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Solid Clouds

Stefanía Ómarsdóttir is our 2D artist here at Solid Clouds. Let's take a deep dive into what her role entails, and how she brings her artwork to life!


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#### What are your main responsibilities, and what does an average workday look like for you?

I’m mostly responsible for anything illustrated and 2D artwork, which currently includes character designs, icon designs, and compositing illustrations for banners.

As for my typical workday, that’s a very difficult question, since my workday varies greatly depending on the tasks I have at any given time. But the most consistent thing is that I grab a muffin from the shop next door, and make a coffee or tea to have while I go over Slack messages and tasks, before sinking myself into whatever I need to be doing on that day.

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#### Are there any new techniques you have learned during your time here that have become integral to your workflow? 

I have learned so many things, especially when it comes to digital painting and character art. I think the most important things would be color contrast, values and rendering techniques when working on digital art in Photoshop. And most recently I’ve been integrating AI art generators into my toolbox, since it seems that using AI as a tool in your art-making process will be an important skill in the near future. 

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#### When making a character, what aspects matter most to you?

I focus on giving the character a good presence, and attitude, and making the pose and/or expression really tell you something about that character. The most important thing for me is to make sure the character doesn’t feel flat or boring, and when you have a collection of over 100 characters like we currently do, it’s also important to make sure they don’t all look too similar. For that reason, we try and make sure to include characters of all types of ethnicities, body types, gender, age, etc.

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#### What do you enjoy most about your work?

Probably the moments when I get hyper-focused and almost lost in the illustration I’m working on. It’s a good feeling when you’re working on something you really like (or love) and you just get almost sucked right into the screen and forget about everything else.

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#### Can you talk us through the process of your designs, from inception to the final product? 

The process varies greatly, depending on what exactly I’m working on. But for most things, I start by browsing Artstation and Pinterest for inspiration, and sometimes I’ll make a mood board with references and some notes which I can go over with our art director. After that, I’ll either sketch something from scratch, photobash a bunch of images together, or generate an image in AI to then manipulate and edit to fit our style and needs. But sometimes I’ll do all three of those mixed in one. After that comes the longest part of the process, which is defining values, lighting and shadows, colors, details, and rendering.

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#### Arena tier Icons
![Icons created with the help of AI](https://starbornecdn.azureedge.net/media-images/frontiersweb/Arena_Tiers_Display.png)

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#### Who is your favorite character?

That’s a really difficult question! My favorite is usually the last one I made. But Arum has a special place in my heart since that was the first character I made all by myself for Frontiers. Before that character, I had been more of a project manager of character designs, handling feedback and communications with an outsourcing company.


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#### Arum and Grif artwork
![Arum artwork](https://starbornecdn.azureedge.net/media-images/frontiersweb/Arum_Grif.png)



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#### Are there any challenges you face and how do you overcome them?

The biggest challenge is to not let my impostor syndrome take over and paralyze my creativity. The best thing I can do to overcome that is to allow myself to take a step away from that task, do something else for a while, and then come back to it. It’s so easy to get hyper-focused on a problem, but when I distance myself from it and come back later, I usually find that it wasn’t such an issue to begin with. 

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#### How do you approach color? Do you have a specific palette for all assets or do you just go with the flow?
We have an approximate color palette for each faction, so for each character creation I just keep older character designs visible on the screen next to my artwork, so that I can keep track of the color palette. I don’t use a pre-made palette for all assets, I just kinda go with the flow I guess.

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#### Who is your favorite artist, and how do they provide inspiration for your work?

My favorite artists throughout my life I guess would be Salvador Dalí, Zdzislaw Beksinski, and as a teenager I really loved the art of Luis Royo. None of them actually inspire my work at Solid Clouds (at least not consciously), since we are only working on sci-fi themed games at the moment. When I need to find inspiration for my current work at Solid Clouds, I look at artwork on Pinterest and Artstation that fits the sci-fi genre, but I can’t really pinpoint any specific artist.

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#### What do you like most about working at Solid Clouds?

I’m gonna be super sappy and say I like my coworkers the most. But I also really appreciate how my professional growth has been encouraged and I feel that my superiors trust me and value my efforts. We also have game days regularly, which is always a lot of fun. 


