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<divclass="content"><p>Hi guys, I<>m <spanclass="strong">Mod Joe</span>, RuneScape<70>s Art Director, and I<>d like to give a rough overview of one of our graphical improvement projects. This will hopefully give you insight into how we choose projects for improvements and also take you through the different art departments that will then produce the final game assets. In this first part, I<>ll talk about the concept stage. In the second part, we<77>ll go through modelling of game assets, such as creatures and scenery, then, in the third part, we will give you an overview of what it takes to bring things to life through the animation process.</p><p>The art team works very closely with the rest of the content developers, and when I heard that <spanclass="strong">Mod Ingrid</span> had been given the final part of the Fairy Tale trilogy to start briefing, my initial reaction was that we<77>ve gotta improve that area first. Zanaris itself had already undergone one graphical improvement a few years ago, but I think it<69>s important not to understate how much both the engine and our tools have changed since then. </p><p>Many years ago, when I first started at Jagex, the art team size was only three artists (!) and we did everything (modelling, animation, mapping, etc) ourselves. Now, in 2009, we have a team of sixteen very talented artists who all specialise in one of three areas: 2D concept artwork, 3D modelling or animation. In the first part of this diary, I<>d like to take you through the first stage: the concept stage...</p><p></p></div><divclass="hr"></div><h3>Old Zanaris</h3><divclass="devblogimagecentre"><divclass="imgcentre"><divclass="centrecontainer"><divclass="topbord"><divclass="bottombord"><divclass="leftbord"><divclass="rightbord"><divclass="toplcorn"><divclass="toprcorn"><divclass="bottomlcorn"><divclass="bottomrcorn"><ahref="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_comparison.jpg"><imgsrc="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_comparison_thumb.jpg"alt="Zanaris in 2004 and 2006"/></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><ahref="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_comparison.jpg">Zanaris in 2004 and 2006</a></div></div></div><brclass="clear"/><divclass="content"><p></p><p>Originally, Zanaris was just a standard brown dungeon. I recall we overhauled it to look a little <20>bluer<65> a few years ago, but it never really looked as <20>magical<61> as it could.</p><p>There is also the issue that the fairy race itself could be improved, both in terms of modelling and animation. Back three years ago we had limited time, artists and tools, but now that we have our specialist artists and a much-improved game engine, we have a greater degree of flexibility in how we create the different areas of the game.</p><p>Given that a new quest was to take place in Zanaris, we decided to give the area a total rework, both in terms of the fairy race themselves and their environment. Once we knew this, I spoke to one of our concept artists, <spanclass="strong">Mod GG</span>, to get some ideas on what we could do.</p><p></p></div><divclass="hr"></div><h3>New queen</h3><divclass="imgright"><divclass="topbord"><divclass="bottombord"><divclass="leftbord"><divclass="rightbord"><divclass="toplcorn"><divclass="toprcorn"><divclass="bottomlcorn"><divclass="bottomrcorn"><ahref="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_queen.jpg"><imgsrc="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_queen_thumb.jpg"alt="Variations on the new look for fairies"/></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><ahref="images/fairy_graphics/fairy_queen.jpg">Variations on the new look for fairies</a></div><divclass="content"><p></p><p>One of our goals in the concept stage is getting the balance right between ideas that are unique, but which are also immediately recognisable for players who are new to the game. When we looked at the original fairies, one of the first issues we had was that they were way too small - you can<61>t see them very well and they don't have enough definition. The first thing that <spanclass="strong">Mod GG</span> did was to sketch a new fairy characte
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