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CKIII Dev Diary #28 - Art Focus

Hello my name is Joacim, Art Lead on Crusader Kings 3, I am positing here a developer diary written by Pontus, Art Director on Crusader Kings 3, currently on paternity leave. Our artists will reply to your questions in the comments!

Art Focus
Hey! Let’s talk about the art of Crusader Kings III!

My name is Pontus, Art Director on CK3. I’ve written this dev diary together with the art team, and if you promise to tell everyone this is the best dev diary so far, there will be some sweet wallpapers at the end of it. Cool?

Certainly, you’ve seen a lot of the art already, in various states of completion, with all our diaries and previews. Let’s start by talking about the way we’ve approached creating the graphics for the game!

The starting point for the art direction is, as it should be, the game design. If you recall Dev Diary #0, Henrik Fåhreus’ vision of the game has a big focus on characters and storytelling, as well as approachability and player freedom. Reinforcing that through the art has been the main goal.

To keep ourselves on-track, three key pillars guide the art department on CK3:

A ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE - This pillar is represented by our goal to give life to the characters and their unfolding stories. An example of this would be the characters’ portraits, we did not want them small and static, they are now front and center, and show off their standing or lack thereof through clothing, as well as show how they feel about what is happening to them through body language.

DD28_king_01.jpg
DD28_king_02.jpg


A MEDIEVAL GAME - We made a great effort to keep a good level of historical accuracy in our designs. Our illustrations and icons are made to reflect the time period, just like the 3D art that populate the map. Of course, sometimes we had to try and find good compromises in the designs that would work for the entire timespan of the game.

Where possible, we based clothes on reconstructed sewing patterns from extant medieval clothing. For example, we recreated the "coronation tunic" of Roger II of Sicily, a well preserved garment from the 1130s (though it was actually made some time after the coronation).

DD28_tunic_comp.jpg


Another example would be a loading screen with some really well-painted sunflowers, but these did not exist in europe until the 16th century, which was spotted in time thanks to our Beta testers: so we sent it back to get the flowers repainted…

A ROUGH WORLD - Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.

Now, let’s talk about the different types of art you’ll have fun with in CK3:

CHARACTERS
I’m very excited about our new character portraits, and what we can do with them visually. They are varied and have lots of, well, character. Every day there’s a screenshot shared in the dev chat featuring someone they’ve encountered in-game, and we usually agree, yes, that person wears that hat better than most, or indeed, he looks just like the poster boy for the Deviant trait.

For me, the real test for the characters is if they make you feel, and It IS satisfying to throw especially smug-looking Rivals into your Dungeon, and you might feel a bit sorry for some harmless looking characters before you plot to have someone deliver poisonous snakes upon them.

I really want to stress the fantastic work our Lead Character Artist Nils Wadensten and the character team have done in bringing this new generation of portraits to our games, alongside our Engine team.

In fact, he’ll go into the character portraits a bit more in a future diary, hopefully he won’t show the first iterations of the wounds and diseases, some were a bit too much for a lot of people.. :)

For now, I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of Concept art and the final piece of Clothing as how it appears in the game.

DD28_steppe.jpg
DD28_african_pagan.jpg


ANIMATION
Making the characters move was quite a challenge since the movements need to be very discreet, and not call too much attention to themselves as that could become a distraction from the gameplay.

The posing and idle animations are there to help the immersion and storytelling. Keeping the Rough World pillar in mind, they should not be silly and slapstick - while CK has some wonderful dark humor, we play it straight. I do think the look on a character's face when he realises they are locked up together with a Cannibal is appropriately shocked though.

Generally the characters have a pose that reflects their personality or the situation they’re in.


EVENTS
Here is where the role-playing really kicks in. When an event pops up, we showcase the characters involved and how they feel about the current proceedings, set against a backdrop that really helps sell the setting. This means if you encounter the same event in another play-through, the visuals might be quite different due to the characters involved.

