To celebrate the launch of our latest title, The Queen’s Gambit Chess, we’re kicking off our very own ArtStation. 

Ripstone’s Rockwater Studio recently launched The Queen’s Gambit Chess, a videogame counterpart to Netflix’s award-winning miniseries.

Now that our love letter to the show is out there for all to see, the Rockwater Art Team will be revealing a whole host of incredibly cool art we created along the way! 

But it’s not just about showcasing our art and the incredible artists behind it! We’ll also be using our ArtStation to delve deeper into the thinking behind the art of The Queen’s Gambit Chess.

In the coming months, this is the place you'll find valuable insights into how we collaborated with Netflix and our other partners, and the reasoning behind us making some of the choices we did.

We hope you have as much fun learning about the ins and outs of our games as we did creating them for you! 

So stick around, get comfortable, and bring your A-game!

Let’s Play!

In this week’s production process blog, we’re exploring what went into our meticulous recreation of Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit Chess, and how the Rockwater Art Team's dedication to bringing her to life for the mobile platform was founded on authenticity and innovation.

Initial Inspiration: Dan Eder's Artistry

Dan Eder played a pivotal role in turning the vision of Beth Harmon into a reality. As mentioned in our previous Character Overview post, it was Dan’s gorgeous initial fan art that resonated so strongly with the art team that we got in touch to collaborate. 

Once he joined the project as Lead Character Artist, Dan’s expertise in character creation ensured that every nuance of Beth's persona was captured in fine detail. For an in-depth look at his creative process, be sure to check out his speed modelling tutorial of that initial Beth Harmon design:

Dan's Speed Modelling Tutorial

Visualizing Beth Harmon

That initial design fitted perfectly with the art style we were developing for The Queen’s Gambit Chess. From here, it was a case of iterating and refining until we reached something unanimously adored.

The renders throughout this article provide a glimpse of the intricate work that goes into the creation of a character in the Queens Gambit Chess. We will also go a few steps beyond the character as an isolated element and talk about how that model was set up in Unreal and the overall pipeline created. 

Our Unreal Character Render Pipeline

We always knew that characters would be incredibly important given their role in the game, but high quality characters on mobile platforms come at a high cost. So our main question became "How do we get AAA quality, stylised characters onto mobile?".

With this in mind an entirely separate Unreal project was set up to be used solely for rendering characters at high quality. Highly advanced Video compression would then be used to bake down the individual frames into movies which were then brought back into the game project and triggered through our state machine.

This approach freed us completely from constraints in texture sizes, bone counts and other large data assets. It also opened the door for techniques that are traditionally not performant on mobile; It allowed us to use advance skin shaders, subsurface scattering, grooms and ray-traced shadows to name a few. 

Technically it would have been possible to create this system within the main game project, however it would cause unnecessary bloat to the data. Separation meant that Artists could work entirely independently and throw absolutely everything at the engine without introducing risk to other parts of development. It was also very handy to have a render oriented project for Marketing assets and other areas of the game where high quality renders are required, such as the front end, unlocks etc. 

Techniques to Master the Aesthetics

Now that we had a method that freed us from the traditional mobile constraints, we could focus on how to get the best our of each pixel. As mentioned above we took advantage of sophisticated Subsurface Scattering (SSS) shaders, we rigged the hair so it reacted correctly to head movements, we even made grooms for the fuzzy items in game such as Beth's white coat and Mr. Shaibel's thick jumper. Every strand of hair, every glimmer in her eyes, and every contour of her expression was meticulously designed to resonate with players and maintain the visual integrity of the character.

Crafting Animated Frames

The animation of the characters in the Queens Gambit Chess was a really fun part of production which involved a unique batch render queue setup. 
After the mocap had been cleaned, every animation for each character was set up within a hierarchy of sequences which in turn could be triggered using a variety of render queues. In short this meant any animation for any character (or batch of characters/animations) could be re-rendered quickly with minimal effort, this could also have been triggered remotely or offloaded to a render farm if the needs of the project were more demanding. 

Implementing this process did require meticulous attention to detail; ensuring that every frame was consistent and of exceptional quality but the time saving and results we feel are well worth it. 

