Weapons, and in particular firearms, are a particularly fun piece of 3D game art. They’re front and center for much of the gameplay, right in the hands of the player. Even if it’s not an FPS, they are something that often draws player attention. For 3D game artists, creating a fun, high-quality, and interesting weapon is a challenge that is often encountered.

In this scenario, one of our very talented 3D game artists was tasked with building out our internal portfolio with something that packed a punch!

Creating 3D Art with a Bang

This scrap shotgun was built with the Cobray Terminator shotgun as its base. The goal was to deliver a weapon that could be at home in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The basic 3D art production pipeline was followed. Reference materials were collected, a base concept was established, exploration followed the concepting until a core identity was found. From there, a high-poly model was created, then a low-poly model. From there, the geometry was baked on and the process ends with texturing. The tools utilized in this process were 3dsMax for the modeling and Substance Painter for the texturing.

The stage of texturing is important as it allows to double down and focus on the signs of wear and tear established during modeling. As a post-apocalyptic piece, it needed to tell the story of its survival and its crafting. Leather windings were added to differentiate it from a fresh weapon, rust and chipping were introduced. It’s important to our art team that every piece of a game helps tell a game’s story and expand its world. These are the elements that tie players into the narrative and the lore, encouraging immersion.

Tips for Creating 3D Weapons

A simple and reliable weapon, this is a unique design given its single shot capacity and unusual frame. Our artist described it as “brutally beautiful” and said that “creating any kind of beauty is fun.”

One piece of advice our entire art and animation team is to gather the right references and as many of them as you can find! If you’re recreating something from real life, the key to high-quality 3D game art is the references you can draw from. If you’re creating something entirely fictional, it will have to have some kind of base as a reference – either as inspiration or as the core of its design. Either way, quality 3D game art is foundationally based on high-quality references.

Another tip given by this artist was to understand that a firearm is a mechanism. “When it comes to modeling a mechanism, you must understand how it functions. To truly create it faithfully, you must know its operation.”

There you have it! When creating 3D game art of firearms, expand your thinking, go beyond the mind of an artist. Get into the headspace of an engineer!

To leverage our 3D game art expertize, or any of our other stellar services such as full-cycle game development, our comprehensive art production, or real-time VFX, get in touch today! Together, let’s create magic.

Our latest look behind the magician’s curtain is into this 3D game art of an eerie and dilapidated looking cabin. This piece was conjured up by one of our stellar artists to showcase our technical and creative skills. Pieces like this are often just as useful to our portfolio as they are a challenge to our talented team, testing themselves against new limits and creative processes. 

Let’s take a look at how this piece was made and what went into creating it.

Inspiration and Experimentation with 3D Game Art

Magic Media’s art team find inspiration everywhere and this section of the team particularly found themselves drawn to post-apocalyptic games and settings. Their setting and atmosphere are enigmatic, the mystery and the strangeness of its setting are so hard to define but are huge draws to players. Games like The Last of Us, the Metro series, and a few of the more striking Call of Duty levels, served as the main inspiration. The goal was creating a cabin as a post-apocalyptic hideout for a soldier or survivor. The artist didn’t have much more to go on, only that they wanted to show it was an active site in this new post-apocalyptic world and that much had happened.

The early exploration of the piece involves a lot of reference gathering and developing moodboards. While it’s not shown here, the team wanted an interior created as well so experimentation began with different 3D asset blockouts and environments until something was created that everyone liked. During this team, other members were experimenting with lighting, colors, and real-time VFX set-ups which were settled on around the same time.

Creating a piece like this goes through the typical 3D art production pipeline with explorations and sketches turning into blockouts and rough drafts. From there, they are refined through art passes, texturing, high-poly, baking low-poly, across multiple passes of tweaks and alterations. This process was done on both the internal and external properties. The goal was for the environment to look and perform well in 1st and 3rd person, which meant a lot of work in its silhouette, layout, and texturing.

3D Game Art and Storytelling

While the 3D game art team were working on the lighting setup and processing moodboards, they were also considering how best to immerse the player and create the right tone. Of course, lighting is important in this endeavor but it’s not everything.

