Art

Epic Games has officially released an updated version of the Unreal Engine — 5.4. It has significantly improved the quality of animation and improved rendering performance.

The use of artificial intelligence in game development continues to cause heated debate. This time, Champions TCG studio participated in them. She stated that the artwork for her collectible NFT card game Champions of Otherworldly was made using neural networks. They were created by an "AI artist" alone, to whom she paid tens of thousands of dollars.

Good news. Despite the crisis in the industry, new gaming companies are still emerging. Emanuel Palalic and Garrett Young have announced the launch of a new studio. It's called Emptyvessel. This is the second such announcement in the last 24 hours.

Last week, Owlcat Games studio posted a vacancy for a concept artist for its next project. Among the requirements for the candidate was the experience of working with Midjourney, DALL-E or other neural networks with which you can generate art. This condition caused a flurry of criticism.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams. Next up is an interview with Dmitry Zdesev, general producer of Game Art Pioneers.

On this frosty Tuesday, we continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams. Next up is an interview with Alexey Pechenin, founder of the outsourcing studio Infinite Art Solutions.

Actually, this is not news. Information about such a budget has already been passed, but we, for example, missed it. We are correcting ourselves.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 together with the gaming and near-gaming teams. Next up is an interview with Denis Khamin, co-owner of the Allcorrect studio for game localization and outsourcing of 2D and 3D art.

Fun gameplay aside, one one of the factors behind Dave the Diver’s success was its combination of pixel art and 3D graphics. Here is how a small team at Mintrocket managed to create the game’s appealing visuals using the Unity engine and its tools.

In this article for Game World Observer, ZiMAD artist Andrey Novikov shares his insights on how to interact with AI tools and explains which parts of the work can be delegated to them without compromising quality.

At the end of last week, Fortnite creative director Donald Mustard quit Epic Games. Now it has become known that his position has passed to Charlie Wen, who at one time was responsible for the design of the world and characters in the films of the Marvel cinematic universe.

Dan Pinchbeck, who co-founded The Chinese Room 15 years ago, has announced his departure from the studio. He is best known for creatively leading the UK team and working on games like Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

What approach to work on art is practiced in the R&D department of Belka Games, – said Anastasia Morzina, the company’s lead artist.

On June 15, Epic Games announced the release of the MetaHuman Animator tool for the MetaHuman platform. It allows you to capture facial expressions of people through the iPhone camera and create realistic facial animation.

Playkot 2D artist Tatiana Mironova has detailed how the studio implemented image-generating tools into their pipeline to create UI elements for Spring Valley. Here is what the team learned during this process and what are the clear advantages and pitfalls of training your own models.

Playkot 2D artist Tatiana Mironova has detailed how the studio implemented image-generating tools into their pipeline to create UI elements for Spring Valley. Here is what the team learned during this process and what are the clear advantages and pitfalls of training your own models.

Game Art Pioneers is a Moscow studio developing a middlepunk RPG with elements of the DISTORTION strategy. She signed a deal with the AVC foundation on phased financing for a period of 14 years.

By using a neural network in conjunction with their own extension, the team at Skywaylab Studio was able to reduce their creatives’ production time from 20 to 2 days. Right now, the studio is focused on preparations for releasing its own tool for creating 2D animations to fit its new pipeline. Aleksey Emelyanov, one of Skywaylab’s founders, told us how that’s going to work.

Jason Wilson (aka Jay Gunn), a prominent game developer of the 90s, has put his art and design archive for sale. However, the reasons for this decision are rather unfortunate, as he needs money to pay bills while looking for a job.

Nightdive Studios recently faced backlash from some players for posting an AI-generated image related to the upcoming System Shock remake. The team has now explained its intentions and attitude towards AI art in general.

Blizzard Entertainment wants to simplify the creation of graphic elements for games. The Gamerant portal drew attention to the fact that the company has filed a patent for a technology that allows using AI to generate textures and other similar game assets.

Growing competencies within a team is a challenging issue, often seen as costly and not easy to approach. However, Anton Danko, the lead artist of Solitaire Cruise project at Belka Games, shares his successful experience in this matter.

The growth of competencies in the team is a sore subject. It is considered that it is expensive. And it’s not always obvious how to approach it. Anton Danko, the lead artist of the Belka Games Solitaire Cruise project, shares his successful experience in this matter.

Chinese gaming companies have started hiring artists less. In a comment to the Rest of the World portal, recruiter Leo Li said that over the past year the number of new vacancies for artists has decreased by 70%.

The artist under the nickname Relan Daevath claims that ZeniMax Online Studios used his art to create a new skin in The Elder Scrolls Online. At the same time, the studio did not ask him for permission and did not indicate authorship.

