7:10 In case you or anyone are wondering: the left-most is an Utaru design, while the other 3-- I think-- represent 2 out of 3 clans of the Tenakht tribe, Lowland, Desert and Sky clan: left and right are Lowland clan, and the center is Desert Clan. Sky clan is not pictured for some reason, they have light blue, bright red and white color scheme.
I love the world of horizon so much, its awesome to see a professional break down the designs and explain why they work so well! Thanks for taking the time
I really appreciate your appreciation for this awesome property. With the Utaru (the plant people/farmers) their home, Plainsong sits inside/on an array of satellite dishes. That studio (Guerilla) is world-class.
Please do an art of Dark Souls breakdown like this, the design of Dark Souls has always been really cohesive and literally every single part feeds into the narrative of the world. I also very much like the tone of Dark Souls and naturally the art fits the darkness of the plot, with (emotionally) broken characters that appear at the central bonfire always sitting down to show resignation and defeat. Even in the Art of book you can see that the character had been designed sitting down just as every character's armor and weapons have been designed to reflect their history. What I believe sets it apart and makes it worthy of your examination is the way every last piece of the game's art serves the story and nothing has been designed as just another asset that can be inserted at random, not even the enemies or the NPCs. Each individual character that appears in the game can be interacted with to some degree and they all behave according to their lore in the actual game and I see the art direction as the driving force behind all of this. If you do decide to do a video on the series I believe that Berserk should be mentioned as it is one of Miyazaki's biggest inspirations for the series. It is clear that Miyazaki took note of Kentaro Miura's attention to detail and integrated it into his game design. The books I think you should check out is the art of Dark Souls I, the art of Dark Souls III, or the art of Elden ring. I think the first one would be interesting to look at because it was before the art really started to get more complex, The other two are a good way of seeing the current state of the series and there is generally just a lot more to look at as each game in the series had a bigger scope. Anyways I hope you read this, I love art and I love seeing it broke down by professionals such as yourself in order to better grasp certain concepts myself. thank u :)
Love how you explained all this. Great vid. These designs in games can be so cool but I must admit sometimes it feels like artists get lost in the concept art sauce and hav designs that just aren't appealing from consumer side xD
What I learned from this: - Encapsulate the story of the world in the character design (colours, patterns, story) - Have consistently throughout the design - Understand how the characters survive in their environment, and how they might build weapons armour buildings ect - Story is the most important part of design (must to match story and narrative or doesn't matter how cool) - Don't have too many elements on one culture - Have poses that can show the entire design for modelling (no obscuring) - Get into the head of the character and perceive what's important to them and how they see the world around them - Break the silhouette with something unique while being consistent with the universe its in and the lore and culture, what is their role
i dont think you need content ideas but i think it would be super fun to watch you design a character from just a random piece of a game, like a building or car or weapon, and from that drawing a character. i think it would be fun to watch and learn from
Her name Aloy (Alloy) is all about melding and integration which is fitting considering she utilizes the technology, machines, and environment. Perhaps an even deeper view would be that she is also integrating with the various tribes throughout the game world.
i never realized the pillars on the front cover are the golden gate bridge, I knew it was set after the apocalypse but never realized it was our apocalypse
Excellent analysis, Trent. The art of the 1st Horizon game blew me away, and I'm glad to see the devs held themselves to the same high standards on the 2nd.
As another avid collector of video game artbooks, yep having a good amount development concept artwork makes all the difference. Been slowly getting the monster hunter ones, really good artwork and really good text additions, honestly probably one of those high end choices for a prospective concept artist. Then you get the bane of my collection Age of Conan CE Artbook, it's like all finished promotional work and in game assets set apart, i think it has a few pages of the literal action icons used in game. I probably have a lot of your work in my collection considering i have most of Blizzard's CE books since WCIII.
I am amazed by the aesthetics of the costumes and machine desgins in those two games! But somehow I can't help myself from thinking that the gears and the armors don't look "grounded" enough, I mean, it's obviously not the intention of the artistic team but they almost look like some high fantasy desgins rather than some grounded scifi / tribal universe designs. They always seem a bit "off" to my eyes.
