Martyna Sowa – 3D Graphic Artist

1. What is your role in the project?

I’m a 3D artist specializing in character creation. In Toria, I’ve brought to life the heroes, enemies, and various monsters you’ll encounter. I also created most of the arenas you'll get to explore during gameplay.

2. What does the character creation process look like?

Character creation always starts with an idea and a concept. You need to consider who the character is, what kind of environment they live in, what tools they use, and so on. In a fantasy world, you obviously have more creative freedom, but if the game’s setting is inspired by the Middle Ages, that gives us a specific framework to work within.

Once everything’s been thought through and the references are gathered, I move on to sculpting – creating a beautiful, three-dimensional version of the character in a graphics program. Next comes preparing an optimized version of the model that can run smoothly on the target platform. This is especially important for mobile games, where we need to put a lot of effort into making the characters look great without overloading devices. In PC or console games we have a lot more freedom – but in our case, every triangle counts!

To make high-quality textures that make the characters stand out on a phone screen, we need to prepare UV maps. These allow us to map pixels onto the model – paint directly on the character’s 3D form. With the UVs in place, we can transfer details from the high-poly model to the optimized one – this process is called baking. Then we apply colors and simulate different materials, textures, and patterns, such as skin, fabric, wood, metal, or stone.

Once the texturing is done, we prep the model for animation by creating a bone structure (a “rig”) and setting up a hierarchy of connections between the bones and the model, enabling it to move correctly in-game. The final step is importing the character into the game engine, making sure everything works and looks good, and creating the animations and all the necessary elements to bring the model fully to life. Lately, I’ve also started recording parts of this process so you can check them out on our social media. ;)

3. Which character was the most difficult and which was the easiest to make?

Every character comes with its own unique set of challenges. Usually, the biggest struggle is meeting technical limitations – staying within the triangle count while keeping as many details as possible.

If I had to pick the hardest one, I’d say it was creating the three Ghouls. I had to step out of my usual stylistic comfort zone and design something creepy and ugly – which was definitely a creative challenge.

The easiest characters for me are always the ones I have an immediate vision for, and that I personally like a lot, e.g. Lisilla, the Barmaid (Jagna), or the Grave Diggers boss.

4. Which characters are you most proud of?

Every character I’ve worked on brought me joy, and I’m very proud of them all. But I have a special fondness for the Marauders – a group of enemies you’ll encounter in the Misty Hills. I’m also particularly attached to the herbalist grandma (Ziemira). 

Each team member has their own playable hero based on themselves. Mine is Emma (a summoner druid), who holds a special place in my heart. I had complete freedom when creating her, so I got to design her appearance, her role, and even sneak in a few hidden easter eggs!

5. What’s the process of creating an arena like?

It starts similarly to creating a character: with an idea, a discussion with our game designer, and gathering references. Arenas need to meet technical requirements set by the programming team, so the biggest challenge is finding a balance – giving each arena its own unique character while staying consistent with the rest of the game and working within our available tools.

Our arenas are built from rings surrounding the clearing where the battle takes place. Each ring contains preselected objects. The architects of all this are, of course, our programmers. The outermost rings generate the background that frames the arena – usually mountains or vegetation lines. Then we have rings with individual trees, bushes, and arena-specific objects.

Since these are 2D elements, I work closely with our 2D artist – without him, no arena could be completed. Closer to the character space, we start adding 3D objects: vegetation, rocks, and both large and small set pieces that define each arena. The process is highly iterative – hundreds of generations, tests, and tweaks. Because our game is made for mobile devices, performance is always top of mind. It’s a constant battle between creating a rich, beautiful environment and working within triangle count and screen space limits. But every time I see the final result, I know it was worth the effort.

6. Which arena are you most proud of?

I’m proud of every arena – each one brought something special and pushed the boundaries of what we originally thought was possible. The Forest of Perun was the very first arena – its initial version existed before I joined the team. It went through the most iterations and ended up setting the standard and pipeline for all others.

I love Gopla Swamps for its simplicity and richness at the same time – it was also the first arena I created entirely on my own. The Flooded Silver Mine challenged us in many ways: how to design an arena in a closed space? How to make it dark yet readable? How to show objects in water? The final result went beyond what we hoped to achieve. The Misty Hills was the first arena that couldn’t be built on a circular layout. I had a lot of ideas for how to convey the feeling of being in the mountains – we finally settled on showing a mountain slope with a breathtaking view.

I could go on for hours about each arena individually, but to keep it short, I’ll stop with those few examples. I can’t wait for players to step into the world of Toria and see what we’ve created for them. I hope every surrounding element helps deepen their immersion in this rich world