Gathering and using reference

Reference is any image, object, film or game you study to make your work more convincing. Every professional environment artist uses it. Finding pictures is easy. The skill lies in choosing the right few, organising them, and looking at them while you work.

This guide walks through a practical process. Tools for reference boards are compared in reference, review and presentation tools.

#Why reference matters

Memory is a poor model. People remember the idea of a brick wall, not how mortar sags, where moss grows or how corners chip. Reference supplies the details that make a scene convincing.

Professionals start with it. Andrew Lund III, an environment artist who trained and worked in architecture first, opens his breakdown with: "As always, I started gathering reference before doing anything else" (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…). On The Last of Us Part II, art director John Sweeney says "Photo reference shoots were a big part of the process over the years", and "All of the destruction was influenced by real-world destruction", such as gas main explosions and sinkholes (Cook & Becker: Art directing The Last of Us Part II).

#Step 1: Decide what you need to learn

Before searching, write down the questions the reference must answer. A useful split, based on the sheets Lund built for his winter street (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…):

• Mood and lighting: time of day, weather, colour, the feeling you want.
• Architecture and massing: big shapes, proportions, how buildings meet the ground.
• Materials: one cluster per material (stone, timber, plaster, snow).
• Props and details: the objects that tell the story.
• Scale: people, doors and vehicles next to the things you will build. See scale and proportion.
• Target quality: shipped games or portfolio pieces at the level you are aiming for.

Lund made separate sheets for architecture massing, materials (later split per material), snow, a mood and lighting sheet, and "AAA game quality" (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…).

#Step 2: Gather from the right sources

#Real-world photos

Your own photos are the best reference, because you know the scale, the light and what is just outside the frame. Lund sorted through his own travel photos of southern Germany and Austria for local architecture and small, interconnected spaces (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…). For materials, take a straight-on photo, a raking-light photo and a close-up with something for scale. Photos taken for texture source data follow stricter rules; see photo-sourced and scanned materials and photogrammetry.

#Films, paintings and other art

For mood and lighting, art is often more useful than photos because it is already composed. Naughty Dog lighting artist Gabe Betancourt suggests you "find a really good reference from a photograph or a film that captures the overall color or mood you're going for" (80 Level: Learning Lighting for Video Games). Sweeney studied how red was used in The Shining and Natural Born Killers for The Last of Us Part II (Cook & Becker: Art directing The Last of Us Part II).

#Games and other artists

Jared Sobotta describes researching "other artist's work, movies, games" as well as real-world reference, and studying the portfolios you admire to see what works (CGSociety: How to Create a Stunning Portfolio with Jared…). Shipped-game breakdowns on ArtStation are useful for this; see game art breakdowns: a curated library and making (and reading) an art breakdown.

#Step 3: Curate the selection

A larger collection is not necessarily better. Vytautas Katarzis, who built the Shanghai old town for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, describes having too much conflicting reference and choosing to stick to "only a handful of pictures" of surviving old architecture (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle: Shanghai…). Tight time pushed him to focus on "the big picture", meaning architectural cohesion (ArtStation: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle: Shanghai…).

Good curation rules:

• Keep images that answer one of your questions. Delete the rest.
• Prefer consistent sources. Same region, era and climate, unless mixing is the point.
• Keep a few "hero" images per cluster that define the look; the others support them.
• Annotate. Write one line on each image saying what to take from it ("moss only on north faces", "roof overhang 60 cm").

#Step 4: Organise it where you work

A reference board only helps if it is open next to your viewport. Lund built his sheets in PureRef and recommends it: "Do yourself a favor and get it into your workflow" (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…). PureRef is "a stand-alone program for Windows, Mac and Linux that keeps track of your images", with features such as always-on-top windows, quick notes, a desaturation toggle and tools for arranging images (pureref.com: PureRef). Alternatives, including shared boards for teams, are compared in reference, review and presentation tools.

Practical habits:

• One board per project, saved with the project files.
• Group by purpose, as in the diagram above.
• Use the desaturate toggle to compare value between your screenshot and the reference.
• Drop your own screenshots onto the board and compare side by side.

#Step 5: Use it throughout the project

Lund: "Gathering reference isn't a 'one and done' kind of task that only takes place at the beginning of a project" (80 Level: Winter Street Scene: Environment Production…). Typical moments to go back:

• Blockout: massing and proportions against architecture reference and a scale figure. See blockout.
• Materials: colour and roughness against material photos. See base colour (albedo) map.
• Set dressing: where clutter actually collects in real places. See set dressing and art passes.
• Lighting: mood references side by side with your screenshot. See light and shadow.
• Polish: a final greyscale comparison with your target-quality images.

#Reference as practice

Studying reference is also how you train your eye. Stan Prokopenko's notan exercise reduces master paintings to two or three values to "improve your ability to observe and interpret values" (Proko: Project – Notan Master Thumbnails). Doing the same with game screenshots and photos is a fast way to learn how professionals group light and dark. See value.

#Related pages

reference, review and presentation tools · photo-sourced and scanned materials · photogrammetry · blockout · set dressing and art passes · scale and proportion · value · game art breakdowns: a curated library · worldbuilding for artists · art bibles and style guides

#Further reading and watching