They wanted the cabin, even remote and isolated, to show the story of the decaying world. Where the person inhabiting it is fighting tooth and nail to survive against persistent and constant threat. Bear traps, barricades, windows that have been broken and sealed, and cracks in the roof are all efforts of the team to set the scene for any player approaching it. Even the woods themselves seem welcoming but they also mean there’s plenty of places to hide for the things that go bump in the night!

The 3D Game Art Production Pipeline: Making it Feel Real

All elements of 3D game art, assets and environments, need to feel real and lived in. Nothing is clean, everything has been handled and used, maintained, put down, and picked up a hundred times. Making a piece of art feel part of a living world is key in the delivery of high-quality 3D game art.

Key in delivering this quality is asking questions. That is how you get answers on what comes next for your 3D game art. What is the life like of this lonely survivor? What are they afraid of? How do they go about living and dealing with this situation? Eating and sleeping, how is that handled given the danger? How do they defend themselves from said danger? Do they try to light up their cabin for comfort and if so, how do they hide that light from potential threats? Our team asked themselves these questions and many more.

All of these questions make you think about the person, the life. And that is what our 3D game artists do, that is the key in delivering not just high-quality game art, but realistic and believable game art. That’s why the interior was designed as someone’s home while the exterior says “watch out and stay out.”

The Tools of 3D Game Art Production

Simple enough, our team are using the industry standard for tools. For modeling we see a lot of Maya and ZBrush. Substance Painter and Photoshop are very useful for texturing, with Substance Painter being a real front-runner for all your texturing needs. Lastly, the piece was rendered out using Unreal Engine 5 which is a stand-out in the latest generation of gaming engines.

Whether you need our comprehensive 3D art production services or more, Magic Media can deliver any service you need for gaming, entertainment, or tech. Our teams can seamlessly deliver art production from 2D concepts up to game VFX, and animation. Full-cycle development, game trailers, and cybersecurity are just a few more of what we offer. Get in touch with us and let’s create magic!

Magic Media is proud to have had the opportunity to work on Amazon Games’ MMO sensation New World to create new 3D video game art. We collaborated with the tech giant on New World’s expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, specifically, where we contributed numerous 3D video game art pieces in the form of weaponry and armor primarily.

Though Magic Media is no stranger to collaborating with industry-leading clients, projects of this stature never cease to amaze us with their scope and the technical and creative requirements to provide the highest quality work possible.

Creating 3D Video Game Art for New World

For our contributions to this project, we received detailed and specific specifications for creating 3D video game art. As part of these specifications, there was a clear pipeline for creating ID maps for texturing and a defined polygon count, among other technical details.

For our work on this project, we stuck as close to these guidelines as possible to help Amazon Games realize its defined vision for New World and its expansion’s 3D video game art. In addition to helping this clear vision for the game’s art come true, we needed to adhere to guidelines from a technical standpoint to ensure smooth performance for players.

To bring 3D video game models to life, we employ a range of software and tools, and New World was no different. We used Marvelous Designer to simulate high-quality fabrics. Retopology, which is a major process in 3D modeling for simplifying meshes so that they’re cleaner and easier to work with, was accomplished using Blender and Maya, which we also used for UV unwrapping. Textures were created using Substance Painter, and Marmoset Toolbag was used for baking them.

Our Team and Collaborating with Amazon Games

A total of 22 people worked on the 3D video game art for New World, a combination of talents from various Magic Media teams, including Ringtail Studios. The team was comprised of 16 artists, four quality assurance personnel, and a head of production. At the beginning of the project, our team didn’t start with 22 people, rather we gradually scaled it up during the production pipeline so that we could better meet our requirements more efficiently.

Our artists focused on specific types of 3D video game models for this project. Some of our artists worked specifically on armor and clothing, whereas others worked on weapons exclusively. This allowed every individual to leverage their skills in the best way possible. We had two art leads on the project who played a key role in ensuring our work adhered to Amazon Games’ requirements as closely as possible throughout every stage of the project.

Amazon Games was fantastic to collaborate with on this project. Our 3D video game models for New World were reviewed by the Amazon team, along with feedback and recommendations to make certain our work was in line with the project’s requirements. At every stage, the Amazon team was communicative and forthcoming with their feedback. Our client was extremely satisfied with the final result, noting their appreciation for our approach to the project specifically.