Would love to see you make an analysis for the art style/ world building and character designs of Elden Ring, As the genre and art style is very historical yet mythical ! With enemy dragons and men yielding colossal swords twice the size of them using it xD
hey trent can i ask you a question its someting ive been thinking about alot, How the Blizzard art style. was developed , its my understandting that it came to life becase back in the days the models was so low poly you had to simulate Shadow´s and hide the low poly with well painted models, its intresting how Blizzard is so wellknow for the art style.
2:00 It's fascinating that artists who I respect, like Trent, think that this cover image is "great". It takes skill to make that, sure, but I look at it and see nothing but generic, generic, generic, generic and a huge mess of details with nothing I can quickly identify that belongs to this franchise specifically. Sure, maybe it's just not my jam, I can say that much. But this cover image looks like the best of Artstation art, which translates to "the most generic designs you can imagine so that I can get hired in any company". The character doesn't stand out at all. Looks like some background NPC from Skyrim. The background structures... I feel like I've seen this stuff a billion times already. Heck, I saw more interesting stuff in the Aquatic Moon Zelda challenge. But so the tastes differ. I'm sure it's not one of the most popular titles of the day for nothing.
To each his own for sure, but why do you find the main character generic, i cannot think of any character that looks like Aloy or comes close to it. Just like the creaturde designs, dude there awesome as the best out there and so not generic. Maybe not your taste, sure, but why the 4 times generic, you sure there is not an underlaying issue??
@@piquinto80 Well, the way I judge it is if for example I browse Artstation and see something memorable. These designs would just completely get lost in everything that looks exactly like them, because the site is full of this type of stuff. And I'm sure if I start to post pictures that I think look similar, people can point out how some things are different, but it's just a feeling type of thing. Like often times manga characters of some artists look very much alike so you have to try extra hard to make them stand out. The point I'm trying to make is that this does not stand out for me. If I see it among everything else trendy, then it just gets lost in the noise. It's not memorable. The only thing I can think of that's different are some small details, but it's like if you look at a crowd of people passing by in a metro station and everybody looks like "normal person", then is it enough that well this lady has a different type of gem in her boot? And I'm not saying that you have to stand out by having certain type of clothing. Interesting face is enough... but her face is just generic pretty person. Interesting poses are enough, because they tell you about the character, but her pose is just generic super hero pose. And the creature looks like dime a dozen kitbashed mess of details you see all the time. It's like the case of those gray clumpy alien creatures that have been trendy in movies for the past twenty years for some reason and nothing stands out or is memorable. You know what, the problem is also that whenever I play these modern games and a monster attacks me, it's just a garbled mess of details and polygons. Like everything in that cover image has WAY too much contrast. How about sparing those blacks and whites to a couple of spots and not that everything on screen needs to be either black or white so that there's nothing to focus on and whenever anything is moving on screen, it's like watching at static? I had this issue with Diablo 2 remaster, if you compare it to the original. In the old one, the contrast is used sparingly so you can always see exactly what is happening on the screen, but in the new one every design is hard black and hard white, so if you're moving, the screen turns into a mess. I absolutely hate this trend and I don't know why it's happening. Somebody thinks that everything needs to be more impactful and the way to achieve that is to add 100% contrast to absolutely everything? Here's a quick and dirty edit of the cover: i.postimg.cc/bJKPYk5v/image.png Now my brain might have at least a fighting chance to compute what's happening on the screen.
@@Ianuarius thanks for the response man, i do see it differently, but i get your point. I think the graphics and designs are top tier, absolutely one of the best out there and so so original. The color is so well done and a stark contrast to a lot of the bleak stuff out there. And about the cover, why do you have problems computing with only 2 object in an illustration? That feels kind of strange to me. Maybe you don't like it, but can't compute 2 items without brain meltdown in an image is more your thing i think hehe. And the contrast is just fine, it's a shiny metal creature so yeah automatically there will be tons of contrast, that's just how it works. Nothing to loose your mind about. If the foliage would go to pure white and black, than you have a point, but you just pointed out the most chrome thing ever made hehe.
