Star Wars: the Old Republic development team shared some more
behind-the-scenes information with you and show how our Art Team came to develop
what they have come to call "tylized realism".
The details are as below:
The overarching goal of the art for Star Wars: The Old Republic is to bring
concept art paintings to life in 3D. This goal has led the artists to forego the
use of photographs for surface textures in favor of hand-painting every asset.
The concept art also drove the game art to match its heroic and idealized
proportions of the characters and environments. Part of remaining true to the
classic big screen vision of Star Wars™ is not only to look like it, but also to
ensure that the art feels like it on the small screen. There is a fine line to
follow in being true to the realistic expectations that we inherit from the
movies while making style choices that will play well on the computer screen.
This distillation of the Star Wars vision through a painters eye and a fan's
heart forms the core of the visual direction of the game.
The stylized realism approach has many advantages. For instance, Star Wars:
The Old Republic will have a unique and instantly recognizable appearance which
will continue to look great as it ages. Being on the bleeding edge graphically
is a lot of fun for artists, but as that edge moves forward, games that were
once living at that frontier of graphics tend to look dated as technology
improves. We want to achieve visuals that look great at the lower-end computers,
knowing that if they look great there, they will look great on all machines,
both now and in the future.
One of the visual style choices made for Star Wars: The Old Republic is a
modeling technique we refer to as the "crease". The crease can be described as
the lines you would make when drawing a character in ink. Each line creates and
defines the shape of a surface and is often seen in modern industrial design. It
helps define surfaces and works very well with the in-game lighting.
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