Finding Innovative Art Solutions for One of Gaming’s Best-Known Franchises

Published: November 8, 2022

Author: Side Art Team

Finding Innovative Art Solutions for One of Gaming’s Best-Known Franchises
At Side, our teams are always up for a challenge, especially when it comes to finding innovative art solutions for our partners. In this case, it was our work in the universe of beloved video game franchise Borderlands, for partners Liquid Development and Gearbox / 2K—specifically, our experience producing art for Borderlands 3 - Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC (2020) and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (2022). Anyone familiar with games witnessed the popularity of the Borderlands franchise and its eye-catching, unmistakably unique style. This looter-shooter series first stole the hearts of gamers more than 10 years ago. It’s notable for its post-apocalyptic settings, charismatic characters, clever jokes, unique weapon-forging systems, distinctive “comic book” style, and much more. We had the joy of working on numerous characters, props, and weapons in the Borderlands universe. We made 3D models from scratch, based on client concepts, starting with blocks and textures. The most difficult part proved to be the well-known “comic book” stylized design. The Gearbox team uses Unreal Engine 4, so the 3D pipeline was quite familiar to us. The technical part was easy for our team, as we have worked on many AAA art production pipelines before on numerous other projects. However, the nitty-gritty of this artistic style proved more complex. The artistic textures are what makes the Borderlands style so unique. Often, even game industry experts mistakenly believe that Borderlands uses cel shading. This is mostly due to the outlines of the models, common for projects that use cel shading (such as Okami, Persona, Genshin Impact, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, etc.). However, cel shading uses fewer colors. This results in sharper color gradients and shades, making the overall picture flat and cartoonish. That isn’t what you find with the Borderlands franchise. It would have been quite handy if Borderlands had a “cel shade” magic button, but alas, it does not. Yes, outlines are used in the project as it helps make characters and props stand out more. But there is no cel shading; Borderlands only uses conventional lighting. And it’s the stylized models and textures that make the overall game look so eye-catching and memorable. All the textures, materials, and—most importantly—lines, are made by hand. The stylized design was a challenge for us at first. But thanks to our friends at Liquid Development, the artists quickly embraced the sculpting process. The textures were not so easy to tame, though. Borderlands 3 rendering example: Our 3D artists never worked with a style like this, so the textures were time-consuming and at first, we could not get the right result. After several unsuccessful attempts, we decided to look at the situation from a different perspective. We thought that if the style was similar to comics and graphic novels, then we needed help from someone who draws them professionally. So, we added to the team one of our 2D artists who was studying 3D pipelines in her free time. It took a while to integrate her process with our workflow, but the result was overwhelmingly positive. Extraordinary challenges demand extraordinary solutions! We added another 2D artist and modified the working process in the studio. Now we’ve developed a smooth-flowing methodology: 3D artists prepare the models up to the textures (sculpting and bakes), and 2D artists work on the textures. This allows us to make stylized assets quickly and to a high quality, like a production line. Producing art for the Borderlands franchise is one of the most complex and rewarding art production projects we’ve had the pleasure of working on, and the unusual requirements allowed us to challenge ourselves and innovate our processes. As art production for games is constantly changing, we aim to keep innovating our art processes and services at Side. We’re proud to work with game developers and publishers all over the world, working together to create the best gaming experiences possible. Learn more about our art production services.

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