In our latest entry of the Behind the Magic series, we’re looking at a series of 3D game art we created in partnership with Fateless Games. Our artists provided expert 3D modeling services to deliver a vast range of 3D models for Fateless, an RPG hero collector title with a strong focus on community.
With a relatively short deadline, the Magic Media team developed a stable production pipeline and efficient internal organization so that we could get our job done quickly and effectively to deliver high-quality 3D models.
Scope and Style of 3D Modeling Work
For our part in creating 3D game art for Fateless, we were tasked with creating no less than 300 characters representing 10 distinct factions. We were pleased with being given the creative freedom to create character designs and concepts based on what we thought would work as we saw fit, with our client giving final approval for any designs we devised.
The 10 factions of Fateless are derived from a diverse range of influences, including Norse, Babylonian, and Japanese mythologies and many more from all corners of the world. We took specific influence from mythological accounts of Olympus and the Kojiki, for example. These factions also incorporate different periods from classical eras to medieval times. With such a disparate range of inspirations, we sought to create the characters of each faction with distinct feels to represent their respective mythological and historical origins as best as possible.
Other than our mythological and historical inspirations, we looked to unique visual styles like steampunk to put the Magic Media stamp on our 3D game art, albeit in a more toned-down fashion bringing our designs closer to something like The Lord of the Rings-style fantasy with elements of steampunk.
3D Modeling Process
The 3D modeling process for Fateless began with concept art for each of the individual models we created. We created concept art to communicate the core idea of the character design, but it also worked as a useful tool to facilitate collaboration with our client. With concept art in hand, we worked with our client to iterate on the design to ensure we were meeting their expectations and our vision aligned with theirs.
Once our 3D modeling concept art was approved, we moved ahead with creating our models as proxy meshes – an approximation of what the final models would look like. Following on from this, once we were pleased with the overall look, we created high polygon models before creating low polygon models for use in-game. We finalized the models’ looks by experimenting with different materials and colors and tested these in-engine to ensure they looked right, high-quality, and would work flawlessly in-game.
We used a mixture of industry-standard tools for our 3D modeling work, including Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush to bring our 3D game art to life in the Unity game engine.
Challenges of 3D Modeling Work
The main challenge with this project was delivering 300 high-quality characters belonging to ten distinct factions in a reasonably tight timeframe. To combat this, early on in the process we established an internal pipeline for our 3D modeling work that allowed us to get the models made, from concept to final version, in an efficient manner. Internal organization was critical to our hard-earned success on this project.
Furthermore, our 3D modeling couldn’t have been completed to such a high standard without the involved collaboration from the team at Fateless Games and Magic Media’s team comprised of Directors, Producers, Technical Artists, Lead Artists, and many more talented individuals.
Contact Magic Media today to avail of our second-to-none 3D game art and 3D modeling services, in addition to our wide range of expert services for gaming, entertainment, and tech projects, including full-cycle game development, game VFX, art production, and more. Reach out today, and let’s create magic!
