Inside Star Citizen: Dev Diary: Gavin Rothery
Summary
TLDRThe video script features an interview with Gavin Rothery, a prolific concept artist behind over 20 Star Citizen spacecraft. Rothery discusses his creative process, the importance of teamwork, and adaptability in game design. He shares insights into his 3D and 2D design pipeline, the 'rule of cool' in finalizing ship aesthetics, and his favorite Star Citizen ships. The script highlights Rothery's passion for his work, his unique home studio environment, and the excitement of contributing to the ambitious Star Citizen universe.
Takeaways
- 🚀 Star Citizen is a highly ambitious game aiming to create a first-person universe with varied experiences across multiple star systems, with spaceships at its core.
- 🎨 The process of spaceship design in Star Citizen involves concept artists who start with a technical brief and develop vehicle concepts that fit the game's universe.
- 🐕 Working as a concept artist allows for flexibility, such as working from home with pets around, which is highlighted by the speaker's fondness for his dogs.
- 🛸 Gavin Rothery, a prolific concept artist, has contributed more than 20 vehicles to Star Citizen, helping define and refine the styles of various manufacturers.
- 💡 The concept artist's role involves transforming a brief into a visually appealing design, often working in isolation but with regular touchpoints with art directors.
- 🔄 Star Citizen's design process requires a cohesive approach where the exterior and interior of ships must fit together and adhere to strict metrics.
- 🛠 The design pipeline for a ship in Star Citizen typically involves initial exterior and interior drafts, followed by second passes to refine the design based on interior constraints.
- 🎨 The 'Rule of Cool' in Star Citizen refers to the final 20% of design work, which focuses on enhancing the brand and making the ship look appealing beyond its functional requirements.
- 🖌️ Keyshot is used for rendering promotional artwork, allowing concept artists to quickly apply materials and create high-quality visuals of the spaceships.
- 🌟 Gavin Rothery's favorite brand in Star Citizen is Crusader, with the Aries being one of his favorite ships due to its classic black and white sci-fi aesthetic.
- 🌌 Rothery's all-time favorite ship is the Gladius, which he felt a great sense of accomplishment seeing in the Squadron videos and admired by Mark Hamill.
Q & A
What is Star Citizen known for in terms of its game design?
-Star Citizen is known for its ambitious design of a first-person universe with varied experiences across multiple star systems, primarily centered around spaceships.
How many Star Citizen spacecraft has Gavin Rothery contributed to so far?
-Gavin Rothery has contributed to the design of more than 20 Star Citizen spacecraft so far.
What is the role of a concept artist in the game development process?
-A concept artist works at the start of a project, interpreting a technical brief and creating visual concepts that fulfill the brief and contribute to the game's design.
How does Gavin Rothery describe his typical work environment as a concept artist?
-Gavin Rothery describes his work environment as one where he often works in isolation from home, with regular touch-ins with art directors, and enjoys having his dogs around him all day.
What is the significance of the 'rule of cool' in Star Citizen's design process?
-The 'rule of cool' in Star Citizen is a term used to describe the final 20% of the design process, where the focus is on enhancing the brand and ensuring the design looks cool and cohesive.
What is the typical workflow for designing a new ship in Star Citizen?
-The workflow involves an initial week of creating multiple design options, followed by refining the chosen direction, and then going through stages of exterior and interior design passes to ensure everything fits cohesively.
What software does Gavin Rothery use for 3D modeling and rendering?
-Gavin Rothery uses Maya for 3D modeling and KeyShot for rendering, and finalizes the artwork in Photoshop.
What are some of the challenges Gavin Rothery faces when designing ships for Star Citizen?
-Some challenges include ensuring that the interior and exterior of the ships fit cohesively, considering various functional requirements, and adapting to changes during the development process.
What is the importance of the promo artwork stage in the ship design process?
-The promo artwork stage is crucial as it is when the ship receives proper setup, time, and attention to detail, resulting in promotional pieces that showcase the final design.
Which ship design is Gavin Rothery most proud of and why?
-Gavin Rothery is most proud of the Gladius design because it was the first one he worked on, and he felt a sense of accomplishment seeing it featured prominently in Squadron videos.
How does Gavin Rothery manage the balance between work and personal life as a concept artist?
-Gavin Rothery enjoys the flexibility of working from home, being able to set his own schedule, and spending time with his dogs, which helps him maintain a balance between work and personal life.
