DevDiary 10 - Art Direction

[THQN Roger]

Hello and welcome to this week's DevDiary focused on the Art Direction for Jagged Alliance 3. My name is Nelson Inomvan and today I will have the pleasure of being your guide throughout the beautiful land of Grand Chien.

One of my many tasks as an Art Director is to help the art team in crafting a unique aesthetic for the project and make sure the original vision is preserved throughout the development process.

 

A Look Back

One of the first things we did when we started work on the project, was to go back and play the first two games. What we quickly learned was that what made those games be what they are was not in the realm of a specific color palette nor the technical bells and whistles of the time, but rather in what I call  “the fantasy” element.
The concept at the core of the game, the big idea that revolves around you as a player assembling a crew of mercenaries, embarking on a thrilling adventure reminiscent of action-packed movies from the 80s-90s and that should still be key when it comes to the visuals.

I still remember the rip-o-matic we put together and shared throughout the studio. It was a mash-up of scenes from some of our favorite action flicks of that time, and we used it to set the energy in the team. It was a good example of what we sought to convey with the visuals.

Making that deep dive into the first two games, made us also realize and appreciate how rich and thought out those titles are. The attention to detail (e.g. crows and the fallen enemies)  was on another level, and it became clear to us that we had to step up and match that standart at the very least.

Maybe this is the place to express our respect for the teams who created those classics. The immense passion, love, and elbow grease poured in those games is still visible even to this day.



 

The Road We Took

Throughout the pre-production phase, the game underwent multiple iterations until the visuals finally encapsulated the initial design concept we were striving for.

At one point, we experimented with a "dirty-gray" military aesthetic, but soon realized that something was missing from that picture, making the game look too generic. Thus, our search continued until one day something interesting happened, shaping all of our subsequent decisions.

We went back and took another look at the design documentation, which encompassed a vast amount of information about the world, and an idea sparked: What if we make the country of Grand Chien and, more importantly, the continent of Africa at the heart of our art vision, rather than the other way around?

This simple yet effective idea changed our thinking and the process led us to the concept of “contrast” or what we ended up calling it - “Wet and Dry”, those two words encapsulate the breadth of what the continent of Africa can offer and thus make it the central character in the stage of “art”.

Now we had the opportunity to explore the vast array of breathtaking locations, each boasting its own distinctive weather patterns, allowing players to immerse themselves in the continent’s remarkable richness. From the always wet muddy jungles filled with mosquitos to the dry savannas or scorching hot wastelands. Furthermore, many of these elements would have a significant impact on gameplay, thereby influencing your decisions as a player.

We've even taken into account minute details such as the presence of puddles in jungle areas and their potential impact on the effectiveness of your fire bombs.

Key features such as dynamic movement, exaggerated weather, strong lighting  and cinematic-style color grading all played a role in pushing the world of Grand Chien and achieving this distinctive art style. Additionally, the ever present signs of entropy that can be seen in all human made everyday objects added a unique depth to the world.



 

Wet

We discussed the discovery of our artistic style, but let’s delve a little deeper into the meaning of those key terms.

The lush green jungles, the always foggy African swamps, and those enigmatic parts of the forest avoided by locals due to strange rumors are all part of what we refer to as the  “wet” regions.

Moss will cover roofs of buildings, while plants and trees will create pockets of small settlements or cities where people will go on with their lives.



Winds will animate every blade of grass, bushes or trees, and during thunderstorms the whole jungle will react to the dance of Ọya, Аfrican goddess of winds.



As mercenaries traverse those regions, the foliage will respond to their presence, bending and swaying with their movements. Leaves will be cut by bullets, and explosions will leave scorch marks where bushes were, connecting the world to the actions and impact of your mercenaries.

Mosquitoes and other insects will be your merc's constant companions and sometimes this will show as they will try to get rid of the little buggers.

Rain storms will muffle all sounds (as already described in Dev Diary 6 about combat) thus giving you good opportunities for a more stealthy approach or it will deteriorate the condition of your weapons. And all of this interconnectivity is dynamic.

Cool colors with the occasional warm accent will compliment the overall picture and help create an impression of a wet, foggy part of the world where the weather is unpredictable and nature is in the process of reclaiming it.



 

Dry

On the other side of this art dichotomy we have the “Dry” regions with their wide open savanna plains and arid rocky wastelands where life still finds its way, but at a higher cost.

Mercenaries will tire faster and will complain about the heat.