Magic Media is an experienced services partner specializing in the gaming, entertainment, and tech industries. We offer dozens of expert services including full-cycle game development, real-time VFX, and full art services, including 3D art like what we created for New World. Reach out today, and let’s create magic!

Inspired by the wondrous magic of Hogwarts Legacy, our talented real-time VFX artists set out to create a magical effect that could match the majestic magic seen in the Wizarding World game. Rather than taking directly from Hogwarts Legacy’s real-time VFX, our artists wanted to explore their creativity within the realm of magical real-time VFX.

Read on to learn more about our process for creating the Displacement Vortex, a powerful magical ability that can remove even the most fearsome threats from challenging encounters!

Conceptualizing the Displacement Vortex

For the Displacement Vortex, we decided early on that we wanted it to be a more active ability with clear defensive and offensive properties, compared to the more passive abilities of Hogwarts Legacy that inspired it. For the initial pass at the scene, we used basic character models so we could test the shader we developed for the piece.

Though rather straightforward, the shader presented us with multiple options for manipulating the displacement effect. With our shader, we can change the offset of the displacement effect and make different curves along different axes of rotation. With these simple parameters, we could wildly change the composition of the displacement effect as we saw fit.

Though it was important for us to have characters involved in the scene to make it feel like a gameplay showcase, it was equally critical to pay particular attention to the urn itself and its movements. We decided to keep focus on the urn so that it feels like a character in and of itself. It was paramount to focus on the urn, as it’s a central part of the overall Displacement Vortex effect.

Building On the Displacement Vortex

Over time, we added further effects like lens flares to make the scene more visually compelling. The urn continued to be a central aspect of the piece throughout the displacement vortex’s development, but we wanted to add emphasis to the monster being trapped by it.

As the urn primarily uses yellows, we leveraged this to draw attention to the monsters by using contrasting purples. For the displacement effect itself, we used a mix of yellows, purples, and pink mid-tones to link the effect to both the urn itself and the monster being sucked into it.

Finalizing the Displacement Vortex

For the final version of the Displacement Vortex, we decided to manually change the timing of the effect from scratch. This is a risky, challenging, and time-consuming process that should only be carried out by the most experienced real-time VFX artists, but we had specific ideas in mind as to how each element should be given room to breathe and be introduced to the viewer.

We extended the monster’s initial spotlight at the beginning of the scene so that viewers could become accustomed to it before the effect kicked in. Additionally, we added more visually compelling elements to the urn. The urn now ingests some of the environment like the tiles below it as it traps the monster and it leaves behind some residual purple effects after the displacement effect completes. We also added a mesh to the urn so that when it falls and breaks, its distinct pieces have rigid bodies so we could simulate physics. It’s a small detail but helps the scene pop more and better immerse the viewer.

We made some interesting modifications to the color of the piece for its final version. We wanted it to feel light, something akin to a wind tunnel, so we changed the lens flares and reserved sharper lens flares for vital parts of the displacement effect, such as the circular shape spin when the effect begins. We also gave the effect a more chromatic appearance by adjusting the red and green color values. We used Substance Painter so that the urn could be used as a low poly model in Unity, and also textured it using Substance Painter.

Magic Media is a veteran services provider for all things gaming, entertainment, and tech. Our embedded teams are ready to deliver dozens of services for your projects, including full-cycle game development, game trailers, cybersecurity, and much more. Get in contact with us today, and let’s create magic! 

The Magic Media group has enjoyed a fruitful working relationship with our clients as we’ve delivered several services for Gamma 4, a turn-based NFT card strategy game. We provided game development services for Gamma 4 to develop its card-battling gameplay and the genetic engineering mechanic, which allows players to combine different species to create distinct cards and characters.

Further to our game development work on Gamma 4, our animation specialists worked diligently to produce a captivating game trailer for Gamma 4. It was a challenge to distill the game’s themes and visuals into a satisfying teaser that didn’t reveal too much about the game, but our team’s talent and experience saw them prevail.

