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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!
 

Attachments

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  • DD28_event.mp4
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  • DD28_combat_vid_1.mp4
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Like everyone else, I really liked this Dev Diary!

It's a nice insight in what's been going on and where improvements have been made which you can actually see! Very nice.

But as a lot of others have pointed out the cities, castles etc. seem a bit barren.

I've made 2 mockups to show how much of a difference it can make when there are just some more buildings around the cities.
Keep in mind I have poor Photoshop skills and I just copied some stuff over from Imperator: Rome. But I think if you'd include some of these mini buildings around these major cities etc. in their proper style it would make a huge difference. Especially if they would grow like in I:R!

It would make it feel even more "impactful" if you build out your city etc. and watch them "grow"


Before
View attachment 581962

After
View attachment 581963


Before
View attachment 581964

After
View attachment 581965
See now that after pic just looks way too cartoonish and unrealistic. Urban sprawl like that really did not exist as we know it back in the CK time period. It's kind of one of the reasons walled cities had, you know, walls.

Additionally, it just makes things a lot less clear to the player as to what the holding actually is. It muddles the conveyance of information and just makes the map misleading.
 
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I agree, maybe there is a way to combat this if you only do it for cities that reach a certain size or "level".
I bet there is something to avoid making the map feeling overcrowded with little buildings everywhere, I hope so at least. :)

Maybe the devs can think of something. I mean it doesn't have to be the highest priority, so maybe they can push this in a later update.

It's a balancing act. I agree with everyone that the map needs a little more sign of life/civilisation but it can very easily become too much. Especially in places like Germany, for example, with many small baronies and high development. I'd be happy with a small walled town, with a few different levels of development, attached to the castle. The sprawl can become far too much, this was a period of rural living.
 
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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.

View attachment 581758

Will there be a photobooth option? The layout and choices you've made practically SCREAMS photobooth. Choose the background, choose the characters, choose the poses maybe, and snap a picture.

XCOM2 did this in his expansion and it rocked. It still rocks.

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).

View attachment 581760

The fact that you modeled clothing on real remains from the past speaks volumes on the compromise of this art direction. Kudos.

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

View attachment 581771

That looks great. Will there be more than one kind of tabard, or will it always be split colour? Not complaining, but I'd like to know if other possibilities were considered (like, for example, Iberian knights in the XIIIth Century used cuir boulli protective tabards called perpuncti over their chainmail, covering up their heraldry (which they showed on the sleeves and cervelliere skullcaps.

Here's Don Pero Maça trying to get the Count of Empuries to not leave the Majorcan invasion that King James of Aragon organised in the mid-1200's. Notice the heraldic sleeves and skullcap, and how the perpunctus is all consistently brown, but decorated (probably leather, but could be several layers of wool)

220px-Hug_IV_Empuries_Pero_Ma%C3%A7a_Croada_Mayurqa_1229.jpg


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.

I'll join the choir and ask for a more Imperator-like approach to barony visual representation.

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.

View attachment 581790View attachment 581791

You have made my day here. Some questions:

1- The dynamic CoAs will depend on special events (like William's conquest) or will they be available for everyone?
++ Imagine I start my game as a Visigoth lord and I conquer France. Will I be stuck with the Capetian lillies?
+++ Will I be able to change my kingdom's CoA?

2- You say cadet branches will quarter arms (probably with those of the mother or father), and that's fine, but it was not the only way, not even the most common. In England and France, quartering usually conveyed multiple titles (England and France, or France and Navarre, etc). Cadency (the differenciation of arms by cadet branches) was done mostly by brisure (adding a lambel, a bordure, a bend, etc). In Aragon, for example, party per pal was the most common form of brisure. Will it always be quartering, or will it be a mix of several customs?

3- Will bastards initiate their own cadet branch? Possibly with a black or red bend over their arms, as was the French custom?
 
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See now that after pic just looks way too cartoonish and unrealistic. Urban sprawl like that really did not exist as we know it back in the CK time period. It's kind of one of the reasons walled cities had, you know, walls.

Additionally, it just makes things a lot less clear to the player as to what the holding actually is. It muddles the conveyance of information and just makes the map misleading.

It may be that most of the buildings etc. were within the walls but I reckon there weren't just castles with buildings in it and outside was just nothing.
To be honest, I don't know much of the time period itself back then especially of how land probably looked back then outside of city/castle walls.

I just copied general buildings from I:R so the buildings already don't fit at all in that sense. I guess if you would be able to do like a farm with 1 or 2 barns here and there and maybe some road/walkways it would already make it seem not so "empty" as it looks now.
 
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2- You say cadet branches will quarter arms (probably with those of the mother or father), and that's fine, but it was not the only way, not even the most common. In England and France, quartering usually conveyed multiple titles (England and France, or France and Navarre, etc). Cadency (the differenciation of arms by cadet branches) was done mostly by brisure (adding a lambel, a bordure, a bend, etc). In Aragon, for example, party per pal was the most common form of brisure. Will it always be quartering, or will it be a mix of several customs?

If they add at any point different forms of cadency instead of just quartering, that would be incredible! And as you said, that was really common. From what I recall the difference between the Bourbons and the main Capetians was a bordure.
 
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I've come back with my tail between my legs. When I first saw the announcement screens I berated the devs for its cartoonish tone and very underwhelming graphics. I feared a civ 6-like palette. I admit I was wrong and I apologise.....


Now take my money.
 
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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.

What are the 3 tiers of unit tied to?

I was originally thinking eras, but then I realized there are 4 eras not 3.
 