@@piquinto80 I have this problem with so many games. It's not the amount of "objects" on the screen, it's the amount of "stuff" on the screen, especially when the art director seems to think that every single 3d object needs to be in focus simultaneously. When I play AAA games, and especially 3rd person games, I almost never can tell what's happening on the screen. It's just a jumbled mess of details. I have to stop and look at it for a moment to catch up to what's going on. But looking at the rest of the designs featured in the video, it seems like the artists there thought that "more detail = more quality". I can't argue with the number of people who like the art, but I sure am not one of them, haha. When I think of the art design in my games, I don't think about "is this realistic", I think about "how would it be like to play this". If realistic chrome causes problems, then I'll take some artistic liberties and make it look different. I do admit, I love the amount of color in this.
![งมหอย จับปลา มือเปล่า หาอยู่หากินแบบวีถีอีสานกับแก๊งเซียนหรั่ง ม่วนคัก! [ขอนแก่น] @Sianstudio](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JEJZg6N-AbU/mqdefault.jpg)
7:10 In case you or anyone are wondering: the left-most is an Utaru design, while the other 3-- I think-- represent 2 out of 3 clans of the Tenakht tribe, Lowland, Desert and Sky clan: left and right are Lowland clan, and the center is Desert Clan.
Sky clan is not pictured for some reason, they have light blue, bright red and white color scheme.
I love the world of horizon so much, its awesome to see a professional break down the designs and explain why they work so well! Thanks for taking the time
I really appreciate your appreciation for this awesome property. With the Utaru (the plant people/farmers) their home, Plainsong sits inside/on an array of satellite dishes. That studio (Guerilla) is world-class.
"my eyes aren't as good" yep, I'm living that- and i feel ya.
;)
I'm in my twenties but for my jobs I've worked I've had to stare at a lot of computer screens. It's taken a toll on my once good vision.
Please do an art of Dark Souls breakdown like this, the design of Dark Souls has always been really cohesive and literally every single part feeds into the narrative of the world. I also very much like the tone of Dark Souls and naturally the art fits the darkness of the plot, with (emotionally) broken characters that appear at the central bonfire always sitting down to show resignation and defeat. Even in the Art of book you can see that the character had been designed sitting down just as every character's armor and weapons have been designed to reflect their history. What I believe sets it apart and makes it worthy of your examination is the way every last piece of the game's art serves the story and nothing has been designed as just another asset that can be inserted at random, not even the enemies or the NPCs. Each individual character that appears in the game can be interacted with to some degree and they all behave according to their lore in the actual game and I see the art direction as the driving force behind all of this. If you do decide to do a video on the series I believe that Berserk should be mentioned as it is one of Miyazaki's biggest inspirations for the series. It is clear that Miyazaki took note of Kentaro Miura's attention to detail and integrated it into his game design. The books I think you should check out is the art of Dark Souls I, the art of Dark Souls III, or the art of Elden ring. I think the first one would be interesting to look at because it was before the art really started to get more complex, The other two are a good way of seeing the current state of the series and there is generally just a lot more to look at as each game in the series had a bigger scope. Anyways I hope you read this, I love art and I love seeing it broke down by professionals such as yourself in order to better grasp certain concepts myself. thank u :)
Love how you explained all this. Great vid. These designs in games can be so cool but I must admit sometimes it feels like artists get lost in the concept art sauce and hav designs that just aren't appealing from consumer side xD
This was really interesting! Could you do a video of your favorite art of books?
So good to hear the perspective of an experienced working artist...
What I learned from this:
- Encapsulate the story of the world in the character design (colours, patterns, story)
- Have consistently throughout the design
- Understand how the characters survive in their environment, and how they might build weapons armour buildings ect
- Story is the most important part of design (must to match story and narrative or doesn't matter how cool)
- Don't have too many elements on one culture
- Have poses that can show the entire design for modelling (no obscuring)
- Get into the head of the character and perceive what's important to them and how they see the world around them
- Break the silhouette with something unique while being consistent with the universe its in and the lore and culture, what is their role
OMG this is amazing overview PLS do more of those!
