Creating textures for a remastered game comes with a new set of challenges

“You have to be aware that what you will see is not an isolated texture, it’s a tile that will be part of an environment and it needs to give that feeling of continuity and consistency throughout the level.“

- Ana M. Rodriguez describes the special circumstances she had to consider while creating textures for Bioshock: The Collection.

While working on Bioshock: The Collection, freelance CG artist Ana M. Rodriguez had to create entirely new textures for the remastered game while still staying faithful to the look and feel of the original Bioshock released nearly a decade ago.

She recently detailed how these challenges changed her artistic process in a story for the website Level 80. The full explaination should be of particular interest to developers looking to learn how to improve their abilities.

In the post, Rodriguez explains how to add realistic damages to assets, how working on a remastered game changed her usual design process, and how to create textures that stay true to a theme without making them appear artificial.

“For the project of Bioshock, I had to start from an existing texture so the process was very different,” explained Rodriguez. “I had to be respectful with the original, follow its predetermined pattern, trying to follow the dirt pattern as well but improving and taking advantage of the new resolution of the texture.”