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How did I spend the summer of 2003?
I was picked up by Electronic Arts to be an environment artist for "The Lord of the Rings; Return of the King," based on the movie trilogy by New Line Cinema. The game came out at the end of October for all platforms.
I was brought on w/ no Maya experience and very few samples of environment work since most of my previous work has been in vehicle and character design and creation. But I got the hang of Maya and was working on level art within a couple weeks of joining the team.
It was a hectic schedule to say the least, but the whole team was top-notch and the final product is something I can't wait for people to see.
Due to the size and scope of this project, the art process used meant that a lot of different artists contributed to final look of each level. This is obviously the way more and more games are going to be developed due to the increasing size and scope of games in the future. But it also means that it is more difficult to show exactly what parts an individual contributed.
My work primarily consisted of detailing an environment that had already been laid out as a block-world with basic shapes. This included increasing the geometry's resolution, texturing, adding surface details, and adding detail objects to the environment. I also built individual assets used in various parts of the levels, like gates and drawbridges. My other main task was dealing with the collision geometry, adjusting it to match the terrain, assigning attributes to various collision surfaces and correcting collision bugs.
This project was a great learning experience and I've made some good friends at EA.