Gamma 4 Game Trailer’s Atmosphere

Our main objective was to create a teaser that gave away enough information about Gamma 4, its world, and its atmosphere, without being so revealing as to spoil the experience for gamers out there. It briefly implies information about the game and its world, while remaining mysterious. This trailer presents an apocalyptic world, one whose society is broken apart, a tone reinforced by the background debris, smoke, and dark color palette.

The spotlighted character in the trailer remains a bright focal point amidst a dark world. We used a slightly more varied and brighter palette to bring this character to life, which suggests an element of hope in an otherwise bleak world. It delivers visual information about the character and the circumstances they find themselves in without overtly telling the audience exactly what’s happening.

Process of Creating Gamma 4’s Teaser Trailer

As with all our animation projects, we began with an animatic, an animated storyboard that helps guide our game trailer production process. The illustrations, as seen in the opening few seconds of the game trailer, begin life as sketches. Each sketch can take hours to complete, depending on its complexity and level of detail. Introducing further details is time-consuming, with each part taking hours to complete. Adding color, light, shadows, and line art takes hours each. In total, it could take between two and four days to complete a single illustration.

Like the illustration stage, depending on their complexity, the animated scenes could take one or two days to complete. As seen in the latter part of the Gamma 4 game trailer, you’ll notice some elements such as the debris and background moving subtly. This was achieved using a parallax technique, where different visual elements move at different speeds relative to the camera. We used Adobe Photoshop and After Effects to bring this apocalyptic scene to evocative life.

End Result

Our overall aim with this game trailer was to create a cinematic experience. The static shots in combination with the parallax effect, camera angle, and use of sound and rhythm all worked in conjunction to create vivid, dynamic scenes. We couldn’t be happier with how this game trailer was realized, and how it stirs curiosity in the viewer, encouraging them to learn more about Gamma 4.

Watch the Gamma 4 Game Trailer.

At Magic Media we are veterans of the gaming, tech and entertainment industries, offering comprehensive services including game development, VFX, animation and full art services! Our main goal is to provide a one-stop solution for any project. We love nothing more than collaborating with creative minds, so drop us a line and let’s create magic!

When the Magic Media team isn’t working on cutting-edge real-time VFX for games or providing dozens of other services to our valued clients, we’re working hard to hone our skills to keep them sharp and stay ahead of the technological and artistic curve. This is where projects like the Medieval Flair real-time VFX project come into play.

Medieval Flair was designed and created by the Magic Media team as an internal project, the objective of which was to create high-quality real-time VFX that’s suitable for a fantasy game setting and used as a magical spell.

Real-Time VFX Form and Function

In this clip, we see a winged angel character producing this magical effect, also known as Holiness Revival. The real-time VFX we see produces golden colors and has a wide area of effect, and the functional idea of it is that it grants defensive bonuses to allies and revives the fallen on the battlefield.

The real-time VFX produces a golden color to give the impression of a divine effect occurring, in this case, the resurrection of previously downed allied characters. Its wide area of effect ensures that the effect if used tactically can revive a large number of allies every time it’s used. Though it might be difficult to see, this real-time VFX piece contains 20% white coloring to add to its heavenly aura and 10% green and blue coloring to make it seem more magical.

Magic Media offers clients the highest quality Real-Time VFX which will help their game reach its full potential. As a leading Real-Time VFX service provider, we at Magic Media want to push the limits of what is possible creatively and technically while maintaining competitive costs.

Process of Creating Real-Time VFX

Our team adhered to a detailed workflow to complete this real-time VFX video. After gathering some initial references to help us understand better what we were aiming for, we settled on the Holiness Revival concept and proceeded to work on the storyboard. The storyboarding process can be a tricky balance between keeping your expectations realistic and ensuring it’s an interesting visual effect for viewers, and this was no different. We had to define every camera angle, character movement, animation, and the real-time VFX that follows it.

Every frame of the real-time VFX piece needed to have meaning and communicate what follows. This character begins by raising her hand and charging power, allowing the viewer to anticipate the action that comes after. The camera closes in on her eyes to display glowing, godly power before the revival effect bursts out from her using the power she previously charged. Every movement helps anticipate what happens next, helping the viewer to intrinsically understand the real-time VFX on display.