The backdrops have a detailed but hand-painted style that complements our stylized characters’ well. In fact, we have some for you as wallpapers without text, icons and characters obscuring them, enjoy.

When we create a new event background, we also do a hand-crafted lighting setup, which relights the portraits to fit the current scene:

DD28_events_01.jpg
DD28_events_02.jpg
DD28_events_03.jpg
DD28_events_04.jpg


ILLUSTRATIONS
Besides the events, there’s plenty of illustrations in CK3!

For the loading screens, we wanted someone who can do images full of mood and storytelling, in a rough, painterly style. We went straight for the top and asked Craig Mullins. Fortunately, he was up for it, and has provided some really exciting imagery.

They all are of course showcasing aspects of the Crusader Kings experience- from Templars in battle to babies in peril!

Besides the loading screens and event backgrounds, we have cool paintings for Decision categories, terrain types, holdings, army movements, legacies… heck, our Personality trait icons and Tenets are small illustrations - there is a lot to discover and keep you entertained and immersed!

DD28_hunt_text.jpg


The Holding Illustrations make for great wallpapers as well, so we included that in our art drop!

UNITS
Our units are really cool! We were very enthusiastic about these, and really added quite a bit of detail. Let us know if you spot the nails that stick the shield handle into the shield at the back.

The units’ appearance is based on culture - We have Western European, Byzantine, Middle-east / North Africa, Pagans, Indian and Turko-Mongol.

A unit has three visual tiers, becoming more armor-clad and sophisticated as it progresses. So it was important for us to make sure a Tier 2 Byzantine looks equally as tough as a Tier 2 Turko-Mongol for instance.

They have a lot of spark to them as we added a lot of different animations, they cheer when they win, bang their shields during sieges and we make use of red liquid particles when they land some nice hits.

Culture, Tiers and Coat-of-arms colors and emblems make the Units look appropriate and unique. Here’s some examples:

DD28_units.png



HOLDINGS
The Holdings were quite a challenge, they needed to be a certain size based on maximum zoom level and minimum Barony size. Since they are small they need to have strong, readable shapes without looking like toys.

Their appearances are influenced by the region they are found in, in this case Western European, Mediterranean, India and Middle-east.

Similar to Units, they have visual tiers, tied to the Holding’s Upgrade level. Temples and Cities have two tiers, whereas Castles and Walls have four tiers.

Of course, we have primitive huts as well, and a big bunch of unique buildings, some easier to recreate (Pyramids) than others (Charlemagne's Palace).

DD28_western_castles.png
DD28_mena_castles.png

DD28_special_01.png
DD28_special_02.png



MAP
There’s a rumor going around that some of you CK2 players rarely look at the terrain map. We didn’t want that for CK3, so we made our map to not only be moody and pretty to look at, but also more useful, so you’d have more reasons to go there.

CK is information heavy, so we try to make sure that everything in the terrain map serves a function, and is easy to see. Thus a cleaner look, to make sure the icons, borders, text and 3D models that sit on top of the land read well. At a glance, you should be able to see what terrain type a Barony has without consulting another map mode.

DD28_map_02.png
DD28_map_03.png
DD28_map_01.png


If you are into Political Map modes though, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. You’ll notice it feels familiar.

It seems our Paper map has been received well, we’re glad you like lobsters too! Getting the right amount of sea-monsters without making it look cluttered wasn’t easy, but I think we managed in the end.

DD28_papermap.png


UI
A PDS game has a lot of UI. It is something made in close collaboration with UX and Game Design departments. It is constantly iterated upon and is one of the most challenging aspects of our games.
Visually we took inspiration from game design’s character focus pillar and pulled in visual influences from Roleplaying games. To make it approachable we tried to keep it clean, and give everything some breathing room.

