Watch Dogs Legion

Year

2018

Role

Senior Concept artist & initial character art direction

Synopsis

Being given full creative autonomy for shaping the production pipelines, outsourcing requirements and the initial look of the core innovation "Play as anyone" kicking off the project with my own vision concepts was a true honor as it required unprecedented problem-solving to avoid replication issues in the build and represent every world character as a potentially worthy hero for a near future London setting. Tim Anderson handled the mask direction while I was responsible for the style breakdown, subculture representation, planning, and asset pooling necessary for the general look of the feature as well as helping brand with character briefs for key-arts and promos. Below are just a handful of samples of materials that ermeged from this massive task.

For Watch Dogs: Legion, I conducted the investigation into the execution of the "Play as Anyone" feature, which required a solution that could address the issue of crowd replication, a common problem in previous games, while also adhering to loading constraints. This involved using region hiding to create “kit clothing” yielding several distinct versions of assets from a single drawcall, reducing the strain on the tech. By making all character assets modular in terms of both geometry and color, redundant combinations were eliminated. The system was based on tagging items, item combinations, and organizing them into data pools informed by cultural research. This approach allowed our tool to preassemble characters for review, ensuring they represented various styles and demographics as art directed in my vision concepts, while automatically filtering out duplicates in real-time. I also collaborated with TA's and the character team to create documentation and ensure outsourcing compliance with the assembly system.
Watch dogs Legion | Initial character direction samples (Artists: Trailer Team + masks by Tim Anderson)

Other credits