Dustline was also one of the very first maps we worked on when Production kicked off in 2024 on this iteration of Highguard (it's the sister map to Rivermark, as its on the other side of the wall). Its biome style was the 2nd one we worked on after Rivermark's and it was a challenging one due to the Vesper that flows through the space. We constantly had to balance noise levels and readability and it took a lot of back and forth within art itself with our Art Director Taube, our Concept Lead Gabe, Derek (he made the great Vesper kit) and myself as well as with Design.
There was also some fun larger macro storytelling elements we had to play with in this map - Vesper crashing into the wall like ocean waves and getting repelled, all the trees growing in one direction due to the Vesper and pointing towards the wall, all the grass blowing towards the wall, etc. It was a pleasure going back and forth with Level Design and creating great framing of the amazing POIs that Jake, Steve and Derek worked on. Working on the set extension/vista for the map was particularly fun as well and a good example of something I took on that normally would be something we have a dedicated Vista Artist for, given our small art team size.
I owned the open-world landscape outside of the main POIs: landscape creation (sculpting, materials (new and re-used), painting), foliage creation (grass/bushes/trees + tree destruction), open-world hard-surface instances, props, vista, 1st pass lighting, etc.
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:
Robert Taube
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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 (Lead)
https://www.artstation.com/nicholasschumaker
https://www.artstation.com/gabberwocky
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Level Designer:
Rodney Reese (Lead)
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FX Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/mreberg (Director)
https://www.artstation.com/ryanbartonvfx
Christopher Shepherd