Outlines
🚀 The Art of Spaceship Design in Star Citizen
This paragraph introduces the ambitious scope of Star Citizen, a game aiming to create a vast, first-person universe with a focus on spaceships. It highlights the importance of concept artists in the game's development, mentioning renowned contributors from various franchises. The narrative centers on Gavin Rothery, a prolific artist responsible for over 20 Star Citizen vehicles, who has significantly influenced the game's diverse ship designs. Rothery discusses his work process, emphasizing the collaborative yet solitary nature of concept art, and the need for flexibility and creativity within the dynamic environment of game development.
🎨 The Creative Process Behind Star Citizen's Spaceships
The second paragraph delves into the detailed process of designing spaceships for Star Citizen. It describes the initial phase of creating exterior options, the artist's preference for working in 3D to conceptualize shapes and volumes, and the iterative design process involving multiple passes of exterior and interior design. The 'rule of cool' is introduced as a guiding principle for the final 20% of design, ensuring that the ship not only meets functional requirements but also pushes the brand forward aesthetically. The paragraph also touches on the use of keyshot for rendering and Photoshop for final promotional artwork, with a special mention of Rothery's fondness for the Crusader brand and the Aries ship.
🌟 Celebrating the Legacy of Star Citizen's Spacecraft Design
The final paragraph reflects on the impact of Gavin Rothery's work on Star Citizen, celebrating his ability to create iconic spaceships that resonate with fans. It discusses the personal satisfaction Rothery derives from his role, the freedom it offers, and the joy of seeing his designs come to life in the game. The narrative concludes with an acknowledgment of Rothery's favorite ships, the Gladius and the Argo, and a look forward to his future contributions to the game. The paragraph also provides a broader perspective on the collaborative and creative journey of developing Star Citizen's expansive universe.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Star Citizen
💡Concept Artist
💡Spaceship Design
💡Technical Brief
💡3D Modeling
💡Exterior and Interior Design
💡Promo Artwork
💡Rule of Cool
💡KeyShot
💡Gavin Rothery
💡CIG Legends
Highlights
Star Citizen is an ambitious game aiming to create a first-person universe with varied experiences across multiple star systems.
The spaceship and its creation process is central to Star Citizen, beginning with concept artists.
Many renowned artists have contributed to Star Citizen's vehicle legacy, including names from Star Wars and Star Trek.
Gavin Rothery, with over 20 vehicles designed, has significantly influenced Star Citizen's ship styles.
Concept artists work remotely, often in isolation, to realize technical briefs into visual concepts.
The role requires the ability to work well with others and adapt to changes in development.
Star Citizen has unique requirements for ship design, with both exterior and interior needing to fit cohesively.
Rothery's design process involves initial quick options, followed by refining and finalizing a single direction.
The design process includes four stages: first pass exterior, first pass interior, second pass exterior, and second pass interior.
The 'rule of cool' is used in Star Citizen to enhance the final 20% of design, pushing the brand forward.
Keyshot is used for product presentation, specializing in beauty renders of the spaceships.
Rothery's favorite brand in Star Citizen is Crusader, with the Aries being a favorite ship for its classic sci-fi look.
The Gladius is Rothery's all-time favorite ship, with a memorable moment seeing Mark Hamill interact with it.
Concept artists have the freedom to manage their own time, often working from home with their pets.
Despite sometimes working late nights, designing spaceships for Star Citizen is an awesome job that Rothery loves.
The showcase celebrates the contributions of artists like Rothery, who have created many fan-favorite spacecraft.
Star Citizen's development process is shared with the community, highlighting the people and processes behind the game.