A challenge of bringing this real-time VFX piece to life was deciding on what shaders to use. Shaders are programs that operate on a machine’s GPU to enhance visual quality, and there are many shader options available for VFX purposes such as this. After much testing, we managed to find one generic shader that could accomplish everything we needed. The original angel character seen in the video clip didn’t have wings, so one final challenge was to create thematically fitting wings and then shoot the final sequence, complete with the VFX, in Unreal Engine 5’s Sequencer feature.

At Magic Media we are veterans of the gaming, tech and entertainment industries, offering comprehensive services including game development, VFX, animation and full art services! Our main goal is to provide a one-stop solution for any project. If you’d like to utilize our expertize and experience in creating, game art and more, drop us a line and let’s create magic!

Having the opportunity to create 3D art for Star Trek Resurgence was an honor and creative challenge the Magic Media team was more than happy to take on. Star Trek Resurgence is a story-driven adventure game set during a beloved period of the Star Trek timeline. It features countless iconic images of alien species, ships, uniforms, and countless other identifiable visual elements. To resonate with the fanbase as much as possible, we aimed to faithfully reproduce iconic Star Trek visuals and create characters and environments inspired by what has come before to help the game be consistent with the franchise’s legendary visual style.

Star Trek Resurgence Iconic Characters & Environments

The bulk of Magic Media’s work was creating 3D characters and environmental art assets. As with most games, characters and environments feature prominently throughout the game’s runtime, so it was our mission to ensure they possessed as much of the renowned Star Trek sci-fi style as possible. The primary references for our work were the various Star Trek TV series, since we aimed to faithfully recreate the well-known visual aspects of the IP.

Above all, our work needed to be precise. Some elements, such as character uniforms and distinct alien species visual features, needed to be as accurate as possible with little divergence from our reference material and concept art. Star Trek has a long and well-defined fictional timeline featuring many variations on visual concepts, and for Star Trek Resurgence’s place in that timeline, we needed to be exact in our work. The ship that a significant part of the game takes place on, the USS Resolute, features all the trappings of starship interiors from the franchise’s history, from its lush seating and touchscreens to its well-lit hallways.

Creative Expression

Within the boundaries of the Star Trek Resurgence style, we had some creative freedom at our disposal. The concept for the transporter room, for instance, wasn’t completely set in stone, so we had some leeway to come up with a fresh concept that fit the Star Trek mold. Though we had to adhere to alien species’ trademark physical characteristics, we had room to play around with their facial structures.

We also had some unique opportunities to develop their physical characteristics during our work on Star Trek Resurgence. First Officer Jara Rydek, one of the playable characters, is half-Kobliad, one of the lesser-seen species in the Star Trek franchise. It was an exciting opportunity to mesh the physical qualities of these people with human characteristics, resulting in a unique and intriguing-looking character.

Tools and Processes

For both character and environment art with Star Trek Resurgence, we began with creating a blockout, a rough 3D model of the character or environment we were working on to establish a basis for more detailed work. Following this, we created high polygon count models featuring high levels of detail. For characters, this meant adding wrinkles, skin textures, and intricate features. For our environment work, this meant adding hard-edge detail so that it looked solid and inorganic.

The next stage for our characters was to create low polygon count models for use in-game, a lower-resolution model optimized for the game engine while retaining the important visual details. After this, our models were textured and integrated into the game, where they’re fine-tuned to ensure they look appealing within the game environment. Our process for getting our environments game-ready was similar, where a low-poly environment was created to prepare it for integration with the game.

We used an array of tools to bring our authentic Star Trek characters and environments to life. ZBrush was used for high-poly models, and 3ds Max and Blender were also used for low-poly models. Substance Painter and Substance Designer were integral to our texturing process, and in some cases, Adobe Photoshop was used for refining our textures. Last but not least, Star Trek Resurgence was built using Unreal Engine 4 so we used this to integrate our models into the game world.

At Magic Media we are veterans of the gaming, tech and entertainment industries, offering comprehensive services including game development, VFX, animation and full art services! Our main goal is to provide a one-stop solution for any project. If you’d like to utilize our expertize and experience in creating, game art and more, drop us a line and let’s create magic!

