What are the challenges involved with bringing fan-created art into your game? That’s the question we asked ourselves for our Mines of Dalarnia Halloween Update, where we offered fans a chance to bring their spooky creations into our well-established community mining game.
Turning Fan Art into Stunning Game Art
In August 2022, we ran a contest for fans to design their own Mines of Dalarnia armor, alongside other in-game prizes for our Mines of Dalarnia Halloween Update. Players could then vote for the top entries, while we’d select the winners from a pool of finalists to turn into real armor equippable in-game.
Selecting the Art
There were a lot of great options to choose from, but out of the finalists, there were certain criteria we wanted the fanart to align with:
- It had to be on theme, both for the event, and for the game.
- The entries themselves had to be unique and stand out from existing armor.
- The designs had to easily translate on the existing character models.
That last item on the list was critical to production efficiency, but we were also aware that no matter how closely aligned the designs were, we’d need to make artistic compromises to fit them in our game.
After a tough selection process, we found ourselves with 3 winners: Skeleton Gentleman, Bone Armor, and the Patchwork Costume, and we immediately got to work to translate them into the game
2D to 3D
Our first step involved taking that concept art, and applying over our existing models, and adjusting the art to fit our character model proportions.
“For the fan art, some things would have to be changed in order to fit the character’s rig and animations in game, such as awkwardly-shaped shoulder pieces or ornamentations on the design that would be too obstructive and intersect with geometry when animated,” says designer, Chris Davis.
While we gray-boxed the initial designs, we played a delicate balancing act. Unlike our normal workflow from concept to greybox, to final rendering, we normally build and refine the designs throughout that process, but in this case, we didn’t want to deviate the art too much from our winners’ initial designs. Any changes made were small details that helped enforce the initial conceptual design.
In this side-by-side screenshot comparison, you can see we changed the shape of the skull as it intersected with the visor. Chris adds, “the indent to the cranium was to help it feel more dynamic, an extra detail for lighting purposes.”
Rigging and Animating
We also had to consider how these figures would animate inside of the game, and rig them to look as good and unique in motion as they would standing still.
For any parts of their costumes that extended past the base armor model, we had to model these out, and make sure they were ready to be animated, like the pins in the stitch armor, or the top hat for the ghoulish gentleman. Complementary bones and constraints needed to be added to the animation skeleton and tested to make sure these extraneous pieces interacted well with existing assets in the game.
For the Skeleton Gentleman, we ultimately decided to get rid of the chain on the belt since they would require special bones in the rig for it to move properly, while doing little to accentuate player movement. Instead, we dedicated those extra bones to the coat tails, so it flaps when the character runs and jumps, and gives a striking silhouette while in motion.
The Final Designs
With our final renderings, we brought our fan’s creations to life, and released them as limited edition skins that were well-received by the community. By leveraging the imagination of our playerbase, we added more game content that reflected their tastes, while demonstrating our commitment to, and involvement in, the Mines of Dalarnia fan community.
From sketch to final render, we aim for all of our characters to look great at each stage of development, and this art contest was a great opportunity to take those skills and use them to show our appreciation for our players.
Workinman Interactive is the developer behind Mines of Dalarnia, an interplanetary mining action game with real estate elements that has been a leader in blockchain gaming since 2022. Since the early days of game testing, the design team at Workinman has been deeply involved in the fan community, taking feedback and integrating user preferences and ideas to build the best experience possible for the community. Download and play Mines of Dalarnia for free here.
