Welcome to Imagining LEGO Universe!



In 2006 the vision of bringing the iconic LEGO brick to the virtual world of MMO gaming - started some years earlier by key members of The LEGO Group - began to take shape with the partnership of a small and little known Colorado based video game development studio called NetDevil.

During the five-plus year journey of development, the team at NetDevil was faced with many difficult technical and design challenges in order to bring LEGO play to the virtual space. Working along side the designing minds and programming wizards, the LEGO Universe art team, lead by Art Director Phillip Atencio, molded a visual style unmatched in the world of MMO gaming, seamlessly melding existing LEGO themes with original story developed in-house by the minds of NetDevil developers who also happened to be life long fans of the timeless plastic toy.

The conceptual design team tasked with bringing the vision of LEGO Universe to life boasted some of the most incredible talent the video game industry has to offer. Lead Concept Artist Jim Stigall guided a team of seven concept illustrators during the life of the project. Along with the help and incredible visions of Jerry Meyer, Dave Kang, Brett Nienburg, Kyle Wheeler, Richard Tran, Peter Coene, Nathan Storm, and Mike Rayhawk many many worlds and literally thousands of drawings were explored to assist the world builders, animators, character modelers, and visual effects artists bringing the three-dimensional world of LEGO Universe to life.

Millions of fans logged in daily and assumed the identity of their Minifigure avatar, virtually interacting, building, and exploring with their friends in the LEGO Universe.

Sadly, in January, 2012, after little over a year since its initial public launch, LEGO Universe was closed for good.

This blog is for you, the fans. It is a place where we, the Concept Art Team from LEGO Universe, can share with you the passion and love that was put into this wonderful game - much of it never seen before, some never meant to be shown.

Please enjoy Imagining LEGO Universe...

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ninjago Fire Temple

Hi all, and thanks for setting this blog up Jim.  My name is Nathan Storm and early in the project I was a environment art lead.  Later on I moved on to a concept/R+D/misc role.  I'll work on posting the art I have that is relevant to this blog.

Before the end we were working on an area of LEGO Universe based on the LEGO IP, Ninjago.  There were several dungeons to be created, including one based on the element fire.

I was involved in establishing a modular way to create these dungeons, defining the entrance, and refining and polishing the final assets.  I'll work on digging up the modular assets in the near future. For now, here are the concepts for the entrance.

The Art Director (Phillip Atencio) asked me to create something that fit a few criteria.  (1) It had to fit the blocked-in design area. (2)  It should include a bit of the real LEGO set IP.  (3) It should hint at the Fire Temple from the Ninjago cartoon. (4) It should fit within the LU style.

This is the entrance scene initial sketch:

I also created a quick 3d mockup, which I then painted over for a color study.


From this point it was passed on to the Environment team to model and implement.  It went through multiple refinements and was close to shippable in it's final iteration.

Some thumbnails exploring potential ways to treat the interior space:

A texture I created using Zbrush that was being used on the interior dungeon walls.

I'll have plenty more to post in the near future.

-Nate

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1 comment:

  1. UnknownJune 2, 2012 at 7:17 PM

    Great art breakdown Nate. That was a really fun time working with you, Brian, and Jordan on architecting the new NJGO content. It was some of our best ever!
    - 556

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