Creating Characters for Singularity

The player will encounter a bevy of character types throughout the Singularity universe. You will go toe-to-toe with irradiated civilian workers, time-ravaged creatures, military elite forces, and a building sized monstrosity, all while roaming the landscape of Katorga-12.

Concepts

Concept art plays a key role in the assets we create for every project at Raven. We approached the characters seen throughout the game with various concepting methods, be it through pen and paper iterations, digital painting, photo reference, or even prototype sculpts. Every aspect of a character is proofed out in multiple views before work on the final asset is started. It is not uncommon for a concept piece to be worked up with a broad stroke or loose level of detail, acting more as a general indicator or suggested direction, giving the artist some freedom to interpret various costuming and form.

Modeling

Every character asset in Singularity has a higher polygon model associated with it. These high poly details are rendered down to special textures and applied to the final game asset. These special “normal maps” are used by the game engine to create an illusion of greater surface detail than is really there. We create these high poly models (sometimes consisting of multiple millions of polygons) with software packages like Zbrush, Mudbox, and 3DCoat.

Scanning

Eventually, our asset pipeline included tapping into our Scanning department here at the studio, where we use a special camera to create a 3d capture of a particular real world object (like a helmet or boot) and use it as a starting point for the high poly version. There is a good deal of cleanup work involved with this technique, but high poly sculpting tools like Zbrush help us streamline the process. Reshaping a scanned object, adding extra surface detail, or simply adjusting overall scale to fit an existing body type are just a few examples of how we use and re-use these scanned items.

Rapid Prototyping

To get started quickly, we often create “proxy” or “temp” meshes, allowing us to rapidly prototype interesting and unique silhouettes which we then run by other team members for feedback. Animators use these placeholder textures and models to test new skeleton rigs or block in test animations. This process worked well for the mutant civilians wandering through the Worker’s Village areas as well as for the multi-limbed Radion creature featured in both our Single and Multiplayer game types.

Character Graveyard

With every project, plenty of ideas fail to make it through the concept phase and into the final product. These cuts are generally made due to schedule constraints, design redundancies, or other limiting factors. With that in mind, here are a few select pieces from our “character graveyard” that may one day find life in a Raven title.

Ryan Butts