We’ve had a strong collaboration with Avalanche Studios for some time now, working with them on the Hunter series on 3D art assets. We were delighted all those years ago to join with them on another project as an outsourcing specialist to assist on their upcoming game, Generation Zero. Since then, four years have passed! And the Magic Media team have grown from outsourcing assistance to co-development partners! Let’s have a look into some of the 3D art assets and pieces our incredible artists have created for this project.

The World of Generation Zero 3D Art Assets

We’ve developed a lot of incredible 3D art assets for the unique setting of Generation Zero. A world torn apart by intelligent machines set in the 1980s! This immediately sets the world in a period of particular technology and limits the equipment of our survivors and resistance quite heavily. While the robots themselves boast futuristic and dangerous evolving weaponry, our heroes are left with scraps and scavenging.

The compelling aspect of Generation Zero’s visual makeup is this scavenging nature of the players contrasting with the futuristic oppressors. Creating the beautiful robotic pieces is all about sleek and efficient design. Their weapons are covered in sensors and everything is hooked up to a central system, they are malicious sentient AI, they have no need for our primitive systems. 

But for the resistance! For our players, our artists and 3D modelers could embrace the scavenging nature of play. Utilizing the assets that already exist in game and break them down for parts, just as the player characters would. Makeshift pieces come together beautifully like this signal jammer.

A radio combined with a small piece of wiring and circuitry. It’s simple but believable! And our work is filled with designs like this. A personal favorite is the flamethrower! Which utilizes spare pipes and parts, with a propane tank and bicycle handle for a trigger!

Visual Storytelling and Tools

The best way to help players settle into this world is the things they see and experience. Watching your resistance members scramble and craft tools and weapons will immerse them so quickly! The DIY nature of all the gear, the rust and the wear-and-tear, they all speak to the visual language of Generation Zero.

Cannibalizing assets mean the world the players live in is seen again, piecemeal, across weapons and equipment. The weapons themselves are designed to be recognizable, meaning we offer both grounding in the setting but also a quick and identifiable visual reference players will understand at a glance.

These 3D art assets are created with a variety of tools. Maya is used for modeling of high and low poly models as well as the UV layout. ZBrush is great for sculpting before baking textures in Substance Painter or Marmoset Toolbag. The textures themselves are done in Substance Painter. If there’s any cloth or certain simulations required, Marvelous Designer is very useful. Finally, it’s all implemented using the game’s engine. These tools are always changing, but our artists have found these to be the foundation of many modern games. 

At Magic Media we are veterans of the gaming, tech and entertainment industries, offering comprehensive services including game development, VFX, animation, 3D art assets and full art services! Our main goal is to provide a one-stop solution for any project. If you’d like to utilize our expertize in creating game art and more, drop us a line and let’s create magic!

This astronaut character is one of many 3D art pieces created for the growing internal portfolio for the Magic Media team. Our artists are always looking for ways to grow and challenge themselves. New pieces, new genres, and new techniques are a great way to explore and evolve as an artist. This character was created as part of a duo with the goal of space faring explorers or scouts. It was crafted in concept and roughs before being delivered in 2D and now into full 3D art. Soon, it will be rigged and ready for animation as it has already been integrated into Unreal Engine 5.

Concept Art and Inspiration

The initial sketches were varied. We weren’t too sure what type of explorers they were, which is why the early explorations drew from multiple sources.

Our artists integrated elements of street clothing and riot gear to give it a lived-in feel, a realistic space faring piece of equipment that might have been customized by these experienced void travellers. The slimmer suit took some visual clues from diving suits, giving it an even sleeker and streamlined appearance. This gave us a very exploratory and advanced feel, they don’t look very combat ready which was something we wanted to balance out. The purpose of the suits was emphasized with the shape of their helmets that imply a direction of movement. The helmets also value a wide cone of vision, which we took inspiration from cycling helmets as well as some medieval armour for shape.

This final 2D artwork doubled down on their exploratory purpose. However, we refused to neglect the potential for a violent encounter. The weapons are all pistols or sidearms, personal defence weapons, a last resort. The armoured elements were also given more place on the piece, showing a consideration for protection on key areas. The rest of the suit is clearly designed for movement and survival.