Dust will cover everything and if you happen to enter a sector during a dust storm, you will be  submerged in it, making the whole picture look almost surreal.



Heat waves and flash fires will color the land in warm hues testing your team endurance to the limits.



 

Light

Presenting all of those beautiful locations wouldn’t work if the lighting of the game was not what it needed to be. We devoted significant time and effort on that aspect of the game, until our goal was met.

Savannas plains are not just hot, they are burning hot, and the sun creates a feeling that it will boil the land at any moment.
Similarly, in the jungles, sunlight filters through the clouds, casting reflections on mud roads, puddles, and metallic objects, creating a captivating play of light and shadows.

Indeed, as you can already gather, the concept of “contrast” is prevalent here as well making different regions look quite distinct from each other. The always foggy parts of the forest will appear dark in stark contrast to the sun bathed wastelands where the high temperature causes rocks to crack.



 

Entropy

One last part that I want to mention is the “entropy” factor in all of our designs for world objects. Due to its turbulent past the country of Grand Chien and its people do not have access to new goods which forces them to improvise and repair what they already have and with time this will show.

A special attention was paid to this aspect for each and every asset we’ve created, ensuring that it aligns with the general idea about the world we are trying to build.



 

“We’ve built this city on Rock n Roll”

Speaking of “building the world” I can not talk about this process without mentioning the contribution of our Level Design team. These are the people that meticulously handcrafted every small detail from the smallest structure to… well everything.

The process begins with those design documents I mentioned earlier, but this time they are tailored to a specific region, containing details about the story of that particular sector and other important information. Then we prepare a mood board giving form to those ideas followed by concept art so we can better capture the essence and aesthetics of the location in question.

One of the challenges we aimed to overcome was the risk of the world appearing artificially designed solely for gameplay purposes (e.g. а broken columns every x meters) and lose its organic, representative aspect. We constructed the world so it is easy to read but still retain its authentic and immersive characteristics.

This process was repeated for each and every meter of the world of Grand Chien.



 

Conclusion and an Invitation

Throughout the development of every project, games go through various stages, and there are instances when tight schedules leave little to no room for what I call “the love period”

During this stage, a project has all it needs, all the necessary ingredients, yet we revisit it to polish and dedicate time to all the small ideas that were previously set aside.
I am happy that we found time to do that.

Ultimately, my hope is that when you and your team visit Grand Chien for the first time, you will be captivated by its beautiful landscapes, ever-changing weather, and expansive world-building meticulously prepared by our design team. For more details from the design team, check out Dev Diary 5 - World Building)


 

Two last things
1.
OK, there is space for a tiny bit more text and one last gif. I have mentioned special FX and I could not pass this opportunity to show some explosions!

2.
I made another small surprise for you - The 2nd wallpaper is now available! You can find both wallpapers here.

That’s it from me for today. To see more of our Art in action AND to meet Ian Currie (creator of the original JA1 & 2), join us on our stream this Thursday, June 22nd at 17:00 CEST / 11:00 AM EDT on the THQ Nordic channel: http://twitch.tv/thqnordic

We are now streaming EVERY THURSDAY at 17:00 CEST / 11:00 AM EDT!

 

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[Claypl]

At first when I saw this one it sound like a filler diary. Now reading through it it certainly shade some more light on yet another very interesting aspect of the game development. Cool to see some fireworks on the end too, that tapped to my inner satisfaction of seeing things go boom.

I would love to see some more destructible environment but that will do for now..

Thank you guys! See you on Thursday! Gnite.

PS still liking first wallpaper bit more 😛

 

[WILDFIRE]

The beautiful crafted design of the world for Grand Chien is just outstanding. I really love the different areas that feel totally unique, because there are so many details. Combined with the changing weather the world feels new every time you enter a new sector. Also the music and sound create the perfect atmosphere for that African vibe. I have rarely seen so beautiful map design so I am really impressed and can not wait to dive deep into that lively world of Grand Chien.

[Lunokhod]

Good job, Nelson. World looks really beautiful. This is the strongest side of JA3. 👏

After Miasma Chronicles "grey-goo" and identical labyrinths of Aliens:DD this looks very-very good. People will love it 100%. 😉

Rain pattern a bit sucks, think about it. 💧

[LoboNocturno]

On 6/14/2023 at 10:29 PM, moqueur said:

Maybe your first impression was right though. Corazon Santiago doesn't seem to be nice. This game tends to show personality through appearance — and she does look kinda intimidating. Plus JA2:UB taught us not to trust mining companies. Especially in Africa in the early 2000s. You know, blood diamonds and all that staff.

