For Witcher 3 we were following realistic but very stylized art direction, with the goal of creating something unique and memorable. Of course to achieve good performance we had to make sure, that we use resources wisely. For example we had to control of how many “wood” texture variations we have in game, how many unique meshes are placed in given areas, how many distinct particles are loaded etc. If something looked to similar to what we already have on the level – we simply replaced it with the resource that is already loaded – just to not to exceed memory budgets. Thanks to that, we have no loading screens on when you enter the buildings. We also had to develop bunch of tools that would help us automate content authoring. Imagine this: we wanted to add much simpler collision to the doors, that cannot be opened by the player (they are always locked in-game). We have over 3000 doors in the biggest city – asking artists or designers to just go and click through all of them is not a good idea, right?

The Main References for The Witcher 3