Transcripts
it's no secret that Star Citizen is an
ambitious game trying to build a
firstperson universe of varied
experiences across multiple star systems
but at its core will always be the
spaceship and the process of making a
spaceship always begins with the concept
artist and we've had no shortage of
greats contribute to our Legacy of
vehicles from Star Wars Superstars like
Ryan church and David hobbins to Star
Trek luminaries like Jim Martin from the
art Departments of Godzilla Matrix Blade
Runner and dune like Emanuel shwe and
George Hull to the dedicated cig Legends
like Paul Jones and Alberto petronio and
a whole host of folks in between two
numerous Dimension the origin of our
spacecraft are as numerous as their
manufacturers but there's one person
who's participated in the birth of more
Star Citizen spacecraft than any other
with more than 20 vehicles to his name
so far he Bridges the gaps between
manufacturers and has helped to define
or refine many of their Styles over the
years and in this year special ship
Showdown showcase we brought the
prolific Gavin rothery into our office
for your chance to meet the man and
celebrate just a fraction of his
contribution to this project and because
I just think he's neat let's
go got toothpast got you toothpaste FL I
think working as a concept artist is
great I like the way I get spend time
with my dogs I really appreciate that
I've got my dogs around me all day I get
my SP ships my dogs you know and I get
to come up to Manchester and hang out
with you guys for a bit it's
awesome you going to get
it he two pair of BLS beautiful I hold
him that's right I'm an artist
[Music]
[Music]
so a concept artist is usually a
human that might change we've seen these
AIS they're coming for
us so a concept artist is an artist who
comes in at the start of a job and works
to a technical brief which is often just
writing there might be a few reference
images in there occasionally we don't
really tend to work like that we'll just
get a technical breef and you got to
come there and you just got to realize
things usually you're working in
somewhat in isolation there's base
touching with like art directors and
such but like a lot of my job is me just
working at home in my studio just kind
of getting on with things having like
regular Touchin and uh that sounds weird
touching Basse
frequently and just uh pushing the
design forward basically so I'm given a
brief and a deadline and I'm expected to
metamorph oriz that brief into something
that can fulfill that brief and look
really cool on the
[Music]
clock there's a few things that make a
good concept artist really you've got to
be able to get along with people and
like fit into a team that's first and
foremost cuz it's more remote so it can
take longer to get relationships going
with people so that stuff becomes more
important
[Music]
a game project particularly there's lots
of things changing in development so
you've got to be able to approach your
work with a mindset of like not being
too precious about it you can do a bunch
of work on things and it can all be
beautiful and that could just completely
change and you have to do something else
which is beautiful and you've got to
just be able to wake up every morning
and kind of deliver
that whenever you see a good concept
artist you'll be looking at somebody
that is able to do that and figured it
out in their
[Music]
life so star isn't is a a very unique
Beast I've been in the games industry
for a long time I've worked in movies is
I've you know I've been around the block
I've done stuff Star Citizen is one of
those projects that's got such
definitively harsh metrics that you need
to fit that I've never worked on another
project like
it you can look at the Millennium Falcon
you know it looks pretty on the outside
it looks pretty on the inside those two
things don't go together so with sism
everything has to fit and I remember
when I first started on doing some of
the bigger ships like many years ago
that was a new thing to me because other
projects don't really consider that
they'll have once you're inside a ship
you're basically inside a magic little
universe and you know things can be
completely different scales and people
generally don't worry about that stuff
too much with star C is and it's all
cohesive and it all has to fit and so
when we're designing it we'll start with
the
exterior we always do options for things
so the first week of a new ship design
is me doing like just blasting out
options as quickly as I can when I'm
designing a ship I work in 3D and 2D so
my actual pipeline is I do all my 3D in
mayor so get the brief and I go straight
into 3D and just start blocking out
shapes and basically sketching in 3D
I've been doing this for a long time as
a concept artist and I found that
working in shapes and volume it's just
it's just a very natural way to work
it's a sculptural medium I always just
get straight into 3D and I don't really
work from one angle to start off with I
literally work with the 3D shape and
just work all around it to begin so I
work my way in from blocking 3D shapes
so this is all done in mayor and I like
to put four or five options together so
that we can all have a good sit down and
choose there'll be a range of things in
there try and make them all quite
different quite often you'll have a
favorite but that doesn't really matter
because that might not be the way the
ship ends up going and then ultimately
whichever way it ends up going that
becomes your favorite because you work
on it more and it it comes to life and
then once we have a that kind of
feedback after the first week we'll have
more of a direction and we might push
forwards with a couple of designs and
work a couple up a bit more then after
another week or two we'll nail it down
to one and just keep pushing forwards
with with One
Direction we working four stages for the
actual design and then a promo stage at
the end so we'll normally go first pass
