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This is not a finished image, but this is an intermediate render that you'll then be going forward with and painting over and stuff like that, right?

TL;DRYes, it is an intermediate render that effects are painted over, and Jones deliberately keeps his pass rough so concept artists, who spent months on the ship, keep the satisfaction of the final polish.

Paul JonesArt Director

Yeah. Basically, we'll take this, and what should happen is they will have rendered out ships, we'll bring it in as a separate layer, and then we'll start adding on all these effects. So there's all sorts of things here. It's a real kit that I've used over the past. So muzzle flashes, sparks for hits, details for ships. We won't need that today. Lens flares. And the funny thing with this stuff is that in the past, it's not a mistake, in the past I've done it where I've taken a concept artist's image and said, make it like this, and I will have put in all the effects and done the color grading and everything. And so it gets you to that 80, 85 percent mark really fast, but it really pisses them off because they're just like, we've done it. It's like you've given them an unwrapped present. And they're like, well, I can see what it is now. What's the benefit? So that's why I try and stick to crappy stuff like this. Seriously, so that they still have that surprise and that magic of, because they've been working on this stuff for, what, three? I mean, some of the stuff is six months we've spent on some of the large ships. I think two months is probably the fastest we've done something. Even that is two months of solid graft, eight hours a day, looking at the same thing, solving problems, solving mechanics, solving visual problems. It's like they're the baker and then suddenly you go, well, here's your cake, it's done, I've decorated it. You want to give them that payoff where they're just like, okay, yeah, this is looking cool. They get to do all that fundamental groundwork.

Star Citizen Live›Art of Ship Concepts·
Published on this date.3 Apr 2020
EpisodeArt & graphics