Star Wars: KotOR II Designer Diary #3

In GameSpot’s third designer diary for Star Wars: KotOR II, lead artist Aaron Myers discusses how the artwork was created for the game. A snippet to follow:

The process of making the game was mostly straightforward. We would make a very rough blocked level so the designers could run around and get a feel for the environment. Once they gave the thumbs-up, we would start making the levels that will be seen in the finished game. We worked on the art in waves or passes. The first pass after concepting is a rough of the level layout, with each pass after that adding more polish and detail into the geometry and textures. After each complete pass we would return to the first areas that we’d worked on, and make another pass through all the areas, adding more polish and cleaning things up as much as possible. On each pass through the art team was more efficient and the overall feel of the areas were getting better and better. So the first phase is always a rough, “blocked” level (temp textures, low detail geometry). Then we would move on to the built/textured and first pass lighting phase, and then go through the final polish phase until the level achieved what we call “SB” status. “SB” is a technical term that represents to the team that the level is “done” from an art perspective. This entire process would take anywhere from three to five weeks for the artist assigned to an area.