Exploring Initial Ideas: Environment Art

As briefly mentioned on my previous introduction post, I had a list of topics for my MA that were my initial ideas. They were:

• Accessibility
• Social and ethical problems within games
• Artificial Intelligence
• Learning and teaching others within games
• Lighting and atmosphere within games
• Visual communication
• Lore and worldbuilding

However, since then, I've still been trying to think of other topics or areas that excite me the most. This led me to my newest topic idea, and perhaps the one I might be most passionate about at the moment:

Environments Within Games

A good game environment encapsulates a snippet of a world within a game, representing all the storytelling and worldbuilding within it. 

I think that this topic might be a good fit for me because, within environment art, I believe I can cover other smaller topics within it that I mentioned before; like lighting and atmosphere, visual communication, lore and worldbuilding, and even accessibility. 

Also, it helps that I also want to be an environment artist! 

An environment artist's role tends to be quite generalist, with them getting to cover a lot of different aspects, such as; modelling, sculpting, textures, materials, painting, and lighting. Especially though, the goal is to completely dress a set typically from concept art or a block-out - turning it into an immersive world keeping in mind the game's story, lore, realism, and many other aspects.

Apart from the fun art side of it, an environment artist must also keep in some less fun things in mind, such as topology, gameplay and technical restraints, and general optimisation within their work. 

According to an article from Unreal engine, 'What is an environment artist?', an environment artist requires a certain few skills in particular:

• A great artistic eye
• Knowing what “makes a scene”
• A firm understanding of architectural elements, environments, and props
• The ability to take a block-out from Level Designers and turn it into a fully lit/crafted level
• The ability to work as a team
• Excellent at problem-solving
• The ability to be detail-oriented, while also seeing the bigger picture
• Strong multitasking skills

3 Week Brief

I would like to take this 3 week project to purely research into the development of Riot Games' environment art, particularly League of Legends. However, I'd also like to cover their other games within the same universe and artstyle; Wild Rift, Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, and perhaps Valorant.

What I want to achieve with this project:

• A further understanding into industry-level environment art processes.
• Find new techniques that I can apply to my own work.
• Be able to break-down and analyse specific Riot Games artwork.
• Find reliable sources of League of Legends behind the scenes content.

Project Outcome:

• A detailed blog post documenting and collecting all I have researched and reflect on my findings.
• One creation pertaining to the research I have conducted; a sketch, sculpt, presentation, design, etc.

League of Legends 'Summoner's Rift' Map