#Victoria 3 development diary series

Our in-game pixel shaders are extremely flexible and go a long way to helping us create a wide variety of materials. From there, we would texture the model using various techniques to make each surface feel as realistic as possible. Once the high-poly modeling was finished, we would finalize the low-poly mesh and bake out our normal maps. Frequently, our high-poly meshes ended up being more than six million polygons. Sometimes more high-poly details were created in 3ds Max, such as jewelry and belts. In Zbrush, we would subdivide and sculpt our high-poly detail mesh. This mesh would be similar to the final one used in the game, though was more of a base model used to sculpt with in Zbrush. We began each character by modeling a low-poly base mesh in 3ds Max. There were three of us on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock including Mike Friedrich, Jason Maynard, and I. The concept was then taken further, with highly detailed full-color paintings.Īfter the concept stage, the designs were handed over to one of the 3D character artists. We would pick two designs for each character, one for the default outfit and an alternate that can be unlocked. Quite often the designs were heavily influenced by real rockers that define that style. Each design would be unique, yet fit within the rock style of that character. Cameron would create a few pages of thumbnail sketches for each character. He was responsible for the designs of every guitarist in the game, and this is where the process began.

We had one character-concept artist on the team, Cameron Davis.

We believed this gave us the best shot at creating some characters that were really impressive without sacrificing the personality and style the franchise had established. We fired some ideas back and forth and finally settled on the idea of keeping the exaggerated proportions of each character, but creating materials and textures that looked and felt realistic. When creating these characters, our first priority was to retain the comical look of the original Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II while actually bringing them into the current generation of graphics. It has been an absolute blast working on this game and with everybody involved in making it. My name is Chris George, lead character artist on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. In this, our third developer diary for Guitar Hero III (check out parts one and two), Chris George, lead character artist with Neversoft, gives us an overview of how the art team created and updated the characters that will be rocking your socks off when GHIII hits store shelves later this year.

#Victoria 3 development diary series

From the sexy, spunky Judy Nails to the seriously scary Lars Ümlaüt, the axe-slingers in the music game series have always had loads of personality. Beyond the innovative gameplay and great soundtrack, one of the hallmarks of the Guitar Hero series has been its great cast of characters.