Working on Skydrift's Rookery POI was a bit of a breath of fresh air after nearly 2 years working on open-world terrain and biomes. So, it was really fun to dig into this space. The only rub was that the timeline on this was tight as well and I was the last one to get started on the map while others had extra style creation time. So mostly only had time to re-use some of the great new pieces they created for nearby POIs with adjustments and also kept some key props that I could make for the space (hanging sculptural dragon chains, sculpted pillar tops, etc.). A key technical consideration in this space was that it was underneath the terrain as well - which was problematic for a lot of our assets since most are setup with RVT blending. I had to create material overrides on most of the assets' materials and add material override slots to Packed Level Actors where appropriate in Blueprint.

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Environment storytelling-wise, it was fun to play with the idea of little dragon hatchlings being born and chained in this rookery - added lots of chains and little hay beds throughout the space for the many dragons that once bred and lived here.

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I owned all the world-building and putting together of the structure within the Rookery POI, did a good lighting pass which our AD Taube ended up using most of and tweaking in key areas (namely around dragon eggs and near water body), maintained clean gameplay navigation by proactively clipping off the space where needed and turning off collision on things that didn't need it, sculpted up a few props (hanging dragon chains & pillar tops), etc.

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Our environments were a colossal team effort by a relatively small team by AAA standards (we shipped with 7 Environment Artists with no environment outsourcing!). There was a lot new we had to built, but we also had to be efficient and smartly re-use the asset bank that we built up across maps.
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Art Director / Lighting:
https://www.artstation.com/rtaube
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Lead Environment Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/jzartist
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Environment Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/jobyek
https://www.artstation.com/paultran
https://www.artstation.com/jakevirginia
https://www.artstation.com/artkristen
https://www.artstation.com/shong1123
https://www.artstation.com/dbentley3d
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Environment Concept Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/gabe-11
https://www.artstation.com/nicholasschumaker
https://www.artstation.com/gabberwocky
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Level Designer:
Rodney Reece
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FX Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/mreberg
https://www.artstation.com/ryanbartonvfx
Christopher Shepherd