The Training Island was one of the last things we worked on before launch - it was a whirlwind of a production that came in hot and needed to be completed in just a few weeks before our shipping Alpha, so it needed to come together very quick. With that constraint in mind, re-use was the name of the game: I had to re-use the Grasslands biome we created for Rivermark and apply it to the level, as well as a modified re-use of Rivermark's Water Plant POI and lots of re-used vista assets and such.
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With the vista, it was fun contextualizing this island relative to Headwall, where Wardens live and start matches from, before they teleport to Highguard. Fleshing out the larger Highguard continent in the distance as well was fun to play with as well. Always loved Gabe's concept of it with it flange rocks and spires.
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I owned the open-world landscape outside of the main POI as well as the tweaks to the POI to fit this map: landscape creation (sculpting, painting), foliage propagation, world-building, props, vista, 1st pass lighting, etc.
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Our environments were a colossal team effort by a relatively small team by AAA standards (we shipped with 7 Environment Artists with no environment outsourcing!). There was a lot new we had to built, but we also had to be efficient and smartly re-use the asset bank that we built up across maps.
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Art Director / Lighting:
https://www.artstation.com/rtaube
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Lead Environment Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/jzartist
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Environment Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/jobyek
https://www.artstation.com/paultran
https://www.artstation.com/jakevirginia
https://www.artstation.com/artkristen
https://www.artstation.com/shong1123
https://www.artstation.com/dbentley3d
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Environment Concept Artists:
https://www.artstation.com/gabe-11
https://www.artstation.com/nicholasschumaker
https://www.artstation.com/gabberwocky
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Level Designer:
Dave Osei
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FX Artist:
https://www.artstation.com/mreberg
https://www.artstation.com/ryanbartonvfx
Christopher Shepherd
