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Back in March, the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora team shared a large number of artworks and as we wanted to learn more about those, we reached out to some of our artists. Dianne Botham is a Lead Level Artist here at Massive and has shared some of her work with us.   Dianne worked on one of the resistance camps the player visits right at the beginning of the game. This facility was used to study local flora and fauna in their natural habitat but is under heavy attack when the player comes across it the first time. When the player returns to the site after the quest, they see the camp in an abandoned state.   For an area like this camp, the very first step is reading the quest design document, to get a feeling for the narrative intentions and the basic requirements, as it is part of the main quest. After discussing those further with both the narrative and quest designers, Dianne starts gathering reference images and creating mood boards. Together with a blockout from the level designer, those were then used by the concept art team for creating a concept. In the case of the resistance camp, some key considerations were to put it close to nature and a water source, giving the facility itself an airlock so the humans can remove their masks inside, as well as shielding it from detection via overhead tarps. The building itself was made from salvaged RDA equipment but has a non-military atmosphere with scientific research happening on the ground floor and living spaces on the upper floor. When the concept is approved by the art direction, assets are requested from the props team to then start building the level. At first, this happens in broad stroke, placing all the bigger assets, a preliminary lighting pass, and terrain sculpting. From here everything becomes continuously smaller, adding medium assets that impact player navigation, refining the terrain and making sure NPCs as well as the AMP suits have enough room to navigate the level. Finally, the level comes to life through finer details and storytelling in the surroundings, portraying the aftermath of a devastating attack. Fire and smoke play a big part in this, showcasing the recent attack, but also a second version of the camp that shows it abandoned (and not burning) later in the game.   Dianne also emphasizes the fact that while her description of creating a level in a game seems rather forward, this can be deceiving. Designing a level is never straight forward and the layout can go through may iterations throughout the development, meaning everything needs to be adapted continuously.   👉 You can’t find more of Dianne’s artworks here:  https://lnkd.in/e647R3-d

It’s been five years since Filip held the vlog camera, talking with fellow interns Jonathan and Scott about their experiences as interns at Massive. 🎓 Seeing that all three are still with Massive, Dóri handed the camera back to Filip one more time to get an update on what has happened since then. Full episode: 🎥👉 https://lnkd.in/ghhQybU5

Last month, the first game we ever released – Ground Control – was added to the Swedish Games Industry’s list of Sweden’s gaming culture treasure. ✨🎮 We’re honored to be included in this list among many all-time greats! 👉 https://lnkd.in/dU8YfnqZ

We’re proud to announce that the time for the Great Games of the Western Frontier has come! ✨ Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's first story pack, The Sky Breaker, is out now - sivako!

To find out more about the artwork shared by the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora team back in March, we reached out to some of our artists here at Massive. Mikhail Greuli, Associate Art Director on the game, is one of them and shared some of his work with us. 🖼️ To Mikhail, one of the most fun and challenging landmarks to work on was the Drill Base Omega. Mikhail was tasked with the design direction and working with the teams to visualize the facility. During one of their research trips, the team visited an iron mine facility. The sheer scale of it resulted in the goal to showcase the size of what human operations can do to harm the nature in pursue of resources. Another design Mikhail worked on was the drill vehicle that the RDA uses in the Extractor Plant facility. The main goal for these was to take existing drill vehicles from Earth and to reimagine how the RDA would build and use them on Pandora. A lot of inspiration came from real-life drill mechanisms and how they are manufactured but also from heavy machinery designs created for the Avatar franchise to ensure the design language was consistent. A big part in Mikhail’s process is research and understanding the functionality of what he’s working on to believably depict it as well as adhere to the gameplay and narrative needs of the game. He always starts off with a simple pen and sketchbook, exploring ideas and visual design directions. Mikhail then shares his designs with the teams to choose the one that fits both the design direction and the quest best. From here on, a long process from sketching to final design starts, done together with the guidance from Lightstorm Entertainment’s production designers. During these steps all details, mechanisms, and layouts are incorporated during various feedback loops with all involved teams, finally leading to the design that is in the game today. Mikhail also told us about his work on the visual direction for one of the Tarsyu caves in the game. A lot of research on various caves was conducted, with one ending up being a main inspiration: the Kantemo “Hanging Serpent” cave in Mexico that gave Mikhail the idea of the Coiling Sunshine plant in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which hangs in caves and feeds on bacteria and mineral rich waters. One key challenge was the plant itself, which went through a lot of iterations with the team before it ended up being what it is in the game today. In this case, the process started out being the exploration for one specific cave but ended up setting the visual direction for multiple caves in the Western Frontier and added new flora to Pandora. 🌸 You can see more of Mikhail’s artworks here: https://lnkd.in/eksm2jab