DD28_Character_Screen.png
DD28_MAA.jpg


DD28_letter.jpg


We use a lot of illustrations in our UI’s to help immersion and flavor, and we have a cool system where some of the image types are context sensitive, so for instance your Sultan will not stand in front of a western European throne room if he is hanging out in the Middle-east, and if you are dealing with Catholicism in Religion View, well you’ll see churches and similar imagery.


Coats of Arms
Heraldry is essential to the medieval immersion of Crusader Kings, and so heralds will be excited to hear that we have totally overhauled the Coat of Arms system.

We started from scratch, poring over history books and contemporary armorials to ensure every detail is authentic. We designed accurate CoA for over a thousand titles and dynasties to complement a new scriptable random system that weights hundreds of unique elements based on culture, religion, and everything in between. We modeled minute differences across regions, so frequencies of designs and tinctures are different in Germany, France, and Spain. The amount of possible combinations? Millions.

We achieved our primary goal of making our feudal European heraldry as accurate as possible, but we didn't stop there—we wanted to go into extra depth for all regions. For example, the eastern hordes decorate the Great Steppe with their special tamgha emblems, while the Islamic world is fleshed out with immersive Saracenic heraldry (no more endless stars and crescents). Emergent cadet houses differentiate their new arms by quartering, and yes, England's coat of arms will change if William wins the Norman Invasion.

Here’s some examples of the heraldry system in action - firstly how England’s arms can react to gameplay, and secondly a selection of randomly-generated COA from around the world.

DD28_COA_1.png
DD28_COA_2.png


In summary:

The art team has worked very hard and it is a delight every day to see whatever new stuff is coming in. Making games is a group effort though, so we get invaluable help and feedback from the rest of the team: code, design, QA, sound, production all contribute as well.

Of course, seeing pictures in a dev diary is one thing, we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the full experience! As always, your feedback will help guide us as we continue to make content and improvements for CK3!

And for being good sports and reaching the end of the dev diary, here's links to some sweet wallpapers!
 

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An absolutely fantastic DD as usual!

DD28_king_01.jpg
DD28_king_02.jpg


Man, what went wrong for this guy? It took me a moment to recognize that it was the same dude. It looks like he was beaten in a battle, deposed, and his wife died... if so, that's quite the rough sequence of events, especially since he doesn't seem any older.

Where possible, we based clothes on reconstructed sewing patterns from extant medieval clothing.

Gotta love this attention to detail. Obviously it's impossible to be entirely accurate, but the effort put in really will increase immersion and therefore enjoyment.

Crusader Kings is not a game for all-ages, you live dangerously and people do terrible, terrible things to each other. This is reflected in the more somber palette and overall mood of the game.

Gonna echo a couple other people in saying that while I 100% agree with the above an ever so slight bit more contrast would help bring it even more to life. While much of what went on in the time period is grim, there was also a lot of grandeur and vibrancy. There seems to be a good variety of colors, but they tend to feel a bit muted and samey in my perception.

For me, the real test for the characters is if they make you feel

Amen! I read a review that called out how it felt harder to order other people murdered etc. because of the 3D portraits. I really think the dynamic aging and effects are going to make a big difference in that regard, if you make a rival as a teen it will be so much more satisfying to watch him slowly become a drunken, bloated buffoon.

And maybe all those "Your wife is getting fat" events might actually make me interested instead of mostly annoyed. Probably not though, tbh.

hopefully he won’t show the first iterations of the wounds and diseases, some were a bit too much for a lot of people.. :)
I dont think anyone with strong trypophobia will be playing with it on, i'll say that much.

I shudder in both anticipation and pre-emptive disgust.

When we create a new event background, we also do a hand-crafted lighting setup, which relights the portraits to fit the current scene:

I think you might have an opportunity to play more with the direction the lighting is coming from to add flavor to the scene. Top down for scheming, behind the head for pious/glorious, straight in the eyes for a character in prison, etc. Could be cool.

We went straight for the top and asked Craig Mullins. Fortunately, he was up for it, and has provided some really exciting imagery.

