Blackstar's grayworlding and production art

Yesterday we looked at the method behind the madness of Blackstar's PvP design process. Today we have more, in the form of a focus on Blackstar's world artists team, the third part of Spacetime Studios' triangle of content development -- as they like to call it. The title of world artist can be a bit misleading, because there isn't as much traditional art as you would imagine. Actually, the big issue with Blackstar's world design is player movement speed and world-scale because of its space-flight and avatar combination.

Another thing you may notice with the production art is that it's all in black and white. This is something Spacetime Studios refers to as grayworlding -- a technique which allows them to test whether or not something is fun before they fork over any cash to make it look pretty. What's even cooler is that they can take screens of these grayworld constructs (which are already working) and hand them to concept artists to paint over. In turn, these prettied-up images can serve to fuel the creative fire of the design and production team. It's a kind of cycle, but the good type.

Ever since they revealed Blackstar, Spacetime Studios has caught our attention one way or another; whether it was their art direction, gameplay videos or personal developer blogs.