(Citizen Star News) - by Nighthawk - 2015-04-05

Photocredit: Tiffany Chu (used with permission)

Guest Speakers:

Gurmukh Bhasin - Concept Artist

Elwin Bachiller - Senior 3D Artist

Omar Aweidah - 3D Concept Artist

Forrest Stephan - Lead 3D Artist

At the Presentation

I arrived early to the event, just as they were setting up the registration table. Mine was the first name on the evening's visitor roster and it was a nice feeling. As we waited for the doors to open it quickly became apparent that most of the audience was unfamiliar with Star Citizen, something I had not anticipated.

Once we were allowed in it did not take long for the venue to fill up and I overheard staff say this is the first time in a while they had packed the location. My inner-Citizen cheered, and I gave my, as yet, non-existent Carrack crew the rest of the night off. The house lights dimmed, the projector was fired up, and the Imagine trailer began to play. I turned around to look at the silent crowd behind me and saw every face captivated by what they saw. At its end, the trailer was met with awe and an avid round of applause when Forrest clarified that all footage was captured in the CryEngine.

From this point on the presentation became something very different from what we, the average Citizen Backer, are used to getting in RSI’s standard video drop. Forrest began with a short "This Is Who We Are" spiel wherein they discussed the challenges of being an Open Developer from the stand point of the Artist and how Communication & Community are the keys to success.

Quote from the presentation captured by attendee: Tiffany Chu ‏@ToffeeChuChu Mar 27 "We're basically recreating Space for Chris." @RobertsSpaceInd #StarCitizen #Gnomon panel recap

Gurmukh, an Alumni of Gnomon’s 3D Arts program, then talked about his transition from Architecture to Concept Art. He reviewed all of his CIG work to date which begins with, and includes: the Constellation Phoenix, the Consolidated Outlands Mustang Variants (all), the Anvil Aerospace Carrack, and now the Aegis Dynamics Vanguard. He discussed some of the inspiration that motivated his artwork and the techniques he commonly practices when designing. A little fun fact: Gurmukh and Elwin “kit-bashed” the Vanguard concept in 2 days!

The conversation grew more technical as the presentation continued with the four speakers discussing modeling techniques, short cuts to answer the issue of CPUs limiting what they can do for the model’s textures, affecting vertex normals directly to aid with specularity and cheating geometry, and so much more. This was supported with many of the visuals we are already familiar with, but I was particularly excited when they brought up in-house forms used to standardize their color chart, color settings, normal map setting, specular map setting, and diffuse setting. They basically said, “This is how we achieve our photorealistic style, please feel free to meet our standards.” To a room full of art students. Brilliant!

After the presentation ended at 930pm PST/530am GMT the crew stuck around to mingle with the attendees before heading back to the studio to continue working on the Vanguard for today’s Concept Sale. I, of course, took the opportunity to speak with each of them individually and have them sign my Drake Interplanetary Goliath Mousepad. It was wonderful and informative evening, to be sure!

Note: This article was originally written for our good friends at the podcast Guard Frequency, and was used in Episode 65. Published here with permission from Guard Frequency and author.

See Also

Gnomon School of Visual Arts, Event Recap