:eek:o_O

They have a lot of spark to them as we added a lot of different animations, they cheer when they win, bang their shields during sieges and we make use of red liquid particles when they land some nice hits.

Really excited for this, the unit animations in CK2 are so utterly boring.

Culture, Tiers and Coat-of-arms colors and emblems make the Units look appropriate and unique. Here’s some examples:

I like that their colors are determined by coat of arms, although it does make it look a bit like the two armies fighting in the clip are from the same dynasty, I had to really peer to tell the difference. It will make things like the War of the Roses etc. really cool, a literal struggle between the Red and White.

Since they are small they need to have strong, readable shapes without looking like toys.

To add my two cents to the great city sprawl debate, I think there should be some to add a bit of realism (because they do look kind of like toys right now) but not too much since most of the baronies were very sparsely populated all things considered. I also think it should be tied to Development. Fin.

There’s a rumor going around that some of you CK2 players rarely look at the terrain map.

I wonder what percentage of my CK2 hours have been looking at the terrain map. 0.1%? 0.01%? Probably less.


These. Look. So. Good. Is that the Sahara? I'm absolutely jonesing to play in West Africa, every time I look at the cut of CK2 map I get mad at how far away September is.

Getting the right amount of sea-monsters without making it look cluttered wasn’t easy, but I think we managed in the end.

I think it is *almost* perfect, but I would love one sea monster in the Easter Mediterranean. The North Sea gets like four but there's only one east of Italy??? I sense a nit to pick!!!!

Visually we took inspiration from game design’s character focus pillar and pulled in visual influences from Roleplaying games. To make it approachable we tried to keep it clean, and give everything some breathing room.

The UI is so much cleaner and more readable and just a MASSIVE improvement over CK2. I think this and the tooltips are probably your strongest allies in catching that demo of people who are interested in trying but find it impenetrable. I know there's a lot of them out there and I'm sure you guys want them real bad, so kudos in making these so clean and clear.

I do miss the specific UI for different religions though. The plain black is very clean but also very plain. Alas.


The seals are so good!

Of course, seeing pictures in a dev diary is one thing, we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the full experience!

Yeah imagine how we feel!

When making the holdings for the base game our main focus was on making sure that they were easily readable and a clear sense of progression could be seen over time. For release we aren't including a building sprawls system, but we have heard the feedback and we have people in the project that are keen to see the sprawl make a return. So while it wont make it in for release, we may see it come back in the future to help show the growth of provinces.

Just a quick moment to again say I appreciate how responsive and open PDX is in general. You do not need to solicit feedback like you do or let us in on development like this, and I find it noteworthy, so I am hereby noting it. Thank you!

A levy army should fear a knight army that might also have leadership and terrain in their favor

Really excited to see how this interacts with units joining mid-battle. I'm imagining sending out a teir-1 bait unit and then sending in my tier 2 reinforcements with terrain advantage as soon as their army's movement is locked, causing the icon to shift up and go from getting its butt kicked to performing said butt-kicking. That is pretty neat. I think that specific unit models for things like MaA should definitely be added or at least be content packs in the future, it would be a ton of fun to get to see a knight's charge or horse archer wheel-and-fire tactics, or y'know, ELEPHANTS. Just putting it out there. Elephants would be dope. ;)
 
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Also, I understand it would be difficult to achieve but seeing sprawl around the holdings and the countryside would be cool, maybe seeing market towns in the holdings, roads for traders, pilgrims and other travellers would be cool. It would also be cool to see the effect sieges, raiding (and now that I think of it, there could be some really cool raiding animations), disease and devastation has on counties and the holdings. Seeing bodies being hauled onto carts really made me feel the peril my counties were in. Broken walls and flames would have a nice effect.
 
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EVENTS
Here is where the role-playing really kicks in. When an event pops up, we showcase the characters involved and how they feel about the current proceedings, set against a backdrop that really helps sell the setting. This means if you encounter the same event in another play-through, the visuals might be quite different due to the characters involved.

