What's uuuuuup, Neverwinterers?
I'm Dioxazine, one of the concept artists on the Neverwinter team. I thought I should introduce myself, since you'll be seeing my name and face pop up from time to time in news articles and here on the forums.
I'll be chiming in with info on the art side of the development process, and hopefully providing you guys with a bit of an inside look at how we do things here at Cryptic. I'm happy to field any general questions about concept art, design, etc, so feel free to ask if you're curious about just what it is that game artists do.
Looking forward to talking with more of you in the future!
Comments
and I would like to make a request that the "snippets" kind of news, like the ones released this time with wights and undeads (where you devs comment) should be more in next release of information. It gives a nice personal touch to mechanical process of trap making... sorry I mean 'information releasing' (to-trap-more-players)
I've got a question related to the starburst animations that seem to occur on melee contact of each hit. It seems really excessive to me. Blinding in fact.
Is there any information you can give us on this? I'd like to know if there are set plans to turn these effects off or at least tune them down. There are some users sensitive to blinking light and will be a game disqualifier for some that I know personally. Thanks in advance for anything you can divulge.
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Look forward to getting more info from you!!
IT'S A TR- Okay, I'll stop there.
That's the plan! Spirals and I will be chiming in on a lot of the future news posts with bits and pieces of info about the development process. It's something we're really excited to be able to do, and we're definitely looking forward to doing more of them. We owe Stormshade a huge amount of thanks for helping us get it all set up.
I'm not sure, actually! My knowledge is more on the concept design side of things, but I'll see if I can hunt down some info on this. I imagine we don't want to blind our players, after all. Or send them into seizures.
Unless they are induced by pure awesomeness and not flashing lights.
When I first started at Cryptic, I did a lot of my sketching and rough work with plain old mechanical pencil and printer paper. However, since the timeline for concept art is pretty fast-paced, I've transitioned to being almost entirely digital these days. When you go through rounds of reviews with other artists and designers, it's important to be able to change things quickly and make edits without having to re-draw everything.
I still do a lot of sketching at home and for personal study purposes, but for work it's exclusively Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom tablet.
Me too! I really am super excited to be able to interact more with our future players and fellow D&D/Neverwinter fans, and give you guys a look at how we're bringing Neverwinter to life.
I checked in on this, and thankfully there are controls to adjust a lot of effects, so this shouldn't blind anybody. Unless they want it to, in which case you can crank that bloom to max and go to town on some bad guys.
LOL! Thank you very much.
!!! Yeah I have used Adobe and Macromedia software mainly over the years myself for my work. Funny thing is, just to show my wilting age.... I started drawing concept art on my Commodore 64's Koala pad!! That stupid thing is probably in the Smithsonian at this point... but here's a short blog so you may laugh at how we USED to do things and us older blokes can reminisce with beers in one hand and canes in the other! hahaha
http://www.retroist.com/2012/01/23/the-koalapad/
Ok on to some questions:
1. Any chance you could fascinate Stormshade at lunch tomorrow and get him to release the "upcoming" beta release schedule Andy promised us Soon (tm)? Be sure to boost your perform skill before you try though, and don't forget to displace yourself first!
2. Will there be built in VoIP at launch? I find it much easier to manage then goofing around with teamspeak/vent.
3. Can we have a group or team set up for a foundry creation or does it have to be only through one person (and one single person's account)?
4. Will there be PC housing, or guild housing?
5. Anything you can tell us on crafting?
6. We know from your other games that character creation will be long hard work for some players that want their character just right. Is there any way we can save our character presets at beta, so as to save time at launch?
7. Will rules for encumbrance be present?
8. Bards. Will we see them in Neverwinter as a playable class?
9. Can we get rid of these ridiculous Carebear clones, and get some actual D&D artwork displayed on this site?
10. Any chance we can have a contests on the forums to get the community morale a blazing and involved? For example: Best user generated concept art. Most creative video on "Why I want a beta key?" A one day trip to meet the dev team. Etc...
I realize these questions may not pertain specifically to what you do, but they have been on the forums unanswered for quite some time. I thought assembling some of them might make it easier to get them answered in one fell swoop. Thanks for any foresight you can you can share with us!
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
You know, it's funny, I have both of those (CS3 and a Wacom tablet at least) but never made the transition to digital. My tablet sits in a closet collecting dust because it was bought recklessly on impulse. If those are the tools of a professional, then you make me want to dig my tablet out and try it again. I'm sure I can find some resources to learn on the Internet someplace.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiration.
AWESOME NEWS!
This is what I needed. I will talk to guildies concerned that there are sliders to tune down the sparklies. Thank you very much to you for doing the research and whoever was responsible for building in the customization option for this.
/Impressed
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
A lot of these are things I can't really answer. Largely because (and I use this line all the time at work), "I just draw things." We also have an awesome marketing team who have their own plans to introduce a lot of information about the game through articles like the recent ones for Ebon Downs.
They know about a billion times more than me about that sort of thing. While I can sometimes answer questions about the art side of the game, I'd rather avoid trying to answer anything outside of that scope. I'll leave that to Stormshade. I just paint elves and armor.
There are a couple that I can drum up some answers for once I'm back in the office on Monday. Until then, I am off to get married in Vegas. I'll be back next week, hopefully with some info on when we might be able to show you some concept work.
That's understandable. Thanks for quick response none-the-less.
HEY CONGRATS dioxazine!!!! Best of health, wealth and true happiness!
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Congratulations!
Also, when back, please tell the person who designed this page that it was awesome. Also probably make more pages like that. I have always been the fan of that page ever since forums were merged. Though forums may need a lot of work, if more such pages are coming it would well be worth the wait.
Congratumalations! Glad to see the staff is still allowed to have fun.
Hokay, so I'm wondering when more concept art will be released (it's been a long time!). I really enjoy viewing the artwork and admiring the talented artists. Also as a fun topic, what has been your favorite creation during this whole NWO project? It could be a monster design, environment design, anything!
LOL...try the other sex.