Concepting And Production

The Sanguine Moon Lycan set was the first one I did for Dota 2, and the first set to make it into the store. It ultimately ended up taking quite a few months to complete due to my inexperience with certain technical aspects which I came to learn of during this process. With this guide I hope to show off a sample development log for all the different steps, reworks and changes that needed to be made to finally get it in store.After reading through the style guide a few times to get myself acquainted with the style, I chose to go a different route from what I was seeing in the Workshop at the time. The most played characters were getting all the attention, so I tried to steer myself towards less popular, yet visually interesting characters. The main strategy here was to pick a character that had been mostly neglected as a way to have better success getting it in than say, Axe - Who had 5-6 sets in store and multiple other amazing quality ones awaiting acceptance in the workshop.I try to always get acquainted with the lore as a means of getting inspiration for possible set themes, and found that a part of his lore involved a violent exile from the once prosperous kingdom of Slom. From a concepting standpoint, I did a series of quick, loose thumbnails exploring different possible directions to go with, this helps get the creative juices flowing.One thing about working with isometric games is that due to the camera angle, the more emphasized areas should typically be at the top of the character, where they're more visible. I kept this in mind while designing.Using this as a basis, I experimented with several ideas before settling with a look that fit Lycan best and drew from his lore, while not deviating too far from his original color scheme (A mixture of A&B). I wrote up a little tidbit of fiction before moving ahead:"Following the fall of the house of Ambry, Banehallow crafted his armor from the remains of any unfortunate soul unlucky enough to stand in the way of his vengeance following his exile from the Kingdom of Slom. In the darkness of the woods and in the company of his new feral brothers, Lycan's bloody search for justice continues."Next came a refinement pass, which involved combining my favorite design aspects from the thumbnail stages that we liked and offering a more rendered, detailed snapshot of how the final model should look like. We were taking a bit of a visual risk by going with such a patchwork look, but ultimately thought the design looked good enough to move forward into production with. While we initially believed that the one with the head mask was going to be 'the one,' production would teach me about certain technical limitations from a modeling standpoint that would push us into Plan B mode (More on that later).Following discussing with my modeling partner about what direction we were going, I decided to move ahead to the orthographic concept stage. Depending on who you're working with, this might be optional - But typically they love some form of a turnaround so they're not left guessing how that belt connects, or what the back of a helm looks like. There were some minor design tweaks here too also, like pushing the helmet design into more of a wolf-like shape to reflect his lycan origins.With the help of the ortho, the modeler (BounchFX) did an amazing job with his initial modeling and sculpt, using a mixture of Maya and Zbrush. Bounch requested an alpha file (Kind of like a 3D stamp) so he could get the detail of Lycan's medallion right, which I got to him promptly.When you're working as a 2D guy, expect all kinds of requests. Additional sketches if some areas of the design aren't clear, alpha files, even texture painting, which I did for the first time. Having some knowledge of how to do this will guarantee you a higher percentage of revenue.Here is where we ran into a roadblock- While breaking the model down into an in game res, Bounch informed me of an issue regarding the polygon count limit on his head slot.LoD0 Triangle Limit: 600LoD1 Triangle Limit: 300(Aka, damn that's low)This was avoidable, but I hadn't acquainted myself with the polygon limits on Lycan's different items, which would have lead me to design it differently. Remember to check out the Technical Requirements section for the hero you want to concept ahead of time!As a result we opted for a Plan B, reverting to the eyepatch design in order to still have something for his head slot that might still look cool. I did a quick paintover of the model to present it to update BounchFX on the design and get a greenlight to move forward again. It happens to the best of us, but mistakes only help us get better for the next time around.Due to some time limitations, Bounch invited me to take a stab at painting the textures for Lycan. While I had some experience, this definitely took a few tries to get right considering the role that masks and shaders play in Dota 2. While I painted it flat in Photoshop and tested it in game using the importer, I learned after the fact that there's an awesome program on Steam called 3D Coat that allows you to paint directly on the model, saving you a lot of guess work. Check out the free trial!Following addressing textures, this is where the time consuming part kicked in..Fine tweaking. During this stage you'll spend hours double checking every detail, tweaking colors, rigging and design details as well as in game testing.One of the main issues we ran into was that the choice of tinting the shoulders gold did not gel well with the rest of the set once we got it in game, and decided to make it more cohesive by applying a more iron colored treatment. Also, during this process I was made aware that I had put too much detail into the textures and had to simplify it so it would read well zoomed out. Lessons learned. Once this back and forth process ended, we were finally ready to submit.Now for submission I cannot stress enough how important marketing is to your items success. Sure, the item needs to look damn good, but if the thumbnails for the workshop are so bad that nobody sees it, you're out of luck. You need to create marketing images that catch people's attention, while not being gaudy. This is where the graphic designer in you must come out.A little trick that I use is mocking up what my icon might look like next to other items in the workshop. Does it pop? Is it too loud? Are the colors a good choice for helping the item shine? This technique will save you a ton of time in the long run.Submit, market and the quality will speak for itself. Being a concept artist on Dota 2 is a lot of work, but ultimately can be very rewarding. Be sure to check out Polycount for some great people to work with on your future item, and be sure to check out my workshop page . Thanks for reading.