Insights from the Programming Team

Realising a character artistically, while a challenge, is only a part of it. Paul Hughes, Rockwater's Head of Programming, was essential in establishing the animation pipeline and helped to optimise Beth's animation frames while maintaining their visual fidelity. We'll go into this in more detail in a future article where we discuss how Unreal can be leveraged efficiently for use on mobile devices.

Up Next on Ripstone’s ArtStation

Thanks again for joining us on the Ripstone ArtStation! If you've enjoyed this exploration of how we recreated Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit Chess, be sure to delve into our previous articles to discover more behind-the-scenes insights:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A 

Join us next week for an exclusive article on another pivotal environment from the game; Alma's House! 

Previously, we gave you a high-level environment overview of iconic show locations we recreated for The Queen’s Gambit Chess. This week, we’re taking a deeper look at how our art team built one of the most important places in Beth Harmon’s journey to chess mastery; the Methuen Home Basement. 

How Rockwater’s Artists Rebuilt The Methuen Home Basement

The basement of the Methuen Home might strike you as an unexpected setting for grandiose chess showdowns. However, those who watched the show will know that this very space holds the essence of Beth Harmon's journey, where the intricate game becomes her passion. In early episodes, it is here that her determined spirit clashes against the hesitant mentorship of Mr. Shaibel, the janitor-turned-chess sage.

Our Rockwater team decided that this hallowed ground would be the perfect place for players to be initiated into the art of chess. 

"Our team recreated Mr Shaibel’s Basement with great attention to detail. We knew wanted to capture that lived-in feel, so almost all aspects of the space have been textured with minute details. Things such as the cracked tiles, the weathered chessboard, and the grubby janitorial sinks are intended to work together to create the impression that this is a real space.

Those who have played the game will know that the location is used as the setting for the game’s beginner lessons - as a homage to Beth’s discovery of chess here. We felt that it was the perfect place to introduce players to the game; by taking the same formative steps as Beth.” - Jake Parrott, 3D Artist

The Details: The Methuen Home Basement

The instant impact of the environment is bolstered by near obsessive attention to detail of our Rockwater Art Team. Let's zoom in on some of the deeper details that they included to ensure our recreation would feel as authentic to the show as possible on mobile. 

At The Table

As mentioned in our previous blog, one of the key aspects of the art direction of The Queen’s Gambit Chess was ensuring that we kept close control of detail and materials based on player sight lines and radially out from the playable locations. The result, we hope, is truly showstopping gameplay areas that shine on high and low-end hardware.

In order to make these gameplay areas truly special for eagle-eyed fans, Netflix provided our team with access to a tonne of exciting behind-the-scenes reference material. The chess board here, for instance, is a replica from the show and if you look closely, you’ll even see subtle fingerprints and smudges amid the layers of chalk and dust that have built up from years of use in the Methuen Home basement. 

"We’ve tried to do this throughout the game. Wherever we could, we used reference shots from the show to recreate its chess boards using as much detail as possible. When playing the game we want players to experience chess through the same lens as Beth - so what better way is there to do that than having players use the exact same boards?” - Matt Beech, Artist

The Wider Environment

When choosing to play from the 2D perspective, Mr Shaibel’s chalkboard becomes the animated, playable chess board! Our teams took care to ensure the 2D board of each environment was bespoke to keep players entwined with the location - no matter how they want to play the game.

“When creating art for the game we wanted to ensure that players were immersed in the game’s world at all times. The chalkboard in the Methuen Home basement is a great example of this. Even players who want to play a stripped-back, 2D game of chess can have that immersive experience.” - Philipos Yiannakopoulos, 2D & UI Artist

Up Next on Ripstone ArtStation!

A huge thank you for your support here on Ripstone’s ArtStation! We hope you’ve enjoyed your closer look at the Methuen Home in The Queen’s Gambit Chess! Which environment would you like to see us explore next?

Next week, we’ll be exploring the character design of Beth Harmon in greater detail, including a timelapse of Character Artist Dan Eder’s initial fan art!