Thought I’d post up some of the work that me and the Character Art team here at Rare have been working on for Sea of Thieves.
As a bit of background, all characters in Sea of Thieves are created using a system we developed internally called the Infinite Pirate Generator. This is a system I spearheaded along with the Tech Art and the Character Art team to allowing us to deliver on the initial Character brief for Sea of Thieves - “Be the Pirate you want to Be”…no small feat!
The system allows completely automatically generated characters to be generated with a button click and customized from there- vastly cutting down production time and allowing for some creative effects on the Characters in this vibrant, magical world! This was a necessity for the tiny size of the Character Team (no more than 4 on Sea of Thieves at a time, and sometimes down to 1) and the release route the game has taken, for continuous delivery.
A selection of NPCs generated from the IPG. You can see the diversity and personality of the generated characters really shine here. All work by the Character Art team at Rare.
A selection of NPCs generated from the IPG. You can see the diversity and personality of the generated characters really shine here. All work by the Character Art team at Rare.
IPG - Randomised Heads: Randomised gender, ethnicity, body shape, facial features, facial accessories
IPG - Randomised Bodies: Randomised ethnicity, body shape, facial features, facial accessories
IPG - Randomised Bodies: Randomised body shape, facial features, facial accessories
IPG - Base Bodies: A range of body shapes
IPG - Very early Maya side IPG tests. Fully automatically generated heads. Randomised body Shape, wonkiness and age
IPG - Very early Maya side IPG tests. Fully automatically generated heads.