Star Citizen Live: Gamedev - Concepting Ship Weapons

Alex · Concept Artist

Yes, I do prefer to have it, if possible, because then it makes my life easier. Because oftentimes people sometimes can use one word to describe what they need. Something as abstract as, oh, it's very powerful. And then I have to somehow visualize what is powerful. So the more background information I can have, the easier my job is to translate it into the images.

Alex · Concept Artist

Well, it obviously limits my creativity because our metric system, if I'll draw it right now, because all ship weapons, they kind of follow this rough bounding box, so the mounting point and the gun itself, and then it has components that are generally located in the same spots so we can put them on all the ships. So within that bounding box I can design whatever I want or whatever the art direction requires. But generally I wouldn't say it's too restricting, but if there was no bounding box, for example, we could concept something where maybe, I don't know, maybe the mount is at the front and the big bulk of the weapon is at the back or something like that, but we can't do that.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

But it would limit the number of ships that it could be placed on.

Alex · Concept Artist

Yes.

Alex · Concept Artist

For me, the first one is a bit easier to sell as a weapon because it's got a very obvious... this reads as a barrel and this reads as a body. So this is very easy to identify. Whereas this guy, where it could be interesting, right now I'm starting to fiddle with it. And generally if I start fiddling with something and it doesn't work, I just move on to the next one, or maybe I just don't feel the design, because not every design you make actually works or is good. That's part of the sketching. And generally if something doesn't work, I don't spend time on it. I just move on to the next thing and I try it again. And in return, it just saves time down the line.

Alex · Concept Artist

Yeah, I use this guy. It's the one on the table, just a normal one.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

I know some artists prefer to draw directly on the screen, and they have the big screen tablets, and some people prefer to have it down at mouse level and just draw off the screen.

Alex · Concept Artist

Originally when I joined, I had the big screen, but I just found, for me, it didn't work. My hand was in my face, and it was big, and I just switched to just a normal tablet.

Alex · Concept Artist

For me, it's this under-barrel part that I added. The reason why I added it there is probably just subconsciously, because I did design quite a few Hurston weapons. So I naturally, I guess, went towards that style, and I decided right now to roll with it, and why not? And then the flat barrel: Hurston guns also have flat barrels, and they have flat copper barrels. So I thought maybe we can turn this into a very, very primitive... it's one of the first Hurston guns, ultra low tech, almost a relic that you cannot even fit on ships because it's just incompatible. It's that old, but it still has similar aesthetics. So if it were to be in game, people would see it and they'd be like, oh yeah, it's an old Hurston gun, hopefully.

Alex · Concept Artist

Then you probably need a bunch of them to maybe take on the big ship. This is something we do very often here. People come up with random ideas and then I have to draw them. And we have many, many, many pages of these guys that nobody will ever see. And these things keep us sane. So the way it would work is that you've got to fly in closer to the bigger ship, and then this leg would... it's not long enough. Then you can kick the ships, see? That would be my solution for that. But in all seriousness, for guns with descriptions like that, it would probably have to be visually something that's on a small ship, but generally, if I got that task, it would be a very, very big barrel. Let's say it's an S1 gun, but when you look at it, the barrel is very prominent. Say it's a small gun with a very, very big barrel. Or maybe there are multiple barrels. So visually, that would be the solution for that sort of problem.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

And we shall call it the ship kicker.

Alex · Concept Artist

The ship kicker, yeah. It's often very, very difficult to design something that's, oh, it's very small, but it has to be very powerful, or it's very big, but it has to be extremely weak. Those ones visually are definitely harder to solve. But yeah, that would be my solution. Big barrel.