Developer Log - Stardate: 23743.9
The Artistic Vision
In today's Dev log, I will discuss the artistic vision and the decisions made to respectfully expand the franchise, and showcase the extensive content that made this game possible.
To grasp the intricacies of our artistic decisions, it is essential to recognize that this game offers four distinct gameplay perspectives. Crafting a tailored user experience for each of these major powers stood as a paramount factor in shaping the development of each asset. This challenge presented an incredible opportunity.
The artistic vision of Star Trek: Infinite focuses on five core pillars that make up the visual proposal of the game.
The first of these pillars is Consistency. We wanted the Star Trek IP to be presented in a respectful, consistent, and synergistic way, to better help us visualize the wondrous universe of grand strategy games. These three key elements will help us analyze the treatment to give to each of the artistic elements integrated into the game. Each of the assets must fulfill these three purposes, without exception.
This brings us to the second pillar, Classic Trek. The goal is to fulfill trekkie expectations so that they are comfortable with, and can identify with, the use of the classic IP vision for the game. Establishing this rule greatly simplified our decision-making when choosing the characters, the places they occupy within the canon (both for the actors and the audience), the models of the ships, and above all, faithfully representing the source material, as the franchise was built over many decades.
In order to apply all of this correctly, another pillar, Stylization, is defined. In the spaceship stylization for this type of strategy game, legibility will always be prioritized, and will respect the IP boundaries. One of the biggest challenges in the styling proposal came with the 3D models of the ships and structures. Although I was aware that the ship designs had to be adapted to be able to be used in the game engine, the methodology that was used when reducing information was to reverse-engineer the key elements of each design, extract them, and preserve their essence in the redesign.
For the design of the new models, this same criterion was used. A deep research and analysis was done on the structure of the original models, in order to interpret and replicate the decision-making in the designs that made this franchise great.
Regarding the multiple aspects of gameplay, each piece of art corresponds to a different perspective of the game, while some have shared use across all four. This encompasses 3D models, event illustrations, loading screens, iconography, mini illustrations, portraits, VFX, and more
Taking into account that style makes functionality, we find the next pillar, Gameplay First. The UI must always inform gameplay first, in each of its decisions. The user experience posed a great challenge to us, since we had to define an artistic proposal for the user interface, sufficiently clear and defined, that could coexist with realistic graphics support, with a 90's photographic style.
The influence of the original interface used in TNG, combined with some of the most current graphical resources of the franchise, made it possible to achieve a clean and flat style topped with gloss resources that make a high-end interface emphasizing functionality. Both for the iconography and the mini illustrations, functionality is always prioritized. The same applies for the VFX and animations.
In terms of diversity, this was one of the most crucial aspects to consider when creating content, as the franchise has prioritized it since its inception. To achieve this, we collaborated closely with Paramount to carefully curate and define both the event content and the character portraits.
Finally, we find the last pillar, Faithfully Representative. The informative and functional content of this kind of strategy game will be enhanced by the Star Trek IP and its components. The visual content of the original TNG series will be used as faithfully as possible in each artistic decision.
End Log,
Maximiliano Dajtscher
Art Director for Star Trek: Infinite