Basic Game Art Concepts - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 4

Naturally, as fewer things are fixed, or as fewer large-scale things are fixed, the game pro-
gresses to its final gold state.
This selection of design methods offers a sample of how studios customize their design
process to create better games. While this topic focuses on art asset creation, it is help-
ful to understand how individual assets , or pieces of art that go into the game, fit into the
workflow of a whole game. If you understand how your art will be used, the transition
from Blender to a game engine will be easier.
Now that you have an overview of the game design process, it is time to look at how art
assets are planned and created.
Creating Game Assets
Creating characters is an intricate part of the concept process. Good character art is the
result of not only interesting artwork, but often good writing. In line with Fullerton's
process for good game design, much of the work for character development is done on
paper, where the character's personality is developed. When planning characters, try to
come up with ideas for the character's family, background, tastes, political and religious
beliefs, and possibly even more personal/risqué parts of what makes them who they are.
Although the written part of character creation seems unrelated to the art portion, the
character's look can depend greatly on personal preferences established in your text. A
character's animation may eventually be impacted by this information, as the way he or
she moves and reacts will be determined by personality traits.
Creating Concept Art
When a character is well defined in writing, their look is defined with a series of perspec-
tive or action drawings. Main characters obviously require a lot of design, not only to
make them visually engaging but also to make them marketable. Other characters can
require varying degrees of elaboration.
The role of concept art in game asset production cannot be downplayed: Concept art
gives designers an educated idea of what to produce. It also establishes the look of a game
well before asset production has started. Even for basic characters, an understanding of
the game's look in 2D can be incredibly helpful once 3D work begins. It can be difficult to
work from 3D right away when it comes to character art.
Digital Painting
A key method of concept art creation is digital painting. Digital painting is the act of
using the paint tools of a photo-manipulation program to create conceptual imagery.
Examples of this type of software include Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Corel Painter, and