The backdrops have a detailed but hand-painted style that complements our stylized characters’ well. In fact, we have some for you as wallpapers without text, icons and characters obscuring them, enjoy.

When we create a new event background, we also do a hand-crafted lighting setup, which relights the portraits to fit the current scene:

View attachment 581768

Really nice work. But there is one problem. The background here shows wooden chairs and other stuff. There were no wooden chairs in medieval churches. An example: backless stone benches first appeared in English churches in the late 14th century and they were placed up towards the walls in the nave. Wooden benches only became common in the 15th century. For the first 1500 years of the church history people stood up at mass and then knelt on the floor when needed.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7bb93e035f1d28b2c15fe0f7f8fd2d18

https://medievalchurchart.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/seven_sacraments_rogier.jpg?w=1400&h=9999

https://images.fineartamerica.com/i...ration-of-mass-mary-evans-picture-library.jpg

Its an easy thing to verify. Just look up medieval art of christian mass or look up the history of pews or chairs in the churches and mass.
 
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While the new Heraldry system is amazing, I still wish courts were represented on the map by big fancy escutcheons like in CK2 instead of dinky little banners.
 
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Really nice work. But there is one problem. The background here shows wooden chairs and other stuff There were no wooden chairs in medieval churches. An example: backless stone benches first appeared in English churches in the late 14th century and they were placed up towards the walls in the nave. Wooden benches only became common in the 15th century. For the first 1500 years of the church history people stood up at mass and then knelt on the floor when needed.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7bb93e035f1d28b2c15fe0f7f8fd2d18

https://medievalchurchart.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/seven_sacraments_rogier.jpg?w=1400&h=9999

https://images.fineartamerica.com/i...ration-of-mass-mary-evans-picture-library.jpg

Its an easy thing to verify. Just look up medieval art of christian mass or look up the history of pews or chairs in the churches and mass.

Mate... you just changed my view of reality D: This blew my mind! Thank you for the information. It's incredible how we do not know such basic things about certain things and it is incredible how such a little thing can change our view of certain scenarios! Very cool
 
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Man, what went wrong for this guy? It took me a moment to recognize that it was the same dude. It looks like he was beaten in a battle, deposed, and his wife died... if so, that's quite the rough sequence of events, especially since he doesn't seem any older.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death...

(Dead only 9 years at the default game start!)
 
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Love this, especially the CoAs!! They look so much better than CKII, very excited to this in-game.

For reference, this was an actual CoA.
Look at how messy it is. 2 families with messy CoAs merged to make an ultra mess.

Boy its ugly.
Boy its awful.
But boy is it so bad its good.

I somehow doubt we will see anything this in game.

In the timeframe of CK, quartering never went this far. All the extreme examples are far outside the timeframe when the nobility got way out of hand trying to show all their combined lineage.

Like this from the 1700s with 719 quarterings:
1590555864514.png
 
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I mean, Europeans didn't really get any better, with Norse and Russians sharing the same clothing, and French, Germans, and English all use the same clothing. My point is most groups do not have it better, the developers are likely focusing on building the groundwork for the game and do not have the resources and time to give every culture group their own clothing and units at launch.
As for the incest, it is clearly exaggerated in CK, but I'm pretty sure there is historical precedent for it.
Yes I guess you're right
but we all remember the catholic buff they added in holy fury that made them very powerful
 
Dark and gritty and gloomy. More gray on gray.

Dark atmosphere the game is supposed to have aside, what I really liked about Ck2 interface was high contrast. Everything was easy to read, and easy on the eyes. But when I look at the Ck3 interface, my eyes tire easily. You can make me read light-gray text on slightly-darker gray backgrounds if you're feeling particularly sadistic, just don't expect me to thank you for it. And I am the lucky one, I actually can read the text if I squeeze my eyes hard enough, but what about people who cannot?
 