Just discovered this channel. Love it so much. This talk was amazing. Thank you.
i dont think you need content ideas but i think it would be super fun to watch you design a character from just a random piece of a game, like a building or car or weapon, and from that drawing a character. i think
it would be fun to watch and learn from
I do that a lot in my concept art workshops. www.gumroad.com/trentk
Awesome insight, cheers Trent.
Loved this, great insights and your enthusiasm is contagious :) I'd very much like to see that kind of game art analysis more often!
Her name Aloy (Alloy) is all about melding and integration which is fitting considering she utilizes the technology, machines, and environment. Perhaps an even deeper view would be that she is also integrating with the various tribes throughout the game world.
i never realized the pillars on the front cover are the golden gate bridge, I knew it was set after the apocalypse but never realized it was our apocalypse
Wonderful video, Man!
Your enthusiasm is contagious, you really got me exited for this game and design.
Great video Trent. Thank you
great video and explanation of what makes them good/great/detailed without over doing it. wishing you a very Happy Birthday
Excellent analysis, Trent. The art of the 1st Horizon game blew me away, and I'm glad to see the devs held themselves to the same high standards on the 2nd.
As another avid collector of video game artbooks, yep having a good amount development concept artwork makes all the difference. Been slowly getting the monster hunter ones, really good artwork and really good text additions, honestly probably one of those high end choices for a prospective concept artist. Then you get the bane of my collection Age of Conan CE Artbook, it's like all finished promotional work and in game assets set apart, i think it has a few pages of the literal action icons used in game. I probably have a lot of your work in my collection considering i have most of Blizzard's CE books since WCIII.
I keep hearing Trent's midwest accent creep out, but love this video.
Do I have an accent?
@@TrentKaniuga probably not. Midwestern so I may have been hearing things
Good video on a well designed world.
I am amazed by the aesthetics of the costumes and machine desgins in those two games!
But somehow I can't help myself from thinking that the gears and the armors don't look "grounded" enough, I mean, it's obviously not the intention of the artistic team but they almost look like some high fantasy desgins rather than some grounded scifi / tribal universe designs.
They always seem a bit "off" to my eyes.
armor design poggers
Loving this game and absolutely love my HZD art book and creating a champion art book from breath of the wild. Those are my go to's for inspiration.
More videos like this !!!
Great breakdown, thanks.
Just listening to this makes me wanna go buy the first and second one right now 😆
Please, do a 4 hour video analysing horizon forbbiden west concept art , please
Would love to see you make an analysis for the art style/ world building and character designs of Elden Ring, As the genre and art style is very historical yet mythical ! With enemy dragons and men yielding colossal swords twice the size of them using it xD
hey trent can i ask you a question its someting ive been thinking about alot, How the Blizzard art style. was developed , its my understandting that it came to life becase back in the days the models was so low poly you had to simulate Shadow´s and hide the low poly with well painted models, its intresting how Blizzard is so wellknow for the art style.
Eh. How long you been in the Photoshop prison to get that teardrop tattoo homes? What were you layer locked up for? You draw everything on one layer?
"Horizon" is heavily influenced from Monster Hunter period
Utaru are not a race and they don't live in trees
Well, then I guess their concept designers failed miserably then.
This is good stuff but then I go and look at Elden Ring and my eyeballs literally explode from excellent design language overload.
sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh
2:00 It's fascinating that artists who I respect, like Trent, think that this cover image is "great". It takes skill to make that, sure, but I look at it and see nothing but generic, generic, generic, generic and a huge mess of details with nothing I can quickly identify that belongs to this franchise specifically. Sure, maybe it's just not my jam, I can say that much. But this cover image looks like the best of Artstation art, which translates to "the most generic designs you can imagine so that I can get hired in any company". The character doesn't stand out at all. Looks like some background NPC from Skyrim. The background structures... I feel like I've seen this stuff a billion times already. Heck, I saw more interesting stuff in the Aquatic Moon Zelda challenge.
