The video game industry is worth $10.5 billion annually. A class at UVU is trying to help students get in on some of that money.
The class is Art 426R or Concept Design I. It was designed by Don Seegmiller and Kevin Scholz, who teaches the class.
The idea behind the class is to create art for three real games that would be a part of downloadable content, or a smaller piece of the story. The three games chosen were the Fallout series, particularly “3” and “New Vegas,” “Mass Effect 3” and the Elder Scrolls series, either “Oblivion” or the upcoming “Skyrim.” There is no actual game play in the class, it is just about the art.
The goal is to create a design team feel so they can have a resume point and they will be able to step into any gaming situation and be able to produce with experience.
The class is run like a game design studio would be run. There is a lead writer who creates a narrative for the games and keeps the story in line.
They create a small piece of a world, some creatures and weapons or vehicles in each game. Students switch roles throughout the games so they can work on different styles.
They have released all of the concept art for the first game, titled “Fallout Libertine.” For those unfamiliar with a Pip-boy, “Fallout” is a post-apocalyptic game set in the Washington area for “3” and Nevada for “New Vegas.” By the way, a Pip-boy is an item used to check vitals in the series.
They released the concept art for that early in October and there is a mural on the stairs across from the UVU Bookstore. The mural contains the concept art and storyline including a list of the class members and what role they had in the game.
The concepts they are currently working on is for “Mass Effect 3” as part of a story they have titled “Specter in the Storm.” They will release the art in the same way as the previous one at the beginning of November.
The Mass Effect series is a role-playing game set several thousand years in the future. This story takes place in an underwater world they created named Idumea. As part of the class, they created different creatures that would be intractable and some that were just for ambiance. As they created the creatures, they worked on why they would have evolved into this type of creature.
It is just as much a look into physics and physical possibilities. They discuss what space pirates will look like and what weapons would be used in an underwater future craft.
The last story will take place in a more medieval world in the Elder Scrolls game. This art will be released early in December.
The different genres were chosen to give the students a chance to work with different aspects. They work on techniques and labor as a team to decide which way each piece of art will turn out.
Above the chance to create monsters for games that they have played, the most important part of the class is the chance to add it to their portfolio.
Scholz also wants to use it to plug UVU.
“It will be used to get people who are interested in games to come here and do it at UVU,” Scholz said.
Over the following weeks, the UVU Review will be showing some of the new art that is released online, from sketches to pieces of the full mural with graphics rendering.
There will also be a full list of the students and what they worked on available at uvureview.com