exterior first pass interior second pass
exterior second pass interior and
through those two processes we'll
establish the look of the outside
establish what the inside needs to do
make the inside fit the outside as best
we can then we usually have to have a
second pass on the outside just to
change a few things because the interior
has got hard hard limits on it and quite
often there'll be a bit sticking out and
we'll need to have a second pass over
the exterior just to finish it all up
and you know just put all the nice
little polish and sort of Spanky bits on
there and once that's done and we know
that's not going to change we can get in
there and like completely trick out the
interior and finish it
up in Star Citizen the rule of cool is a
term that we use when we're putting
things together putting the art
together it's concerned with the last
20% of the design basically so we have
so much functionality we have to put in
the design like when we're starting on a
ship we start off with a brief it's got
a whole bunch of requirements a ship
would need and first and foremost when
you're working as a concept artist
you're there to do a job and you've got
to fit in the project to make sure you
can deliver so I need to make sure that
my Concepts have got all of the things
that the build team are going to need
that the players are ultimately going to
want so I got to consider things like
components metrics Heights of handles
Heights of steps
how doors work how ramps work angles of
things I got to consider things like the
components the ship needs the facilities
the crew need to be able to live on the
ship work on the
ship there's just all kinds of things to
consider so the rule of cool is when
you've got all of that stuff done you
got it in there and you got it looking
cool it fits with the brand it looks
nice and this is where we get to use
that 20% to kind of push the brand
forwards which is where the development
in the ship comes from
as soon as I've got something that I
want to render I'll go into keyshop I'll
take my May file into keyot key shot's a
product presentation 3D package
specializing in Beauty renders so I can
just get in there with materials I've
done this for such a long time and on so
many ships now I've got all my material
librar set for the different uh Brands
and stuff so I can work really quickly
and I'll get some pretty renders some
nice light and just gives a better
indication of what the ship might look
like further down the
road so the fifth Milestone ms5 is promo
artwork so once we've done all the
design work and I I've done a ton of
rendering along the way to put updates
on the boards but it's all worky stuff
and disposable stuff and once we get to
promo that's when these ships get the
proper setup and get the proper time and
love and then that then those renders
from keyshot become promo pieces and
that's all finished in
[Music]
Photoshop so my favorite brand in sta is
in his Crusader which would make one of
my favorite ships the Aries cuz it's
just it's just I love doing that it's
got that classic black and white sci-fi
look it's just it's the beor call is
full of love music video it's that it's
that classic classic
cool but I am very partial to Argo I do
like a big orange space lump
and the mall and the raft I just think
those oh my got some ghost pumps talking
about they my children my children um I
remember when Paul Jones and I were
working on when we first did the mall we
knew we'd got some really good when we
finished them mall it's like we got the
Outlook done at the end of the job and
we're just like that's a nice
ship then when we got to do the raft and
we got to push it forwards again that
was that was a real pleasure working on
the raft
[Music]
but I've got to say my my all-time
favorite ship I got to say the Gladius
it's the first one I
did when I first saw the Squadron videos
that came out a while back and I got to
see Mark ham standing in front of that
Gladius and running his hand down it and
being all gooey over it I'm looking at
thinking that's Luke Skywalker like
running his hands all over my ship like
good job
[Music]
Life as a concept artist it can be you
can be a little bit on the fringes
sometimes and you can feel like you're a
little bit out there but um one of the
things that I really love about it the
most is being able to kind of run my own
time and there is an element of 9 to5 to
it I don't have to be at a desk at 9:00
talk every morning I don't have to
commute I get to spend all day with my
dogs I've got two little Westy friends
and you know getting those getting my
girls curled up under my desk and just
blasting some music and you know rolling
in at like 9:45 with a coffee and just
getting going you know it's it's just
nice it's just got that little bit more
chill than you kind of commute to the
office and 9:00 sit down here we go I
mean that can translate to like late
nights sometimes you know there there's
a lot of grind and crunch but when
you're doing I'm designing spaceships
for Star cities and it's awesome it's an
awesome job and I love it and it really
isn't a chore you know you get your late
nights your late nights at work you put
your music on you put the cattle on and
you just just get on with it it's
awesome time
[Music]
flies so what do we learn this week well
no doubt that many of your all-time
favorite spacecraft sprang forth from
the efforts of Gavin rothery that from
the ages Gladius to the upcoming RSI
Zeus there is no doubt that he can make
a beautiful spaceship and that with his
ability to span the styles of every
single manufacturer and Star Citizen
we're always excited to see what he's
going to do
next if that didn't get through know
that I tried for inside Star Citizen I'm
Jared Huckaby thanks for letting us
share the people and process of game
development with you and we'll see you
all here next week it's time to get our
factional fight back on in Pyro
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