It's a pretty wild guess but maybe at some point our employer becomes our opponent. These guys might be some PMC operatives hired by Santiago. Their squad callsigns ("Quadruple Canopy", "Handel") are really different from those of the Legion ("Legion Heavy Attack Squad") and I would expect the army units to be named in the same way ("Army Heavy Attack Squad"). Plus Santiago does mention having her own security teams in a dialogue.

Another interesting thing is a screenshot from devdiary 7. It shows Buns questioning Tex on the whereabouts of Corazon Santiago. I didn't pay much attention to it initially — obviously it was from the early build where Tex could have been an NPC or an RPC. Still why is Buns looking for Santiago? To award her with the "Employer of the Month" badge from A.I.M.?

Well imo this Wallpaper is pretty nice, i made the Grand Chien Map also as my wallpaper on my laptop.

The car explosion is in my opinion a notch or 2 too quick, it should delay a few seconds, hope you guys fixed the explosion with the barrels, the enemies should also be greatly affected from the explosion and it needs a animation which we could not see in the beta gameplay.

Btw the weather conditions looks really realistic, if this atmosphere can keep the same realism in game too, it would mean us a lot.

 

 

[Elder III]

The game world is looking very nice! I can't wait to explore all the different terrain types and biomes while experiencing the different weather extremes.  I very much like the direction taken by the art team and world building team for JA3.

Will we eventually have the same (or a similar tool) made available for designing/editing sectors?

[Solaris_Wave]

Those are very nice screenshots of the environments. I was wondering just how much they would affect your mercs and importantly, also the enemy? Do mosquitoes cause negative effects if travelling through swamps? Do dust storms affect breathing, stamina and the ability to run? Can the sectors that have stifling heat cause thirst or exhaustion?

Finally, I was watching the gif of the exploding cars and fuel bowser. I couldn't see whether that damaged the adjacent building in any way. Can such explosions pepper the walls with small craters, scorch the paint, blow out glass and doors, as well as the more destructive case of taking out walls?

Edited June 20, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[Haemimont_Boian]

7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Those are very nice screenshots of the environments. I was wondering just how much they would affect your mercs and importantly, also the enemy? Do mosquitoes cause negative effects if travelling through swamps? Do dust storms affect breathing, stamina and the ability to run? Can the sectors that have stifling heat cause thirst or exhaustion?

Excellent question! The short answer is that the weather does indeed affect gameplay and especially combat conditions, both for you and for the enemies.

For the long answer you will have to wait for the second combat DevDiary 🙂

[Claypl]

17 minutes ago, Haemimont_Boian said:

For the long answer you will have to wait for the second combat DevDiary 🙂

Eagerly awaiting this diary! Would love to hear more on night ops and stealth (any explanation on what happen with the Legion eyesight? 😉 )

[Claypl]

10 hours ago, LoboNocturno said:

Well imo this Wallpaper is pretty nice, i made the Grand Chien Map also as my wallpaper on my laptop.

The car explosion is in my opinion a notch or 2 too quick, it should delay a few seconds, hope you guys fixed the explosion with the barrels, the enemies should also be greatly affected from the explosion and it needs a animation which we could not see in the beta gameplay.

Btw the weather conditions looks really realistic, if this atmosphere can keep the same realism in game too, it would mean us a lot.

 

 

I do enjoy those graphics as well. In particular the showcase of different environments on the cover of this devdiary. Amazing variety and details packed into these.

As @Lunokhod mentioned so far best part of the new JA (perhaps on par with the world building). Here is hoping that combat will live up to this level too.

[LoboNocturno]

3 minutes ago, Claypl said:

I do enjoy those graphics as well. In particular the showcase of different environments on the cover of this devdiary. Amazing variety and details packed into these.

As @Lunokhod mentioned so far best part of the new JA (perhaps on par with the world building). Here is hoping that combat will live up to this level too.

If they add up some more animations (death & destruction) to the beta version and increase the enemies sight further am sure the battles will be very fun indeed.

[Claypl]

Agreed @LoboNocturno , it hurts me to see current sneaking in action.

I'm afraid that it may stay as on last stream dev claimed that one guy was able to beat whole game with single merc and a lot of sneaking (there is even achievement that reward sneaking only approach in one of story missions). They have not mentioned how that scales with difficulty but it sounds that it need some serious balance pass..

Not that I could go about without it, but it always feel wrong to ignore OP mechanics in order to have more fun approach ..

