Alientrap, the developers of the upcoming open-world action-adventure DuneCrawl, shared an insightful look at how they tackled environment art for the game.
The devs explained that they were able to create a unique aesthetic while also optimizing the production process by using 2D hand-drawn artwork projected onto 3D meshes. The majority of the assets started as simple 3D sketches to build out the basic shapes. Then, they export a render of 3D primitives in the specific camera isometric angle used in-game, which becomes the base for the hand-drawn artwork created overtop.
Details, lineart, color, and shading are handled in ClipStudio Paint. After that, he flat 2D artwork into Unity for 3D projection, where it is processed further to achieve a painterly-style 3D prop. In the thread on X/Twitter, the creators shared a breakdown of how they create the hand-drawn-style assets, so check it out to find more details.
