One of my first big projects I was tasked with for Ardenweald was compiling the look and feel for what would become, the Glitterfall Basin.

The first thing I wanted to establish, were the tilesets to be used in and around the water. One of our Visual Developers, Chris Deboda, came up with the initial idea of making a river of underground lily pads. I absolutely loved this idea and decided to bring his vision to life. To accent this tileset, I wanted the shoreline to be a mix of grass, mud, and small lily pads that washed up onto the shore. These tilesets then turned into actual plants that the Ardenweald Level Designers populated the zone with.

My next step after the tilesets was to gather the plant "footprint" I felt would best suit this zone. This process involved going through our list of existing plants and finding ones that would serve as blueprints for creating new assets for this zone. From there tasks were generated to either create brand new or update existing assets to create the plant kit you see today. Once all of the tilesets and plants were established, our zone point, Gabe Gonzalez, unified the colors of the kit to harmonize the biome.

Lastly, I worked on the water and waterfalls for the zone. I took existing waters from previous expansions and edited them to fit the feel we wanted for Ardenweald. One of our FX artist, Ethan Zink, created beautiful waterfalls for Bastion that we wanted to reuse for Ardenweald. I took his textures and reworked them to fit the look we wanted for the zone.

Once everything was established, our Level Designers took all of the assets and compiled the Glitterfall Basin. This biome turned out beautifully and they did such an amazing job utilizing the kit. I was extremely happy to be able to work on this biome.

https://www.artstation.com/meldyran
https://www.artstation.com/praxispixels
https://www.artstation.com/pixelbutterfly
https://www.artstation.com/vando
https://www.artstation.com/cdebodaart
https://www.artstation.com/propigator
https://www.artstation.com/vcortis
https://www.artstation.com/ezink