New Final Fantasy XIV in-game and cgi footage have been revealed at kotaku! The video quality isn’t that perfect but imaginary does. Can’t wait for HD version!
Another thing that sparks my attention was a debut trailer for Settlers: Paths to a Kingdom. The legendary Settlers returns to PC in 2010. I remember playing it many years ago and enjoying the green hills and medieval music motifs playing at background. The debut trailer is very and very interesting in terms of creativity. Who knows, maybe somewhere in the future classic table top based games (like Warhammer) would be played like that?
Make sure to check the developer diary with Fumito Ueda, creator of The Last Guardian and experience new bits of footage from his epic adventure.
And if you’re in the creative mood, there are some nice threads goin’ on at ConceptArt.Org. First, check the massive art dump by Marko Djurdjevic with tons of artwork from Marvel universe. This dude is insane you know. But Guild Wars 2 guys are still goin’ crazy with loads and loads of conceptual art. If you’re a fan or prefer hard copies don’t miss their new artbook featuring all that stuff!
Wakkawa a.k.a. Jace Wallace got some nice chicks in his thread. There are some nudies so be warned!
Ooops! Almost forgot! Sergey Kondratovich throw a ton of stuff from Magesty 2 and other projects. Your mouse would suffer, I promise!
ps. In conclusion, you could experience JFBuckner’s MEMORIES SANCTUS Chapt.1 online manga and get some sleep. Cheers guys!
Don’t miss the new trailer from Funcom’s upcoming MMO The Secret World. The CGI cinematic is amazing with mystic feel and very good cinematography so it’s a great continuation of the first trailer. Looks like Digic Pictures did a great job once again! If you’re unfamiliar with these Hungarian guys, well this splash below would speak for themselves.
You can see the trailer from Norwegian website Dagbladet.no or try a direct link (.flv, ~7.7 Mb).
The mystic project codenamed Fortress developed by GRIN was actually a Final Fantasy game (or maybe, based on FF setting). Creators of Bionic Commando, Sweden developer is out of business now with more than 250 employee lost their jobs. I saw a big art dump at Kotaku with sketches and concepts from Fortress and some of the pieces are quite recent (July 2009). ConceptArt.Org website also have an art dump thread with ex-employee posting stuff from GRIN’s projects, including Bionic Commando and Fortress.
Two guys Martin Bergquist and Tony Holmsten started their own freelance illustration/design business presenting a portfolio with Fortress stuff as well. I’ve seen some art dumps at deviantart (arcipello, tonyholmsten) and such things are quite common when big company collapse.
Well losing jobs isn’t that great and I feel sorry for the guys. At the same time I think it’s naturally following from the fact that lots of videogame developers doing the same things. How many times you were fighting against the SWAT guys in futuristic settings? To survive on market and attract players you need something fresh and different.
Make sure to check out awesome (that’s right, awesome) concept art posted on Project Offset website. Many moons ago these guys shocked game developers around the world with amazing real-time engine demo. I’ve been following that project for years and after twists and turns the guys finally landed at Intel. They are still developing the game and polishing the Offset technology at the same time.
What was cool about that project is it’s visual design approach. The technology is moving very fast but design could be timeless. Project Offset offers you heroic fantasy adventure in a vast, exotic world forged with magic and sorcery. Some of the locations actually reminds me of the things I’ve imagined while reading Conan novels by Robert Howard.
If you’re a techy geek then visit the technology section and see all the possibilities and features of Offset engine. For artistic folks, well concept art section and especially environments would definetely put you on fire.
Don’t miss Khang’s Video Blog – Part. 1! Khang Lee is a conceptual artist who has started to visualize Project Offset from the beginning. Now holding an Art Director position he’s still responsible for Project Offset look and feel.
There are also some sort of competition is going on. If you’re familiar with 3D and in-game models creation techniques then you can submit your model(s) to the guys and pray for the best. Looks like talent hunt but someone may be interested anyway.
I’m not goin’ to talk how female characters are dominating the videogame worlds and all that fluff. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with looking at beautiful women. But what do I see is a difference between Western(European) and Asian approaches. They both using female body features as attractors but the results are so different.
Take a look at Jill Nabato, a character from the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII game:
Where is your attention focus? Glasses, face or something else…?
The same works for in-game models though they have more technical restrictions (poly count etc.). Few days ago I was amazed to see this:
TERA is one of my favourite Korean MMO’s speaking of visuals (frankly I don’t play games), and it’s great to see some good character design and modeling work. I strongly recommend you to check the official website for more cool stuff from TERA.
And it’s off topic, but how do you feel about zombies? Read more…
Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a videogame developed exclusively for the Wii. It attracts my attention because of the stunning visuals and art direction. It reminds me of good old days playing Gods (anyone remember Bitmap Brothers?) and other classic arcades. The game has a very distinguish style drawn from Japanese mythology.
While browsing the official website I saw fan art contest announcement. If you’re happen to live in US and at least 18 years old you can participate and maybe win. The organizers are looking for some amazing artists to create Muramasa-inspired Japanese-style fan art. The submission deadline is set to September 1, 2009 11:59 p.m. PST and there are plenty of time. For more details and rules, please, visit the Muramasa website (look for fanart tag):
These big events like E3 is always fun because besides the games and all these new products you can enjoy the female beauty. Personally I’m more into the asian type (isn’t that obvious?) and it was great to discover ChinaJoy expo.
Running since 2003 ChinaJoy is designed to be another top event in global game industry. Everyone knows how big China market is (about a half of WoW players are from China), so such events attracting many companies from Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The goals of the event are similar to others – promoting new products and services, attract public attention etc.
To get some attention you need magnets. Besides all these geeky electronics the best magnet is always been girls. And if you turn these girls into elfs or other fantasy beauties, man, you’ll got all the attention you want. I know it may sounds cheesy but I’ve been painting females for videogames for years and I don’t recall clients saying well, we’re tired of these ladies, let’s put some boyz or monsters on that poster. There are examples of bad design or bad layout however (I remember doing elf mistress for russian mag cover and it was a disaster!) but if done right it’s very rewarding.
Ow man, I just throw eye on my stuff at deviantart gallery and there are just girls, girls and even more girls… Fully clothed, half dressed, nude, in bikini… for someone it may looks totally silly and boring.
Anyway did you ever thought about getting into the Blizzard Entertainment? Joystic team has sneaked through Blizzard’s campus in Irvine, CA and shoot tons of photos! I’ve seen few reports after Blizzard moved to the new campus but Joystic did quite a coverage.
The first thing you’ll see outside is a massive Orc Wolfrider 12-foot-tall statue done by the fabulous guys at WETA Workshop, New Zealand. Around the statue is an eight point compass, which highlights the company’s development mantras:
Ballistic Publishing just launched a brand new, large-format, fantasy graphic novel based on the Utherworlds universe created by Philip Straub. Utherworlds combines a fully-fledged novel with written and spoken languages, maps, and stunning paintings with hidden messages that provide layers of detail not seen in other graphic novels.
Wow… E3 is blowing up with tons of cool stuff. Here are the things that impress me the most (in terms of visual design, look and feel) in no particular order:
The Last Guardian
Originally known as Project Trico – a new game by Fumito Ueda and Team ICO (creators of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus) rising the bar for storytelling and visuals even higher. The design is unique and fits the setting thus creating an exotic, tribal atmosphere. The griffin-like creature is amazingly animated and looks totally alive. Don’t forget about the emotional relation shown between characters in the debut trailer.
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