments didn’t exist at all (like Monky City or Control Center Island, for instance) and were built entirely by me from blockout to finalization.

Prop Breakdowns: Most of what came in from outsourcing worked well enough, but occasionally there were props that had to hold up to higher scrutiny, and those were my responsibility.  For those props I typically started in 3ds Max, creating blockouts for animation to use.  Then I would sculpt the blockouts in ZBrush until they had a nice finish, and finally, put them through the standard asset creation pipeline.  JStudio’s engine created interesting challenges as the shaders available to work with were somewhat limited and new shaders weren’t an option.  The end results, however, present well in the style of the game.