Cities And Housing Archive

I have seen some people wondering what takes so long in creating a new structure for SWG and I wanted to explain what it is we do when we create a new structure or ship.

The first thing we have to do is get a concept for the exterior of the house and maybe one for the interior as well. A concept artist will spend a few days working on this and it will go through several stages before its actually finalized. Next it will be given to an artist like myself and Ill spend approximatle 40 days creating the ooutside and inside. there are several tasks when creating an interior/exterior house or ship

• creating mesh


• creating textures (including effects like normal maps and specularity)


• pre-lighting each room


• adding character lighting


• adding floors


• adding other technical components

After this is all done, we put it through a review phase where several other artists will look over the assets and make sure they work properly. If anything is broken I will have to go back over it and fix any issues. then it is re-submitted for a second review. Once it passes the review it is exported and a designer has to work on it.

Designers will need to add things like terminals, repair points, chairs and any other objects called for in the design. they will also need to make sure that it works in the world and that the turrets, engines, thrusters, guns, signs and any other additional items funtion and fit. all together it can take over 2 months from start to finish to bring a new ship or house into the game. Thats one artist taken up for 40 days and a designer taken up for additional days to bring it in.

The bunker I made recently was an exception to the rule andI was able to finish it slighty faster then previous things I have made like the Y-8 and ARC170. In the case of the bunker I was asked to use the pre-exsisting mustafar bunker exterior. that saved me alot of time in mesh and textures. I also designed the interior from my own concepts so I didnt need a concept artist. all of this shaved my art time down to about 25 days. The house is now in the stage where it is being prepared for the game by designers. When it finally gets into the game it will still be 40+ days of development however.

Hopefully this sheds some light on what me and the other artists do from day to day to bring you the Star Wars experiance

Master Artist

Hats off to SWG's artists! You guys do great work.

I really haven't ageed with any of the design decisions the Team has made for the last year, but I am still consistently impressed art and graphics in game. Too bad your powers are too often used for evil such as introducing such things things as the CU icons, particle effects, clone armour and other content that is out of place etc.

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SWG-Goliath wrote:

I have seen some people wondering what takes so long in creating a new structure for SWG and I wanted to explain what it is we do when we create a new structure or ship.

The first thing we have to do is get a concept for the exterior of the house and maybe one for the interior as well. A concept artist will spend a few days working on this and it will go through several stages before its actually finalized. Next it will be given to an artist like myself and Ill spend approximatle 40 days creating the ooutside and inside. there are several tasks when creating an interior/exterior house or ship

• creating mesh


• creating textures (including effects like normal maps and specularity)


• pre-lighting each room


• adding character lighting


• adding floors


• adding other technical components

After this is all done, we put it through a review phase where several other artists will look over the assets and make sure they work properly. If anything is broken I will have to go back over it and fix any issues. then it is re-submitted for a second review. Once it passes the review it is exported and a designer has to work on it.

Designers will need to add things like terminals, repair points, chairs and any other objects called for in the design. they will also need to make sure that it works in the world and that the turrets, engines, thrusters, guns, signs and any other additional items funtion and fit. all together it can take over 2 months from start to finish to bring a new ship or house into the game. Thats one artist taken up for 40 days and a designer taken up for additional days to bring it in.

The bunker I made recently was an exception to the rule andI was able to finish it slighty faster then previous things I have made like the Y-8 and ARC170. In the case of the bunker I was asked to use the pre-exsisting mustafar bunker exterior. that saved me alot of time in mesh and textures. I also designed the interior from my own concepts so I didnt need a concept artist. all of this shaved my art time down to about 25 days. The house is now in the stage where it is being prepared for the game by designers. When it finally gets into the game it will still be 40+ days of development however.

Hopefully this sheds some light on what me and the other artists do from day to day to bring you the Star Wars experiance

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I have a question for you. You said in a diff thread that 'this' bunker house is one that you started working on a few weeks ago and is not the bunker house that was mentioned as a one year vet reward...

can I ask you this straight up then...was 'that' bunker house ever worked on? if so, why would soe put you to work on a NEW bunker house when there already is one started on and or finished and not in the game? seems like a waste of resources to me. If there is another one completed already it makes more since to use it instead of putting out the effort and wasting valuable time to create a whole new one.

Nice info

I only hope the elevatorsgot tested really good so they work unlike the elevators in the generic/naboo guild halls that only work 10% of the time

If given the option between spending valuable resources on creating a bunker house or simply working on the avator purge/ removing old buildings, I would have spent it on removing all those laggy creating not used houses cluttering up the servers.

Oh, yes, the houses look nice but it doesnt really sove other issues. Sorry I am so bitter, I used to be a cheerleader for SOE, but.... I cant be anymore.

I think the one thing everyone can agree on is that the artwork in this game is outstanding.

got a question tho....why aren't there any camera's in game? It would be really nice to have a camera that a player could use to take snapshots of people, places, and things, then proceed to get them developed via a terminal and framed by an architecht....with a few types of frames, they could even serve a dual purpose as simulated windows (of course there would be no exterier modification) if this is something that is possible, it would be extremeley well recieved, I'd imagine, given your artistic bent, you recognize this, Goliath....any chance of this happening?