But so the tastes differ. I'm sure it's not one of the most popular titles of the day for nothing.
To each his own for sure, but why do you find the main character generic, i cannot think of any character that looks like Aloy or comes close to it. Just like the creaturde designs, dude there awesome as the best out there and so not generic. Maybe not your taste, sure, but why the 4 times generic, you sure there is not an underlaying issue??
@@piquinto80 Well, the way I judge it is if for example I browse Artstation and see something memorable. These designs would just completely get lost in everything that looks exactly like them, because the site is full of this type of stuff. And I'm sure if I start to post pictures that I think look similar, people can point out how some things are different, but it's just a feeling type of thing. Like often times manga characters of some artists look very much alike so you have to try extra hard to make them stand out. The point I'm trying to make is that this does not stand out for me. If I see it among everything else trendy, then it just gets lost in the noise. It's not memorable.
The only thing I can think of that's different are some small details, but it's like if you look at a crowd of people passing by in a metro station and everybody looks like "normal person", then is it enough that well this lady has a different type of gem in her boot? And I'm not saying that you have to stand out by having certain type of clothing. Interesting face is enough... but her face is just generic pretty person. Interesting poses are enough, because they tell you about the character, but her pose is just generic super hero pose.
And the creature looks like dime a dozen kitbashed mess of details you see all the time. It's like the case of those gray clumpy alien creatures that have been trendy in movies for the past twenty years for some reason and nothing stands out or is memorable.
You know what, the problem is also that whenever I play these modern games and a monster attacks me, it's just a garbled mess of details and polygons. Like everything in that cover image has WAY too much contrast. How about sparing those blacks and whites to a couple of spots and not that everything on screen needs to be either black or white so that there's nothing to focus on and whenever anything is moving on screen, it's like watching at static?
I had this issue with Diablo 2 remaster, if you compare it to the original. In the old one, the contrast is used sparingly so you can always see exactly what is happening on the screen, but in the new one every design is hard black and hard white, so if you're moving, the screen turns into a mess. I absolutely hate this trend and I don't know why it's happening. Somebody thinks that everything needs to be more impactful and the way to achieve that is to add 100% contrast to absolutely everything?
Here's a quick and dirty edit of the cover:
i.postimg.cc/bJKPYk5v/image.png
Now my brain might have at least a fighting chance to compute what's happening on the screen.
@@Ianuarius thanks for the response man, i do see it differently, but i get your point. I think the graphics and designs are top tier, absolutely one of the best out there and so so original. The color is so well done and a stark contrast to a lot of the bleak stuff out there. And about the cover, why do you have problems computing with only 2 object in an illustration? That feels kind of strange to me. Maybe you don't like it, but can't compute 2 items without brain meltdown in an image is more your thing i think hehe. And the contrast is just fine, it's a shiny metal creature so yeah automatically there will be tons of contrast, that's just how it works. Nothing to loose your mind about. If the foliage would go to pure white and black, than you have a point, but you just pointed out the most chrome thing ever made hehe.
@@piquinto80 I have this problem with so many games. It's not the amount of "objects" on the screen, it's the amount of "stuff" on the screen, especially when the art director seems to think that every single 3d object needs to be in focus simultaneously. When I play AAA games, and especially 3rd person games, I almost never can tell what's happening on the screen. It's just a jumbled mess of details. I have to stop and look at it for a moment to catch up to what's going on. But looking at the rest of the designs featured in the video, it seems like the artists there thought that "more detail = more quality". I can't argue with the number of people who like the art, but I sure am not one of them, haha.
When I think of the art design in my games, I don't think about "is this realistic", I think about "how would it be like to play this". If realistic chrome causes problems, then I'll take some artistic liberties and make it look different.
I do admit, I love the amount of color in this.
;)