3D Art Renders and Unreal Engine 5 Integration

Once the concept and 2D art were completed, our 3D artists took over. ZBrush was mainly used for the hard armoured surfaces. Marvelous Designer was chosen for its excellent delivery of high-quality and realistic clothing. Autodesk Maya was used for the low poly geometry and unwrapping, RizomUV for obtaining the layout of the UV islands, and Substance Painter and Photoshop delivered the texture and some shaping.

Bringing this 2D piece into 3D art meant our artists pushing their knowledge of Marvelous to their limits! A lot of the model is a flexible fabric and executing it properly, integrating its pieces with the more rigid and hard surface pieces required a lot of detailing and adjustments. ZBrush was also great in this stage for sculpting and really giving it the feel of realistic material interacting with those tricky joint areas where it overlaps with the armour.

Making the move from 2D to 3D art can be tricky but our artists in both stages kept in close contact. The concept art and 2D stages were all designed with the future steps like 3D and rigging requirements in mind. So, as we entered the 3D space, there were only a few small adjustments required.

In need of industry-leading character art? Look no further than Magic Media. At Magic Media we are veterans of the gaming, tech and entertainment industries, offering comprehensive services including game development, VFX, animation, 3D art and full art services! Our main goal is to provide a one-stop solution for any project. We love nothing more than collaborating with creative minds, so drop us a line and let’s create magic!

It was a pleasure for the Magic Media team to provide art services for The Oikos, an ambitious metaverse project that unites gaming, social networking, and business on one platform. The Oikos boasts a unique visual style that the Magic Media team is proud to have devised.

Creating a truly distinctive aesthetic was a challenging task, but thanks to the team’s experience and passion for game art production, we were more than up to the challenge. We knew what we wanted to achieve, and after spending ample time with our various influences, we were able to exact our vision.

Influences of The Oikos

The Oikos blends sci-fi, solar-punk inspiration and Greek mythological influences to create a one-of-a-kind futuristic take on the visual motifs of Ancient Greece. Originally, the platform was going to use a different visual style but after spending some time with one of the game’s primary locations, Atlantis City, the decision was made to marry sci-fi and Greek influences.

When it came to investigating the sci-fi influences we could leverage, we didn’t strictly have an idea of what we wanted to draw from, but we knew what we wanted to avoid. The industrial sci-fi setting of the Gears of War franchise wouldn’t fit with what we had in mind, nor did the retro futuristic stylings of Star Wars. Instead, we chose to research real-life locations like the Tianjin Binhai Library of northeast China, and the incredible Singapore Changi Airport.

For executing work using these inspiring locations, we looked at the work of illustrators like Walter Everett, J.C. Leyendecker, and Sergey Kolesov, and parametric architecture and non-functional design.

Unique Vision for the Future

In the lore of The Oikos, humanity is experiencing an unprecedented period of prosperity due to significant technological breakthroughs and the grace of the gods themselves. The technology used in the world of The Oikos is affected by magic and unlike anything found in the real world, so we wanted to avoid existing examples of technology like solar panels.

To create our vision for the future in The Oikos, we studied nature and urbanism. This is similar to the acclaimed series The Last of Us but where in those games nature is reclaiming the man-made world, the natural and urban worlds co-exist in harmony. Using this design philosophy in combination with our sci-fi and Ancient Greek influences led to stunning visual features, such as magical holograms based on amphorae patterns, the art found on Greek jars.

An Utopian Atmosphere

We strived for The Oikos to look futuristic and fanciful simultaneously to reflect the utopian civilization found in Atlantis City. To achieve this, we spent significant time researching art history to understand how utopians have been reflected throughout history. We wanted The Oikos’ world to appear as though it’s been affected by a divine presence to reflect the game’s mythology.

The distinct visual identity of The Oikos’ utopia was achieved through a combination of tech and nature. The tech-based characteristics of The Oikos predominantly use desaturated and colder colors, which are wonderfully juxtaposed with the vibrancy of the natural features. This enabled us to play with the contrast between these two major visual elements and bring the environments to life.

For all your metaverse and gaming art needs, the Magic Media team has the experience and expertize required to help your projects fulfill their potential. We offer a comprehensive range of services including full-cycle game development, real-time VFX, and dozens more. Get in contact today and let’s create magic!