[LoboNocturno]

12 hours ago, Claypl said:

Agreed @LoboNocturno , it hurts me to see current sneaking in action.

I'm afraid that it may stay as on last stream dev claimed that one guy was able to beat whole game with single merc and a lot of sneaking (there is even achievement that reward sneaking only approach in one of story missions). They have not mentioned how that scales with difficulty but it sounds that it need some serious balance pass..

Not that I could go about without it, but it always feel wrong to ignore OP mechanics in order to have more fun approach ..

Oh yes i heard it too, with 1 merc only then he said it feels like Batman Arkham Asylum. 🦇🙂

So it was said there will be also a achievement (trophy 🏆) for that ? I missed that part, but if its true most people would get that trophy on easy.

Hopefully they will increase the sight though or the game will feel too dumb and after a while too easy and it will kill the fun in long run.

[ShadowMagic]

Yeah, the environments are done nicely but the true soul of Jagged Alliance lies, as you must know, within the CHARACTERS; their portraits and the interaction you have with them.

Especially this most important part has not seen enough attention. Characters are drawn in a most goofy manner and there is little to no interaction let alone animating faces. Also you guys completely exaggerated with profiling them, turning it more into a comedy game rather than a game in a somewhat serious / gritty setting.

You still have a few weeks to improve this CRUCIAL part of the game in order to make it look less like "Tropico Alliance meets Settlers" and more like Jagged Alliance. Seriously, don't simply ignore.

In it's current state this game is still a no-go for me and many others. You say you want to revive the franchise and pay tribute to the classic games? Well you can talk the talk but now its time to walk the walk.

[Lunokhod]

2 hours ago, ShadowMagic said:

Especially this most important part has not seen enough attention. Characters are drawn in a most goofy manner and there is little to no interaction let alone animating faces. Also you guys completely exaggerated with profiling them, turning it more into a comedy game rather than a game in a somewhat serious / gritty setting.

I understand u Bro, my favorite part of Arulco - North-East(Omerta-Drassen-Swamp sectors). But its not so bad actually, most goofy guys in JA3 - NPC's. And its not "most goofy manner", u exaggerate. Its a bit goofy. But its not bad, at least characters are drawn in the same style. In fact, the artist had a logic, even in micro details. For example. Take a look at the Wolf. Isnt that him? U can recognize him. Its him, 100%.

Its not so bad, u just need a bit more time to adapt to this style. Ure frustrated that reality doesnt match your imagination right now.

[scope112]

4 hours ago, Lunokhod said:

I understand u Bro, my favorite part of Arulco - North-East(Omerta-Drassen-Swamp sectors). But its not so bad actually, most goofy guys in JA3 - NPC's. And its not "most goofy manner", u exaggerate. Its a bit goofy. But its not bad, at least characters are drawn in the same style. In fact, the artist had a logic, even in micro details. For example. Take a look at the Wolf. Isnt that him? U can recognize him. Its him, 100%.

Its not so bad, u just need a bit more time to adapt to this style. Ure frustrated that reality doesnt match your imagination right now.

Wolf is ons of the characters that is quite well done. But some others are terrible, think of Magic, Hitman and Raider. They don't resemble their original looks at all.

[Solaris_Wave]

Wolf is definitely one of the better looking characters. I am actually fine with many of the characters' portraits (though not all. Some could do with a little alteration). My actual biggest complaint is that so many of them have tilted heads (and possibly a smirk to go with it).

Edited June 22, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[ShadowMagic]

Funny to see how two peeps responded to my post with a 'confused' face. Sweet summer childs how can you be so ignorant? Either you guys have low standards when it comes to a worthy successor of the JA franchise or grown so old you are as blind as a bat and unable to see the clear differences in mug shots. No offence.

 

Point is (and I stand by my opinion): Characters is what made JA succesful, not some fancy environments in high res. Unfortunately the latter has gotten a lot of attention whilst the former needs a lot more.

And no, @Lunokhod I don't bite. You took one of the characters that comes the closest as the original portrayed one but take a look at:
Magic, Ice, Scully, Igor, Ivan, Vicki, Raiden, Fidel, Grizzly, Grunty - heck I won't even going to mention them all again.

 

You guys just be aware your hype doesn't make you blind to details. This is probably the last chance to have a dev do it right and save the franchise from being shelved once and for all due to poor execution and sales.

