Art & Graphics Design Moderator
- Joined
- May 26, 2008
- Messages
- 4,463
Made by
Original art made by Vincent Turcot (aka Mr.Goblin)
Introduction:
Once upon a time, in a galaxy....quite close to ours, in a shared reality... as I was exploring the hiveworkshop for a fun map to indulge myself in with a good friend: We stumbled on quite a refreshing experience called The World of Sedonia made by A certain Johnny Boy. This RPG experience gave us a solid 20 hours of fun and bonding. A standing ovation was well earned from our respective parties. Upon the realization I became a super fan as fast as you could say Eh?!! (I'm Canadian, let's keep it real) I decided to join the discord community of this excellent rpg slowly gaining traction on a thing called ''the hype train''.
As an artist and above all the lovely Hiveworkshop art moderator, I decided to reach out to Johnnyboy (our lord and mighty creator of Sedonia) and offered him my skills and knowledge on Art direction.
He accepted......After being nagged by the fan child I was, for a unhealthy amount of days. Lesson learned: I'm irresistible.
AND THUS BEGAN THE EPIC QUEST OF ''FACELIFTING'' A THING CALLED: THE TERRAIN. A technical term used by the hiveworkshop to qualify the level art and level design of a game.
In the following lines, i'll try to breakdown the thought process of my eccentric french Canadian goblin mind in a cohesive manner.
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Now that I had the quest to rebrand and remodel the terrain of Sedonia I got into a long discussion with the creator on how I could improve and change the art direction of every region. For the uninitiated: Sedonia is a slow pace RPG based on a ''stairway'' type of gameplay design. You are set to explore and complete all quests set on an island(The first step), until the story and the level progression you've made tell you to go explore the second island (the next step) and so forth... just like a stairway, get it? Alright! UNWARD!
===================NALUMIA (Starting zone)=================== -Level 0 to 8- As the starting zone, the first key word that came to mind is = The Shire. The lovely and well known Hobbit filled fields of the Lord of the ring universe. A place of peace and quiet, with a hint of darkness and mystery as the Wraiths are looking for the One ring. To give a sense of wonder and warmth, I decided to improve the original design made by Johnnyboy and give it a little bit more panache,vibrancy to the colors while also adding a bit more warm colors. By adding sparks of colors with the use of yellow flowers, changing the first village with a more rustic and handmade approach...  /   / 
Every quest would lead you to one of those specific regions, which would in turn expand the narrative visual of the World of Sedonia. For example: I made sure every village would have different looking houses. I made the ''Nightmare'' quest's region feel a bit more haunting, etc.  / 
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===================NALUMIA ISLANDS(Starting zone)=================== -Level 5 to 8- As the quest would lead you, the Nalumia Islands were the second area you would explore as the player. A place filled with killer Lobster type monsters, I carried the general feel of the first island but added a shoreline, sand banks twist to it.  /   / 
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===================PIRATE SECRET COVE=================== -Level 10- For that area, I wanted to sell a sense of stench and foulness in the air. As pirates, I wanted players to feel uneasy and repulsed by the poor maintenance quality of that secret cove. Thus, I added more noise, more ruins and crates to bring a little more chaos into the scene.  / 
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===================RURODUNUMIA (Second Region)=================== -Level 10 to 15- As the Second region players would explore, I wanted to create a visual clash with the first island without alienating the players too much. As the first design went, JohnnyBoy tried to add a little bit of mysticism and magic through the use of Golems and Treants mobs players had to kill. I expanded on that idea. As the conversation went forward. I decided to follow the same guideline I had for the first island, but shift the warmth of the first island and switch it for a chilling sensation.  /   / 
The keywords I wanted to follow were: Hidden ruins, careful wandering and fairies.  / 
As the second regions, I knew this would be the hook that would keep the interest of players. As the second island, you would know from that point on: every island would be different from the first and so forth... and that! is enough to spark interest about the future of your quest; something I thought was missing from the original terrain.  / 
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What was also interesting for this area is how JohnnyBoy structured it in different regions: The town, the boar forest, the mining village, the treant forest, the golem lair, etc. From his original design I tried to give a distinctive flair to each region without going to far away from the art direction of that island. So for exemple: the Boar forest is more teal in tint, while the treant forest is more purple.
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===================EMBERGIA(Third Region)=================== -Level 15 to 20- From Early summer breeze to mid november chilly air..... comes FIREE!!! The original design from Johnnyboy was simple: There's fire lizard burning everything... thus everything must burn. Through brainstorming he suggested I should aim for a more ''fall/autumn'' type of environnement. I fully agreed. Fire is red, so are the autumn leaves... a perfect mix!  /   /   /  The main idea of this region was inspired by this concept-art. 
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===================LBACHAL(FOURTH Region)=================== -Level 20 to 25- For Llabachal... the land of the ogre. Johnnyboy and I brainstorm the idea of oasis within a desert. I Agreed. It would also bring a change of style and art style from the previous regions! Even in terms of color it would be different. From bright green to Dark green and blue, to Fiery red then to desaturated sand. It would be an interesting change from the rest! I also wanted to break away from the chaotic and noisy look of Embergia and give a little bit more space to the overall region.  /   / 
The biggest challenge of that region was to reinvent the original design and structure of the village. I wanted to recreate that Arabian fortified feeling while also selling the idea of a hub of trading and cultures. I'm quite pleased with the end result.  /   / 
It was also fun to play around with the different warcraft3 doodads at hand.   / 
The main idea of this region was heavily inspired by the act 2 of Diablo 3 town. |
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===================VEZE(FITH Region)=================== -Level 25 to 30-] For Veze Johnnyboy decided to show off. Seeing my work shape into existence he was inspired and decided to give it a go at the terrain himself. So enjoy his work! I can't comment about his thought process... but I can surely gosh with the rest of his fans! /   /   /   / 
I knew JohnnyBoy wanted to aim for a Royal Autumn feel.... or as we call it in Canada: L'été indien. That random heat wave we have in early october when the leaves start to change. Allowing to wear t-shirts outside while everything is turning red... before the cold starts to hit and november makes everything looks grey and dead. I know he was heavily inspired by the art-direction of one of a region in HANDS OF FAITH |
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===================XISHU(FITH Region)=================== -Level 30 to 40-] And here goes the latest region I had to design. Xishu, the land of the Elves. The original design was a mysterious lush forest with spiderwebs everywhere. I argued with Johnnyboy we should have a Snow region. We covered every season .... it would be a waste and quite unfaithful to the rpg troops to not have a snow region.... and thus came Xishu. This region, just like any previous ones, was split into areas. The spider area, the summoning temple region and the dragon's spiky mountains.  /   /   /  Let the dragons roam free!!!  /   / 
I had quite the struggle with this region, in all honesty I was quite inspired and creativity was hard to come by. But here's the end region either way. |
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===================DUNGEONS AND EXTRA CONTENT(END CONTENT)=================== -Level 10 to 80-] Being the awesome game it is, there's plenty of dungeons to explores and grind in And areas you can explore when every you reach level 80. For that aspect. JohnnyBoy took the lead again and decided to have fun redoing the terrain for most of the dungeons he designed. Once again, let's just gosh collectively.
I also helped him with some of them too.  /   / 
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And thus concludes this epic adventure!..... until reforge is launched... then yeah... I might embark on a new epic quest depending on how much this project is still relevant.
If you want to try this game out! or see more screenshots follow this link!
THE WORLD OF SEDONIA
THE WORLD OF SEDONIA
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