Every video game needs a carefully constructed digital landscape for its characters to come to life. This crafted fantasy world is known as environment concept art. Depending on the artist’s unique style and preferences, practically any setting can be created, whether crowded urban cities or harsh outdoor terrain.
Environment artists create a detailed picture of the game using various tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Maya, 3D-Coat, and Substance Painter. However, Environmental concept art is not limited to just creating a backdrop. The foundation of stellar game design relies on synchronizing all visual aspects, including characters, props, and detailing with the game's flow.
So, if you’re new to the world of video games, keep reading to find out how to plan your next landscape digital art project and find the perfect team.
What is environment concept art?
Environment concept art is a type of visual art and design. Concept artists use their skills to visualize ideas for the environment than the production team needs in the game or movie they are working on. The environment can be anything from an abandoned space station, an island in the ocean, a medieval castle, etc. This type of artwork requires very talented and skilled concept artists who can put all the pieces together to make something beautiful among other things. You may not think so, but making environmental concept art requires quite a bit of technical knowledge, especially if you want to create something believable enough to immerse people and completely immerse them in this world you’ve created.
Why is environment concept art important?
Environmental concept art is important because it's the first step in the environmental development process. It allows the artists and designers to brainstorm ideas and better understand how they want the surroundings to look. It's important that the environment in a video game is well-developed and aesthetically pleasing so the player wants to continue playing the game.
A well-developed environment can help the player feel more immersed in their surroundings, which can make the game more enjoyable. For example, a restaurant-themed video game with a fully stocked kitchen, servers, and tasteful decor may be more immersive than a restaurant-themed game in a bare room with bare walls and a single oven.
How to Create Effective Environment Concept Art
Every universe you design for your characters must include a carefully constructed environment. This means that an environmental artist must be able to create enormous wildernesses, bustling streets, and severe terrains that can convey the look and feel of these unique regions to the audience. However, while this may appear to be a difficult task, with adequate preparation, it does not have to be.
Perspective, design, and composition
The most difficult component of environmental concept art is ensuring that the scene corresponds to the action that occurs at that moment in the plot. As a result, these painters must have a keen eye for architectural design, perspective, and composition, as each stroke used to create the scene must correspond to the plot sequence. As a result, most environmental concept art is done with 3D software, which allows the artist to convert all of these precise characteristics into the final product. Finally, allowing them to create the essential tone, visuals, and atmosphere for the story to unfold.
Understand the Story from the Perspective of the Audience
If you want to create attractive and compelling environmental concept art, you must first comprehend the entire narrative from the audience's perspective. Remember that each piece of environment concept art has a certain purpose. As an environmental artist, your duty is to envision and depict these visions and places that may or may not exist and transform them into a realistic setting that will astonish your audience.
Practice Makes Perfect
Aside from drawing principles and an eye for design, when you begin with environmental concept art, you must learn the foundations of animals, nature, plants, and geological qualities so that you can simply recreate them again after time. The best way to improve is to practice as much as possible and draw sketches of landscapes over a period of time. This can assist you understand how to build landscape that transitions naturally over time.
Environmental concept art in polydin
Polydin is an art outsourcing studio collective of 20 industry veterans alongside rising young talents. We are ready to help you with anything game related from story-driven projects to NFT and Crypto games.
Our scope of assistance includes full-on game development, concept art, character and environment concept art, storyboards, level design, UI/UX design, rigging and animation.
Polydin’s mission is simple and upfront. We tend to deliver constant quality as we strive to keep a long-term relationship with our clients. Utilizing our advanced and novel skills has resulted in time and budget efficient methods suitable for small indie studios as well as AAA projects.
What tools can you use to create Environmental concept art?
There's a large variety of tools video game designers use to create Environmental concept art and the environment in video games. Each team may choose the tools that work best for that specific team and project. Some artists may choose to create Environmental concept art using pen or pencil and paper, while others may use a digital sketch pad. After creating the concept art, developers use it to develop the in-game environment. These are some common tools you can use to create the environment in a video game:
Maya
Maya is a software you can use to create 3D animation and visual effects. It helps creators make realistic characters and realistic effects for the environment.
3D Coat
This tool helps creators sculpt surfaces and control the volumetric painting.
3D Painter
3D Painter is another tool creators can use to add textures and shadows to the buildings and structures in the game environment.
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is an image alteration tool that designers can use to adjust objects for the game.
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