A few people now have asked how things get made for Worlds Adrift, and instead of just telling you I thought it’d be nice to show you too!
Here is a video of me sculpting the main shape of the Sky Whale in Zbrush. As you can see I am very fast at this.
I usually deal with the early stages of a creature’s development, and they go a little something like this:
Concepting – One of the concept artists roughs up a few ideas either in 2D or 3D – in this case 2D with the Sky Whale. We then hone in on a few ideas, taking into consideration questions like “will this fit with the art style?” or “do the visuals convey how this creature will behave in-game?” or “is the shape/silhouette appealing?” etc. Once we’re happy with a design we prepare it for the 3D artist. In the case of the Sky Whale Dan painted up some side, top and front views.
Sculpting – Using Zbrush I will then go about sculpting up the creature in pieces. I’m only 2 days into this process and would usually spend around 5 or 6 days on a model this big (this thing is big enough to swallow a ship!).
The proportions are still quite a way off (don’t judge me!) but the beauty of Zbrush is that at this stage you’re essentially just working with a big lump of digital clay, so making the tail longer is nice and simple.
Modelling – Once the sculpt is finalised the next stage is making the model nice and optimised. The Zbrush model is currently standing at around 20 million triangles, which as it sounds is a crazy amount. For the sky whale I’ll probably crunch this down to somewhere closer to 50,000. This cuts down on the cost to render such a huge beast and allows us to spend more processing power on making the other elements of the game look good.
Texturing – On a creature of this size we are probably gonna use some nifty new shaders, so there is likely to be some time to experiment to see which shaders will offer the best results. Once happy we’ll jump into Photoshop and start painting the textures directly onto the model in 3D.
This is as far as I take the process.
After this, the model gets rigged, animated, and then linked up with the AI systems to breathe the final bits of life into it.
At this stage I can only stand back and watch as my giant ugly baby flies off into the sunset, tears streaming down my cheeks.
Jack
Artist
@jackgood16
awesome model! cant wait till we can see it fully rigged and textured! well done!! 😀
Thanks Ironcladd yeah I can’t wait either!
Awesome, looks amazing 😀
Cheers Strite!
SKY WHALE! YAAAAY! Can’t wait to grapple onto one and try and ride it / just cling on.
Us: Sky whale?
Devs: SKY WHALE!
Probably the correct impression 😛
Another game with a Sky Whale? YES! 😀
I can’t wait to see it moving around 😀
Also, I see that I have a long way to go before I can even get decent at video game art. XD
I wonder what happens if we grapple onto them…
Do they become angry and try to knock us off or something?
Do they allow you to travel on them?
Or do they just not notice?
Interested to find out! 😀
@Phinox Already covered here – https://www.worldsadrift.com/forums/topic/ama-ask-me-anything-week-2-creatures-answered/#post-4822
Sorry about being late to that, but thanks! 😀
Wonderful work Jack!
Will this be ready–textured and programmed–for the third playtest?
Cheers SkyGuy! I don’t think so. The Sky Whale will probably be last of the 3 creatures we’ve announced to be implemented fully, the other 2 being the manta-ray-like predators and the crustaceany, flying herbivores.
Shouldn’t it have feathers or something? Maybe a transparent belly with a gas lighter than air inside 🙂
There are good reasons in the lore of the world as to why a lot of the creatures look the way they do. I like the ideas but they wouldn’t work with our storyline 🙂
Now, sky whales are great… … … yep. I’m pretty sure I was on the first boat for voting for them (they’re lookin pretty sweet btw). But what about that tiny dinghy we saw in a video once. Is that frame or “object” going to be buildable?
Can you tame them
This looks absolutely amazing!
Is this the final design? Don’t mean to be mean, but its just something about that face that looks a bit like a frog. Especially something about the jaw and neck that breaks from the rest of the design, its more “bubbly” instead of the hard edged shells/armor on the rest of the body. Kinda wish the neck area would have translated over from the concept. Been a huge fan of the idea of a sky whale since i first heard about it so kinda just want it to look the best. Just my opinion though, will enjoy the game anyway.
Btw, love these posts where we get insight on what you do and how you do it.
Keep it coming 🙂
Hey Jens
Thanks for the feedback! Don’t worry this is still very early days into the sculpting process (2nd day of 5). Like you said the head sculpt feels different from the concept, and this will definitely get sorted out 🙂
Nice work Jack. You are pretty fast with that Zbrush.
Do these whale’s lay fuel eggs ? Do the manta rays lay fuel eggs ?
Did you design the manta rays too ?
I think I saw a fragment about fuel eggs in my journal…
Look at its adorable face!
I want a plushie of it!
Nicely done.