Piero Macgowan

Friday, March 15, 2013

Civ V expansion

Our Civilization V team at Firaxis just announced their latest expansion! I helped them out with concepting out the King.
Here's a link to the article on Kotaku:
http://kotaku.com/5990726/civilization-vs-newest-expansion-pack-will-take-you-to-a-brave-new-world

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Throughout the project I was asked to provide a lot of faces for soldiers and civilians, which was probably one of my favorite things to do. Later on I figured out that zbrushing the heads was actually just as fast if not faster for me, and it made more sense for the pipeline because there was an actual 3D asset the modelers could use.

You'll notice these portraits framed in some office levels :D

These are straight up portraits of two members of the xcom team, Matt Demaray on the left and Adam Goodrich on the right. We had fun using the Matt model (called a"Demaray" in the office) to populate levels with dead people early in the development.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Ethereal

These are some of the concepts for the ultimate baddie in XCOM.

He is called the Ethereal, and is the most formidable alien you encounter in the game. I will not go into the story details here, but suffice to say, this guy's incredible psionic powers make him the ultimate adversary.

We wanted him to be graceful yet threatening. Regal yet full of malice. He does not need physical prowess to dominate you. His race has evolved beyond physical strength and into pure psionic death.

Really, really early sketches of the Ethereal. These were part of the first artwork I did for XCOM.

Initially I was thinking the head could have some sort of psionic power gem, but then I thought that might make him too regal, and take away from his creepy vibe.

After fellow concept artist Bryce Homick did a bunch of sketches for the Ethereal's overall shape, I was inspired by his designs and made this concept, which minus a few changes, is what you see in the game.

headpiece design sketches.

Fellow concept artist at the time Kenji Bliss made some amazing designs for the elder's head and headpiece, which unfortunately did not make it in the game. These borrow from his aesthetic, as well as the Ethereal's body below.

XCOM soldiers and progression

Here's some concept work I did for the soldier progression in the game. Some of this is very early work, where we were focusing on the possibility of establishing soldier progression from rookie to veteran by displaying it visually though personality accessories and bits of swag or clothing. The needs of the game evolved, of course, and this meant a change into a kit-based system of snapping parts (final system not displayed here).

The art director wanted "at ease" versions of the soldiers for the base early in development. I just dressed those concepts with the necessary armor. In this case the first pass on level 1 armor. Like most things in the game, it got "chunkified", or detail-enlarged to read better from game camera.

Level 2 armor

First pass on level 3 armor

These are very early concepts demonstrating the rookie/veteran idea we were thinking about at the time. Tattoos, scars, accessories, broken or scratched parts, and hairstyles meant to reflect a soldier's hardening progression through the game. The dude on the left was named "Tyrese", and we made a life-size standie which we still have in the office. (we also have a sectoid and ethereal standie)

An early version of soldier customization, probably one of the most popular parts of the game. I had fun creating different layers in Photoshop with all the individual possibilities in hairstyle, race, clothing, etc...

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Original vision for XCOM:EU (2007-08)

What follows is a collection of images that I created back in 2007 and 2008, and were meant to support the vision we had back then. As you can see, xcom had a much more rural feel to it. This eventually changed to better serve the needs the game evolved into. Some of these images were intended to support the original gameplay concept video that Firaxis made back in early 2008. You can see that short movie by clicking on this text.

I was hired a couple of months before anyone even started to work on the movie, so I had some time to explore the aesthetic. Art director Greg Foertsch asked me to establish and focus on the mood. The old XCOM from '94 had a very creepy rural vibe to it, so I sought to capture something similar, but updated. This exploration continued through the variations you see below.

Variations for times of day/weather were explored.

The first environment I worked on at Firaxis.

I always tried to instill a sense of narrative by implying it rather than showing it. Details like the truck's single headlight , the tricycle, or the swingset in these images are meant to hint at a story.

Fun details like little blood trails, shuffled or broken objects, and theatrical lights helped to construct the vision for the concept movie.

"Keyframe" color key for the final scene.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

CGHUB Editor's picks!

More XCOM stuff coming soon. For now, the news is that I just created my CGHUB page piero.cghub.com ,and I got an email saying one of my images got in the Editor's picks!

http://cghub.com/images/view/327530/

Woohoo!

Friday, October 12, 2012

The Infamous Chryssalid

Here is my concept for the Chryssalid. This guy was nailed in the first thumbnail pass. I distinctly remember my art director and designer saying "that's the guy, that's it right there". There was a lot of pressure involved in redesigning the original xcom alien, which is considered one of the scariest things in gaming...

Initial thumbnails. You can see the chosen one at the bottom middle.

I was also asked to visualize how the chryssalid would burst out of the human's body. I did not want to make it look like the Alien movies too much. In a sense I think I came up with a quick sketch of something even more gruesome. I remember Jacob Solomon, the lead designer, being a bit disgusted at the time. In the presentation he said that this was "too much", "gratuitous" and "crossing the line". Someone then brought up the fact that in order for this event to not happen, you had to burn your soldier alive (back when we did have flamethrowers and bullets would not do the trick). After that comment, the matter was settled.

The final version, after enlarging the level of detail to read from game camera.