Max Frorer GDC 2018

Post date: Apr 05, 2018 7:13:52 PM

I showed up to GDC on Wednesday with an Expo pass. My main objective was to find 3d programs or learn about pre-existing 3d programs that could help further my future career in concept art. I had an extensive talk with the developers of Speed Tree where I learned they are experimenting with photogrammetry and procedural generation. They all noticed the biome projects coming out of Ringling and have been pushing to create trees and other plants that feel more genuine and less procedural. Their latest update to Speed Tree, which is currently unreleased, allows for scanned meshes to be brought into the program. It is impractical to scan the entire tree, so this new update generates a tree based on the imported mesh data. This means I could scan a complicated tree base, bring that information into Speed Tree and then use this new update to generate the rest of the tree. There's also an experimental update that creates a texture blend between the photoscanned mesh and the procedural mesh. The only issue with this texture blend is optimization. If the tree has multiple trunks and needs several areas of blending, then there would need to be multiple texture maps to blend the pieces together. They are currently looking for better ways to optimize this idea, but I really like the direction in which they are heading.

I mainly focused on the booths that were developing procedural tools to assist the speed of art development. I spoke with a few people from world machine about new variations of landscapes as well as asked questions about their current program.

On Thursday I ran into a few people I had met the year before. I ended up having a long conversation with Moby Francke, the designer for all the TF2 characters and currently the Principle Artist at Riot Games, where we spoke about art and design in context to 2d and 3d. He went on a long rant about how powerful the color grey is and how so much art tries to punch their work with as much color and technical execution as possible. We agreed that the point of an effective art piece is to evoke an emotion and it was very inspirational to hear him talk about how he searches to create that. He doesn't look on Artstation or Instagram and he believes that taking work breaks to travel and explore are vital to the creative process. He also spoke a great deal about his experience at Valve and his opinions on where people should look to work post graduation.

On Friday I met up with a bunch of concept artists at a bar and we exchanged information. I learned a lot about the production pipeline from different studios and how I can use my 3d knowledge to push my concept art skills.