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Looking back at my previous comment and finishing reading the discussion to this page (all very interesting), I find it funny and sad at how many people are constantly disagreeing/downvoting comments with good ideas or improvements that should be in the game. It's like they don't want the game to evolve and surpass CK2.
My earlier suggestion about reintroducing cavalry models was probably seen as demanding, but I stand by my words. Having these units (especially with these new graphics) is going to improve the game. I don't know what's wrong with and honestly, I don't like this like/helpful/funny/disagree system. Imo it discourages discussion. It would be awesome for someone to provide a good argument as to why such models shouldn't be in a medieval game set in the medieval times where cavalry units were an important part of an army composition. Wouldn't it be disappointing if you decided to play as a horde and then to realize your hordes look like generic infantry?
Now, about growth (cities/provinces): Imperator did an awesome job on this front. The world feels alive and growing. I kinda hoped the same for CK3 but again it's sad to see how many details they're removing. I'm one of those guys that like to see what is happening in a province/city. Is it building something? How big is it? What kind of great work do they have? Is the city starving? Possible disease outbreak?
It was these neat little details that made CK2 an amazing world to be a part of. I hope CK3 doesn't remove these and if everything goes wrong, I can always count on modders to make the game a more pleasing experience.
 
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Looking back at my previous comment and finishing reading the discussion to this page (all very interesting), I find it funny and sad at how many people are constantly disagreeing/downvoting comments with good ideas or improvements that should be in the game. It's like they don't want the game to evolve and surpass CK2.
My earlier suggestion about reintroducing cavalry models was probably seen as demanding, but I stand by my words. Having these units (especially with these new graphics) is going to improve the game. I don't know what's wrong with and honestly, I don't like this like/helpful/funny/disagree system. Imo it discourages discussion. It would be awesome for someone to provide a good argument as to why such models shouldn't be in a medieval game set in the medieval times where cavalry units were an important part of an army composition. Wouldn't it be disappointing if you decided to play as a horde and then to realize your hordes look like generic infantry?
Now, about growth (cities/provinces): Imperator did an awesome job on this front. The world feels alive and growing. I kinda hoped the same for CK3 but again it's sad to see how many details they're removing. I'm one of those guys that like to see what is happening in a province/city. Is it building something? How big is it? What kind of great work do they have? Is the city starving? Possible disease outbreak?
It was these neat little details that made CK2 an amazing world to be a part of. I hope CK3 doesn't remove these and if everything goes wrong, I can always count on modders to make the game a more pleasing experience.
I think people disagreed with the way you phrased your comment more than your point. Saying you would be pissed if they don't implement something you want came across as rude and entitled rather than constructive. Now I don't think anyone disagrees with you on the point that it would be nice to have cavalry models in the game, but it's obviously a question of priorities for the devs. Regarding the steppe horde unit models i absolutely agree with you and hope that they look like steppe cavalry rather than infantry.
 
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Can't wait to see Rus` CoA! I hope mistake with Halych CoA being replaced with Peremyshl will disappear. Also, expect to see the symbol of Rurik dynasty
 
Real talk, a lot of stuff in medieval times that was normal can be considered either super ugly or silly.

The obsession with codpieces is certainly not something that is very fashionable or not laugh worthy these days for example. And CoA seemed to have a bigger concern with dynasty representation than apperances. I can sort of see why

"So you're saying the CoA looks ugly."
"Yes."
"And... you're saying that because of my families CoA beind added in? Is this what you are trying to imply?"
"Uhhh..... well uhm..."

Yeah I totally get that and understand why it's a thing, I just think some forms of quartering looks a lot better than others. Look at this one:

Namnlös.png


It would look a lot less awkward to me if the cross was overlaid the inset instead of the other way around. Anyway, not a huge deal (and a lot better than the mess that was CK2 COAs, lord)
 
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