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Interview with Starborne: Frontiers 2D Artist, Stefanía Ómarsdóttir

Over the past year, AI has become a buzzword. Tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney and DALL-E have exploded into our consciousness, becoming hot topics of conversation for anyone interested in AI, especially among the team here at Solid Clouds. It's easy to see why this would be such an exciting frontier for any tech company. Some of our initial thoughts were, *"How can this be applied in our work?"* and *"Which teams will benefit most from this?"*
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Imagine having dialogue that never repeats! However, with that kind of implementation perhaps years away, we turned our attention to how we can realistically apply these tools to assist with our everyday operations.
Like many others, we first began using AI to generate images. It offered a starting point for inspiration and had the potential to speed up production for our Art team.  
Moving on we defined a few tasks AI could assist with:
* Character base creation
* Multiple Icon creation
* In-game voiceovers
* Visual effects  

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**Stefanía**, our 2D artist, uses AI-generated images as a basis for creating characters. She either paints these images or uses them for ideas and inspiration. It's important to note that the result significantly differs from the AI-generated image. The software serves as a tool to accelerate the creative process, allowing artists to conceive more refined images than if they started with just a sketch. 
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Artists often use a technique called photobashing, which involves combining different parts of various images to create a base for new artwork. This process can be time-consuming, as it requires gathering references and carefully blending the images. Using AI-generated art can reduce the need for photobashing. Stefania shared:   
*"Before using the AI image generator, I would spend time gathering references online, making a sketch, and photobashing different parts of various images to create a base for the artwork. The AI tool cuts the work time down by around 20-25% since I can skip the sketching and photobash image search. Using AI-generated art as a base also provides me with a light and colour plan already, so I can go directly into editing, adding my personal style, and rendering."*
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![The art team at work1](https://starbornecdn.azureedge.net/media-images/solidclouds/SC_art_team_1.jpg)
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**Trausti**, our CG Artist (Animator), utilizes AI to generate speech for game trailers and in-game content, create visual effects, and automate repetitive tasks using expressions, a programming language specific to After Effects. He says:  
*"I've been experimenting with applications in speech generation for game trailers, as AI-generated speech can provide natural-sounding dialogue for characters and narrators, enhancing the immersion of the game's world. Similarly, in animation and FX work, AI can assist with generating expressions in After Effects to automate repetitive tasks and help create complex effects, saving time and effort for the artist."*  
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**Guðni**, a 3D generalist, shares:  
*"I mostly use AI to help with Blender 3D work. It simplifies my workflow in the sense that I have to import hundreds of models into a project, and doing adjustments by hand can and will be tedious. Thus, I ask our generous AI to generate a script that will help me in doing just that. So, actions that used to take some time, now are reduced to a single click."*
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In addition, **Ágúst**, our Art Director, has recently been experimenting with extensions in Photoshop that allow for more tailored results. Ágúst says:  
*"These latest extensions are very promising. At this early stage of my testing you can essentially select an object, let's say A t-shirt on a character, and change the colour and texture of that t-shirt without changing the pre-selected shape."*
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![The art team at work2](https://starbornecdn.azureedge.net/media-images/solidclouds/SC_art_team_2.jpg)
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Other teams have also reaped the benefits of AI, specifically ChatGPT, which has been utilized by both our Marketing and Support team along with the Lore Writer to enhance their work processes by assisting with writer's block and refining content. 
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When we first started using ChatGPT, we were eager to understand its limitations. We extensively explored the tool to get a feel for its capabilities and to learn how to become better users, ultimately getting the best results we could.  
It has helped us with tasks such as:
* Providing us with article ideas
* Drafting advertising texts 
* Helping with Lore texts
* Structuring and re-wording Policies
* Creating Support answers templates 

