bigpoint: game of thrones: bringing westeros to life

My Background

• 22 years making video-games• Started out as an artist

• Moved into Art management role

• Moved into production role

• Currently Sr. Producer on Game of Thrones at Bigpoint

World-Building

• I started my career creating 3D Stadiums for sports games

• Worked on several large scale RPG and RTS games with very large maps/levels – each posing unique design, art and technical production constraints.

What problem are we solving

We want to faithfully represent the look and feel of Westeros in a richly detailed game.

The challenge for us is to do this in a web-browser that runs on low spec machines.

What problem are we solving

Historically most web-browser games have been 2D or if they are 3D, they have been much smaller games.

Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms seeks to change this paradigm in creating large-scale terrain visualizations in 3D, playable through a browser.

WESTEROS

Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms – Pre-Alpha in-game screenshot

WESTEROS

Isometric view with zoomable camera and large scale terrain visualization.


WESTEROS

• There are seven “kingdoms” that occupy the different regions of Westeros – each with it’s own geographic and architectural style

WESTEROS

• Westeros has several different ecosystems – a snow filled Northern region, a desert-like Southern region and many differing types of regions in-between.

WESTEROS

• Westeros is supposed to be around the size of South America – or 7000KM long*

• The Wall is estimated to be 500 KM long

*speculation!

WESTEROS


EXPANSION

• We need enough space for the map to expand over time– Additional areas will open up with new adventures and new factions

WESTEROS

• DIVERSITY OF ENVIRONMENTS

WHAT TOOLS DO WE USE

• Proprietary Engine - NEBULA

• World builder

• Brushes

• Maya

• Articy

• Various texture-making tools

• Proprietary tools

TECHNICAL FACTS

• SERVERS: The game world is split into different servers – this allows us flexibility and also to shift the server load around.

• It is technically still on the same map

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Persistent: Every change that happens on the map happens for all players. You affect everything in the world…..and can see everything everyone else does to their game.

TECHNICAL FACTS

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 1 – Terrain Creation:

• Terrain is generated in World Machine 2

• Terrain is exported as Tiled Export

• Maps generated: Height map, Color map

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 2 – Terrain Export:

• Terrain is exported as Tiled Export to Nebula (our proprietary game engine)

• Our engine automatically generates LOD´s (Level of detail) for the Terrain

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 3

• Models and animations are exported from Maya (Using Granny export)

GAME

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 4 – Tree Brushes:

• Tree Brushes: Artist Create a Point Cloud (locators) in Maya and Export to engine

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 5 – Node Network:

• Import the Node Network Data from Articy into the Nebula Editor

• 3d Assets are connected to the Nodes automatically

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 6 – Placement of Assets on the World Map:

• Adjust the Node Network by repositioning the Nodes

• Adjust the Roads by adding and manipulating Road Points

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Step 7 –Ground Detail:

• Decals are generated in Maya and exported in the same way as Static Models

• Decals are placed on the World Map in the same way as Environment Assets

TECHNICAL FACTS

• Other Polish Steps include: • Global Lighting• Regional Lighting (Light Trigger Zones)• Rivers – uses planes with animating shaders• Ocean – uses planes with animating shaders• Particle Effects place throughout game world• UI Icons (3d Icons) place throughout game world

TECHNICAL FACTS

• ONLINE AND OFFLINE PLAY IN A PERSISTENT WORLD


TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

• OPTIMIZATION

• SERVERS


DESIGN• Balancing such a big map is difficult……the design team uses custom made brushes

to paint on resources and player locations.

• As the designers can re-paint an entire region in a few hours using these brushes helps to fine-tune the game balance which needs fast iteration.

DESIGN

DESIGN• While the map is still huge – ensuring we can get enough players occupying a

specific region is always difficult. It takes time for the brushes to be created so that the world does not feel too crowded.

• We will use a “instancing” of each region once they are filled with players –however there will be common areas for all players (PVP region and special quest locations)

DESIGN


DESIGN• The designers also need to split up the PVP region (represented by the Riverlands

in the Game of Thrones world) so that we do not show too many players at once and bog down the game engine.

• We also use a “fog of war” to prevent the PVP and PVE region from showing too many players and becoming visually too noisy. Visual acuity is important to our gameplay

DESIGN


DESIGN• The world is connected by roads – we can block off many areas by not having any

roads lead through them until we are ready to unveil that region.

• Utilizing roads and a node network gives us tight control over where players travel and also is an important part of our gameplay strategy.

DESIGN


DESIGN• We also utilize a separate screen to showcase the players base – this allows us to

add in more detail than what is possible on the main map. The Castle (or Keep) will show it’s visual upgrades in both screens so players can see where other players are at around them.

DESIGN• In order for players to travel around the map without taking hours we have added

in fast travel locations – these are represented by camps and docks throughout all of the regions. Each of these regions is on a different server.

• We originally allowed players to travel without using the fast travel system but the gameplay was simply not fun and did not fit with the game style.

DESIGN


DESIGN

• Strategic map

DESIGN• Questing


ART

• We try to use all the latest tools we can to build up the map as quickly as possible.

• Iteration is key to building a great game

ART

• Everything can be upgraded or edited requiring several versions of one asset


ART

• We will unveil new regions as the game progresses.

• Animals and interesting landmarks are also spread throughout the map

ART


ART

• Lighting


ART

• Water


ART

• Trees


ART

• What’s next?

SUMMARY

QUESTIONS?

If you have more please e-mail me at:

[email protected]

bigpoint: game of thrones: bringing westeros to life

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