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Beautiful stuff, however I do have one small issue. Ihaven't read the comments so I hope I don't repeat something someone else says when I say that I think that you should consider a handful(just a few) unique models for cities. Taking a page from Creative Assembly would be good here IMO, as in Warhammer or Attila they have a few really cool unique cities. However this should only be for some very specific cities, the example that stuck out to me in the DD was Constantinople. It looks a bit small frankly. I really think you should look into unique holding models for just a few VERY important cities, like Constantinople, Jerusalem, Rome etc. The current Constantinople just looks a bit weird right now.
 
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2- You say cadet branches will quarter arms (probably with those of the mother or father), and that's fine, but it was not the only way, not even the most common. In England and France, quartering usually conveyed multiple titles (England and France, or France and Navarre, etc). Cadency (the differenciation of arms by cadet branches) was done mostly by brisure (adding a lambel, a bordure, a bend, etc). In Aragon, for example, party per pal was the most common form of brisure. Will it always be quartering, or will it be a mix of several customs?

3- Will bastards initiate their own cadet branch? Possibly with a black or red bend over their arms, as was the French custom?
Quartering was actually most often used in English heraldry for inheritance of the representation of two families (your father's and your mother's father's) - although there might well be lands involved.
The most usual way a recognisable cadet branch would be founded would be one of these families gaining a landed title elsewhere.

The use of bordures and so on was less than systematic

Simple brisures were often used to distinguish lines within a main family (at least in CKII terms, because they're not precisely analogous to the historical situation) rather than specifically what the game would consider cadet houses.

Party per pale (coat 1) and (coat 2) was specifically used for married couples and arms of office (usually with the arms of office taking the more senior side) in England once more formal measures became standardised.

Placing a bend over arms (or a bend sinister) for bastardy was far from universal, so I'd be reluctant to see it used to distinguish bastard-descended cadet branches from their parent.
 
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What are the 3 tiers of unit tied to?

I was originally thinking eras, but then I realized there are 4 eras not 3.
If it is eras, Tribal might be combined with Early Medieval for the purposes of unit models.
 
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Quartering was actually most often used in English heraldry for inheritance of the representation of two families (your father's and your mother's father's) - although there might well be lands involved.
The most usual way a recognisable cadet branch would be founded would be one of these families gaining a landed title elsewhere.

The use of bordures and so on was less than systematic

Simple brisures were often used to distinguish lines within a main family (at least in CKII terms, because they're not precisely analogous to the historical situation) rather than specifically what the game would consider cadet houses.

Party per pale (coat 1) and (coat 2) was specifically used for married couples and arms of office (usually with the arms of office taking the more senior side) in England once more formal measures became standardised.

Placing a bend over arms (or a bend sinister) for bastardy was far from universal, so I'd be reluctant to see it used to distinguish bastard-descended cadet branches from their parent.

I'd make it an option. But sincerely, what we already have is already pretty great lol So I am happy either way. But if they wanted to give us the options of bordures and bends over arms, giving us power to manually change our cadet branches, I think it would be grand. But like I said, I really don't need it. I'm pretty happy with what we already got
 
But how is quality measured? (not saying you are wrong, just curious)
In one Review video I saw the tooltip and it basically said that quality of the army is calculated by how good the units that make up the army, poor units like levy = low quality. Army with much of it being made up of expensive men at arms and knights = high quality.
 
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In one Review video I saw the tooltip and it basically said that quality of the army is calculated by how good the units that make up the army, poor units like levy = low quality. Army with much of it being made up of expensive men at arms and knights = high quality.

Thanks. That makes sense and it fits better with how the army models change with each tier.
 
In one Review video I saw the tooltip and it basically said that quality of the army is calculated by how good the units that make up the army, poor units like levy = low quality. Army with much of it being made up of expensive men at arms and knights = high quality.
Thanks. That makes sense and it fits better with how the army models change with each tier.
Yep, that is correct. The higher the quality the army is, the higher the tier of unit is shown. So an army with the highest tier but that is outnumbered by another army, showing a first tier levy unit, may still punch stronger than it's mere number of men shows. A levy army should fear a knight army that might also have leadership and terrain in their favor.
 
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Hats off to the art team, you've done a marvelous job.
If possible, please add these flora-fauna based emblems for COA if you didn't implement yet:

MENA region: Gazelle, Oryx, Caracal, Striped Hyena, Fennec, Dromedary, Date palm tree, Acacia tortilis, Lebanon cedar, etc.

Indian Subcontinent: Golden Jackal, Indian rhinoceros, Nilgai, Crocodile, King cobra, Gaur, Indian civet, Bengal fox, Spotted deer(Chital), Banyan tree, Sal tree(or leaf), Saccharum spontaneum , Bamboo tree, Coconut tree, Mango fruit, etc.

I'll also suggest mentioning local flora-fauna in some hunting events. For example, "A Raja from Bengal decides to go hunting Spotted Deer in Sundarban mangrove forest, but his hunting troops might get attacked by Crocodiles or a Bengal Tiger."
 
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"The pose and idle animation should not be silly and slapstick"

"Let's give the spymaster a dagger he is holding with two hands in front of him like Gollum and the one ring, oh yeah and the steward is constantly holding a bag of coins"

I get that those poses are easily identifiable that way, but I didn't see 'clarity over gritty and realistic aesthetics' as one of the three pillars.
Can't the spymaster just be someone who's face is half covered in shadow from the lightning and that's it? I feel that would keep the theme of it being the person only some people would know the true value in your court of intact. After all, in real life only a ruler's inner circle would know what noble or person went over the personal scheming and agents of said ruler, both because you also want to spy on your own court for traitors and heretics, and to protect the person with all your dirt from enemy agents.

Such a design change would make the above function just as (if not more) obvious, and move away from them lookong like a gollum esque guy or gal obsessed with their precious dagger.
 
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