 
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We discovered that, given the right pointers, ChatGPT performed these tasks very well. However, all texts were later proofread and edited by our team to bring the voice of the "**Starborne: Frontiers**" universe, that AI didn’t catch. This serves as a reminder that ChatGPT is a tool that you need to actively work with, providing human oversight throughout the process.
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What convinced us of the tool's value was when the team needed to amend some HTML to style our upcoming help centre. **Donna** from the Marketing and Support Team would not have been able to do this task without ChatGPT, as she has limited coding knowledge. She explains:  
*"At first, AI explained how to implement the code. But as a beginner seeking a quicker solution, I needed more. By providing the existing code and asking it to add the style changes, all I had to do was copy and paste the provided code."*  
Simple tasks like the style change free up our developers for more complex work and allow other teams to take on more multifunctional roles.  
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Usually, creating a copyright for mobile ads and longer materials, such as press releases, takes a lot of time. ChatGPT assisted in checking the content and creating ideas, which were used as a basis for these tasks. **Donna** says:  
*"As I was writing the press release, I would run my paragraphs through ChatGPT to check for grammatical errors and edit for clarity. The tool also helped provide prompts for ad text, which needed to fit a word limit."* 
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She also comments on how AI was useful in establishing support services for players,  
*"ChatGPT was excellent at generating template emails and review responses, as well as evaluating the professionalism of a response."*  
She goes on to explain how the tool reassures her when responding to players' specific issues.  
*"I like to use the tool to check any emails I'm unsure about, and I make small edits to make them sound more professional. Additionally, there may be things I haven't thought to add, and ChatGPT reminds me of them. I also feel secure getting a second grammar check. It speeds up the process because, instead of spending valuable time rewriting an email that doesn't sound right, ChatGPT helps me refine it quickly. As an autistic employee, it certainly improves my confidence and reassures me that I'm doing well."*
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Our Community Manager, **Walter**, has been utilizing ChatGPT as well, and he greatly appreciates the efficiency it brings in handling repetitive tasks. Walter says  
*"It's amazing how much time I can save on manual tasks with the help of AI, not to mention how much it helps with finding inspiration for new ideas. What a time to be alive!"*
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![AI inspired content creation](https://starbornecdn.azureedge.net/media-images/frontiersweb/AI_inspiration_to_final_product.png)
The example above can showcase how an AI generated image can serve as inspiration and a basis for our artists work.
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Chat GPT has additionally demonstrated its usefulness for our Lore Writer, **Melissa**, who has employed it to effectively brainstorm ideas.  
*“I use AI to help brainstorm for the bios. Mostly I lay out a set of general guidelines for the character's situation and my initial thoughts of what they might be like, and then have it generate a long list of personality traits and quirks. Then, I select a few I think to go together and would be fun to work with. It tends to try to give every "pilot" the same five or so personality traits phrased differently, but if you push far enough, eventually it will start throwing out some more interesting options you might not think of by yourself.”*
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Due to our positive experience with ChatGPT 3, we employed ChatGPT 4, a more advanced model said to have improved conciseness and reasoning.
**Walter** says of ChatGPT-4, *"The improvements over the 3.5 model are very noticeable."*  
He goes on to say, *"I recently used it, and it's fascinating to me how much variation it can provide when I ask for it. For example, I was generating messages for push notifications and asked it to give me 10 different versions. It created 10 very distinct ones, used a bunch of emojis, and produced content that was just pure fire. I don't even have to write complicated instructions. Much like with a Google search, I just need to know how to tell it what I want concisely, and what I get in return is pure magic."*
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Solid Clouds has been utilizing AI tools to great effect, with Github Copilot being the latest addition to the development team's arsenal. However, the impact of this new tool has yet to be observed. This paves the way for AI tools to be utilized throughout our entire organization, enhancing various aspects of game development and the services we offer. 
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AI art generators are continually enhancing their photorealism and the quality of human images they create, with notable improvements in limb representation. These advances in clarity and realism provide an increasingly valuable foundation for our art team, particularly in terms of generating more accurate human characters with proper limb positioning.
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Additionally, AI-driven voice synthesis technology, such as Google's WaveNet, OpenAI's WaveGlow, and Amazon's Polly, is already making strides in producing realistic and emotive voiceovers. This progress could revolutionize the way we produce game trailers and voice-acted content. 
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**Stefán Gunnarsson**, Solid Clouds’ CEO, shares his global vision:  
*"We're excited about the future of AI and the opportunities it will create. By being on the forefront of this technological shift, we aim to adapt and employ these tools as soon as possible to provide the best gaming experience for our players."*
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In conclusion, as AI technologies continue to evolve and become more integrated into our workflows, Solid Clouds remains committed to harnessing their potential to foster a more productive process. We believe this will help us deliver innovative gaming and services to our customers.

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Boosting Productivity and Creativity with AI: A Look into Solid Clouds' Game Development Process

Happy Easter from Solid Clouds!

As you gather with friends and family, we're grateful to be a part of your gaming journey. 
Enjoy these special days, create lasting memories, and continue to level up in the games you love!

We wish you fun-filled and egg-citing holidays!

Solid Clouds

Company News

Interview with Starborne: Frontiers 2D Artist, Stefanía Ómarsdóttir

Boosting Productivity and Creativity with AI: A Look into Solid Clouds' Game Development Process

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