But hey, I already noticed this developer doesn't pay attention to details when you look at the description of their website in Google:

"Jagged Alliance 3 is a tactical game with role-playing elements, where you fight with the A.I.M. mercs your way to a war-torn country in Central Africa."

Even I as a non professional/ native- English speaker know grammar is incorrect here. Sigh.

Edited June 22, 2023 by ShadowMagic

[Solaris_Wave]

Maybe it could be reworded as such:

Jagged Alliance 3 is a tactical game with role-playing elements, where you fight in a war-torn country of Central Africa. Using mercs from A.I.M., you fight those battles the way you choose to.

[Claypl]

@ShadowMagic I was looking for amazed or bored but neither option were available.

 

I do appreciate your caring for the legacy of JA and would like nothing else then perfect remake of 1.13 or at minimum JA2.

I would certainly don't mind that too, but that's not what dev and publisher have in their plans.

You could see that from very first trailer that you are not going to get what you want.

I suppose they are going for game that would be more appealing to younger crowds which do not want to mess around with magazines and grow up on cartoony style games.

I'm with you in that there are issues with some of the decisions that have been made. 
I'm not happy with the inventory system, sneaking, lack of some slots, scraping, crafting, all the streamlining.. Goofiness has ramped up quite a tad too!
Some mercs are definitely scuffed, RIP Magic. 
I guess I don't mind that much some others you have mentioned but agreeed it does get silly at times.

That being said there has been tremendous effort put into this game and I for once appreciate it.
It's all subjective but for me world looks great, quests look way more interesting than past iterations, I like UI (especially satellite view), despite some mercs being meh there are a lot cool ones too.

Who knows what will happen when the game releases. 
I might be just fine with all of these questionable choices after couple hours into the game. Hell, it all might just work well together despite of my reservations.
It won't be realistic, It won't be 1.13, but I might have a hell lot of fun with it regardless.

I suppose that's what you get after decade or so of your childhood memories being crushed. JA is being perfect example of that.
When I see very decent attempt on revival of these memories from coma, I will give developers benefit of the doubt.
Since it is way too late for any changes, I will go with some of those decisions and if game sucks, will let them know 😉 

So yeah, I'm kind of bored to see you poo-poo on everything all over this forum but also amazed that you are still sticking around!
If I would be that unhappy, I would be long gone. Kudos to you, I guess ...

[D13]

My guess is that most of the details Haemimont is being criticized for are not because they're lazy or incompetent or lacking the necessary attention to detail. But rather because they had to place higher priority on perfecting things that have greater impact on the JA 3 experience.

25 years ago was a different time. JA 2 was released one year after its initially scheduled release date. Back then, they had a lot of time to get small details right that nowadays would be much harder to justify.

And ultimately, even though JA 1+2 turned out to be great games, Sir-tech had to be shut down. I don't want to say that one is the direct result of the other. But it did not hurt JA 1+2 that everything was owned and developed by a small, privately held company, where not everything was optimized for maximum profit and extreme efficiency, and instead people trusted each other a lot (to the point of getting married).

By the way, the original JA 3 (20 years ago) was supposed to have cyborgs in it. If Haemimont tried that in today's JA 3, I'm sure they would have to close this forum  🙂 🙂

 

[Solaris_Wave]

1 hour ago, D13 said:

By the way, the original JA 3 (20 years ago) was supposed to have cyborgs in it. If Haemimont tried that in today's JA 3, I'm sure they would have to close this forum  🙂 🙂

Jagged Alliance 3000 A.D.

[ShadowMagic]

Well I shared my concerns more than enough and will leave it here.

[Stazco]

On 6/22/2023 at 1:05 PM, scope112 said:

Wolf is ons of the characters that is quite well done. But some others are terrible, think of Magic, Hitman and Raider. They don't resemble their original looks at all.

Wolf voicing is quite poor, just compare it with brilliant Shawn Lyng work! 

In my russian playthroughs I set english voice for Wolf, sometimes i even start playing JA2 after years just to hear Wolf (and Razor, also done by Lyng)

[D13]

I just came across this JA 2 review from 2007:

"This game is a complete insult to the original. It steps on all genius things from JA 1 and adds too many clichés and that nerdy feel that just keeps on and on in all "modern" games! How so? Well, for example, the voice talents and characters are so watered down they look and hear really cartoonish, when will game developers understand that a credible character and a believable voice talent make so much a difference just as a good or a bad actor does inside a movie!? " (mobygames.com)

Not saying any of the views posted here are wrong, I just think it's funny how some things repeat themselves over the years.