Step into the world of Snowdrop's audio team as we follow Kasparas Eidukonis journey to becoming an Audio Programmer. Together we meet Franz Johan Bierschwale and Simon Stevnhoved who show us the audio systems they've built for Snowdrop, to make our games even more immersive. 🎚️🔊 Watch the full video: 🎥👉 https://lnkd.in/eD674GKv

It is with great sadness that we learn about the passing of Jon Landau, a cherished partner and friend of our studio. Jon's unwavering dedication, boundless experiences, and open-hearted nature played a pivotal role in bringing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to life and were a source of inspiration to us all. His commitment to excellence and his welcoming personality left an indelible mark on our studio and our projects.   Jon was more than a collaborator; he was a true member of the Massive family. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and loved ones. He will be profoundly missed and forever remembered.

We’ve been talking to some of our artists here at Massive following the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora team’s art blast last March and one of them was Associate Lead Character Artist Océane Näsström, who worked on several characters in the game. ✍️ Océane's first main character on the project was Nesim, which she describes as a fun challenge as her goal was to make her stand out as a warrior and leader even from a distance, while at the same time paying close attention to the details to showcase the beautiful craftsmanship of the Na’vi. She also worked on Kataru and Kukulope. The former shows special attention to the upper garment, while the hairstyle of the latter was designed to underline her exotic nature while reflecting her heritage. All these characters and the clans in general played a significant role in shaping the looks. The windswept Upper Plains influenced Nesim’s curvy neck rings and her aposematic color scheme of red and yellow, signaling a warning to the RDA and other threats. In contrast, the Sarentu clan, known for their peaceful natures as traveling storytellers, inspired Kataru’s kinder and approachable appearance. In her work Océane collaborates closely with the concept team. The process starts by a detailed blockout to set the scale, silhouette, and asset placement to aid the teams in visualizing the character as a 3D model. This gives a solid foundation for the high poly model, which is next in the process. Here the dedicated library of insert meshes for Na’vi outfits, displacement maps, and smart material come into play to achieve the necessary level of detail across all characters. Several different tools and programs are used in this process and when the high poly model is done, the low poly is created from it and exported into our Snowdrop engine. That’s not all however, as this allows for another round of iterations and testing the assets under various in-game conditions, such as different view angles, traversal, cinematics, carrying different weapons, and more. For Océane, the character creation process proofed to be somewhat different during the development of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, as it was crucial to cater to the unique style of the franchise, balancing intricate craftsmanship of the Na’vi and making the characters work in a large open-world game. But to her that’s the beauty of being a game developer: working together to create something truly special that both she and her teams but especially the players can marvel at. ✨ 🖼️ If you want to see more of Océane’s work, you can find it here: https://lnkd.in/e8WXizjE

Our amazing Moa Sellin Ödling, Malin Jessen, and Marc Verhoef visited the Breda University of Applied Sciences yesterday, getting to know talented and passionate game students, and trying their games first-hand! 🎮

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter Mårtensson and Dóri Halldórsson meet Mikhail Greuli, Associate Art Director and Kunal Luthra, Lead Technical Artist on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. 🎮🌄 Hear about their roles, how they got to where they are today, and of course what it was like to create the immersive world of Pandora – as we deep-dive into the creation of biomes, scattering systems, shaders, destruction of plants, pollution systems, and so much more. 👇 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eQPvARXq Soundcloud: https://lnkd.in/ev3DN6_6 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts 🔊