GDC-4.0-The Walking Dead: Crafting a Stylized World for the Mature Franchise

by Jonathon Banks ( Lead Environmental Artist at Telltale Games )

Telltale used to produce pretty things.

Pre-Production

• The team looked at the portrayal of the comic but had to add a style of their own.
• The environment was developed before the zombies and characters.

Art Process

• Nothing of the characters/environments was done before their concepts were done.
• Comics were used as filler for some concept pieces.

Handcrafted Line-Work

• Puzzle Agent was the source of the visual form.

Colorful Textures

• Huge saturation and detail proved very important.
• Textures were generally in the format of [highlights and shadows]:[overlayed watercolor textures]:[line-work].

Atmospheric Lighting

• There is high contrast, with all lighting made from color-key art.
• Depth-fog and color overlays are used for cleanup.

Technical Constraints

• 30,000 vertices for environments at max.
• Vertex lighting only and no SSAO.
• Keep post-processing pretty limited.
• Reduce the light-map sizes whenever possible.
• No HDR!

Production

• Style guides are a must!  Get them and use them!

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