There's plenty of interesting stuff in the documents released by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about its investigation into Microsoft's attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard, but the titbit that has perhaps attracted most attention is Microsoft's admission that a game appearing on Game Pass negatively affects its sales for at least a year. That's relevant to the investigations underway at the CMA and elsewhere because understanding Game Pass and how it is reshaping the industry's commercial landscape is crucial to understanding the actual impact of this $70 billion proposed deal. Read more

Embracer Group has published its financial report for Q3 FY 22/23, which is the three months ended December 31, 2022.Net sales: SEK 11.6 billion ($1.1 billion), up 128% year-on-year, but down 3% in organic growth Read more

A group of former Respawn Entertainment devs has created a new remote studio, Wildlight Entertainment. The studio was co-founded by CEO Dusty Welch (formerly COO and GM of Apex Legends) and design director Jason McCord (previously design director on Apex).Former Respawn game director Chad Grenier is also part of the team, as studio head and game director. They are also joined by Mohammad Alavi, previously creative director at Respawn, who said on Linkedin that he's been at the studio for the past 13 months. Read more

Robot Teddy, Thunderful Games' self-publishing support agency, has announced additions to its executive team.Joining the company are Amanda Farough, Mike Futter, Alessandro Bovenzi, Hans van Brakel, and Naaila Mohammed. Read more

Despite the rapid growth in popularity of AI services that generate visual content at the request of users, from a legal point of view, their work (as well as the use of graphics created by them) raises many questions. I-Legal lawyers answered the most relevant of them in a special material for App2Top.

Up-and-coming game developers often use ready-made assets in their first projects. And this Argentine artist offers indie creators thousands of free models and assets for a variety of genres and styles.

Having found success in the 90s, John Carmack helped many people, including game designer American McGee. While most of them chose to forget about the money, the Alice creator eventually managed to pay off his debt.

Garth DeAngelis has stepped down from his role as a senior franchise producer at Firaxis. He spent 14 years at the company working on the XCOM series and Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

Blizzard Proletariat leadership has decided not to voluntarily recognize a workers’ union. Instead, they requested an anonymous vote as part of the election process through the National Labor Rleations Board (NLRB).

Maverick Games is a new independent studio founded by several Playground Games veterans. Former Forza Horizon developers are working on an announced AAA game for consoles and PC.

WN Belgrade’23, the upcoming business conference for developers and other games industry professionals, has been announced. Let’s take a look at the first details about the two-day event, which will feature an expo zone and lectures from various experts.

Microsoft seems to be betting big on ChatGPT to bolster its cloud and AI presence. The next step might be a $10 billion investment, which would help it increase its stake in OpenAI, a research lab behind the technology.

UK developer and publisher Frontier Developments has experienced the biggest intraday decline in its stock price ever. The company also lowered its financial outlook for the current fiscal year.

Indie publisher Bigmode, established by popular YouTuber videogamedunkey, has revealed its first title, Animal Well. It is a puzzle platformer about surviving in a haunting pixelated world full of different creatures.

Jonathan Blow, renowed indie game developer and creator of Braid, has shared his thoughts on Elden Ring. While praising the game’s scale, he claimed that it has no design per se.

Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved in another jurisdiction. The Chilean regulator greenlit the record deal, saying it won’t significantly affect competition in the games market.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is not only considered a disappointment by many fans, but also a game that nearly buried one of the most famous fighting series. However, this failure also helped NetherRealm Studios pursue the idea for a much more succesful reboot and return the MK franchise to its brutal roots.

Roblox is especially popular among young players. However, a new investigation digs into how these underage users are being swindled out of thousands of dollars by other children, some as young as 13.

We have seen a number of new studios started by ex-Blizzard devs over the past couple of years. Here is what some of them say about building their own businesses and making new games outside of one of the inudstry’s most prominent AAA companies.

China may finally end its game licensing crackdown. The government has approved more than 40 foreign titles, including products from Riot Games and Nintendo.

Blizzard Proletariat, known for its multiplayer action game Spellbreak, has decided to follow in the footsteps of two other Activision Blizzard teams. A group of workers announced a new union to seek fair compensation and other benefits.

The infamous development of Duke Nukem Forever and the sad fate of 3D Realms have become the talk of the town in the games industry. However, not many people know about the game’s early 2D version from 1996 that was recently leaked online.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has commented on the recent AI controversy and artists’ protests. While acknowledging copyright concerns, he noted that ArtStation won’t be banning this content by default, lest it become a gatekeeper that hinders progress.

A group of enthusiasts from The Hidden Palace community has uploaded more than 300 prototypes for Xbox 360 and Wii games. They noted that their project to archive and preserve unreleased versions of old games is far from over.

The book “Programming in Unreal Engine 5 for a beginner igrodel appeared on sale. Fundamentals of the Blueprint Visual Language”. This is the work of two Russian authors: Olga Maksimenkova, Candidate of Technical Sciences and researcher at the HSE, and Nikita Veselko, Product Owner at the IThub games studio.