In our second interview with the Trove Team we get to know the artist formerly and currently known as Grumpntug.

Thanks to Defiant Few for collaborating on the questions.

Can you introduce yourself?

Hey! My names Brian Clarke probably better known as Grumpntug. I'm the Art Lead for Trove and I handle the visual directions of the game as well as the high end of the player submission process and I love you.

How long have you been working for Trion Worlds?

Man. I have been with Trion for.... seven years now? Let's see, started in 08' soooo yes seven years.

In your position, what are you responsible for?

Well, like I said before, I'm the art lead and I handle the visual direction of the game. That means anything from base character design for classes, biome design, to things like lighting, color, post effects, polish, etc. I also handle the final say on visual quality for dungeons and lairs. I used to do it for weapons, hats, props, and other submissions but it's since gotten so large, that responsibility now belongs to our amazing mods.

Have you always had the same position on the Trove Team?

Kind of yes and kind of no... Trove went through a LOT of changes in the early months of development and in that time I think I even spent a VERY short stint as a producer but turns out I wasn't awesome at it and wanted to keep making art. However, I've always been tied to the visuals of the project in one way or another from the very start when it was something very different but once we fully became Trove, there was enough need for a full on art lead and I was happy to step into that.

Where does the name Grumpntug come from?

Well..... um. It has, what some might call, a more "mature" origin but has been refined into something that sounds like it could be anything so it's not my fault if you think it sounds suggestive.... that's on you... BUT I was trying to think of a new artist handle a few years ago that I could use for everything from Twitter to, gaming, to development and this was the most fun sounding. I didn't want to be 50 years old and have some serious sounding name left over from my old half angel half demon emo avatar from grade school. I like signing art with Grump much more than BC or other possible handles.

How did you get started in video game art?

I've always been into creating art and the ability to do something in a 3D environment was very appealing. I think I started teaching myself 3D art programs when I was maybe 13 but I got into making my own simple games using something akin to flash, basically creating old point and click games and an old tool for making RPGs. I think when I was 11 or 12 at that time. I really enjoyed it and making the art for them was always great and consumed the bulk of my time. When I was in high school, a representative for an art school came to my class and talked about their game development program. I had no idea that what I had been doing could be a career and from that point I focused on that direction. In that school, I created a level design as a final for one of my classes and posted it on the polycount forums. That was where an artist contacted me about a job and from there I've been riding the game art fun train for about ten years now.

Have you worked on any other notable products?

There are the other Trion games obviously. I worked for a very longtime on Rift and handled some of the work load for Defiance towards the end of their project. I also worked on Warhammer Online with Mythic (may they rest in peace) before heading out here. MMOs take a VERY long time to make so the game list isn't super long even though I've been in it for almost a decade now.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

Well, I do a lot of responsible adult stuff these days. I work on my house a lot and take care of my new daughter (I'm actually on paternity leave right now speaking to you live via my home computer) but when I'm not climbing that mountain of adult responsibility, I'm mostly making more art. I've been playing with the new Unreal engine since it's gone free and doing a lot of sculpting in Zbrush and modeling in Maya. Art's just fine to do, so I do it all the time. I do the playing video games and such but if you want the dating website version of my free time... I enjoy playing guitar, riding my motorcycle, paintball, and I guess moon lit walks on the beach or other various moonlit settings to walk in.

What do you find most challenging about designing for Trove and why?

I would have to say new classes, monsters, mounts, or characters in general. It's easier now but any time I need to dream up something new, it goes through a process. I think of something crazy, then I have to think of how that should tie into the style of Trove, and then it has to go through a culling process. All the crazy things I think of need to be striped away to their core ideas and conveyed using just a few blocks and solid colors. That level of minimalism is not easy. Coming from a history of being able to make what ever I could dream up and having to distill that down into very simplistic core concepts is much more challenging than you'd think. It's easy to make a voxel... anything really but it's very difficult to thoughtfully make something in a style. It's a challenge I didn't know I'd even have when starting this project but I think it is one that helps me grow as an artist in a lot of ways.

What type of content in Trove do you enjoy designing the most and why?

I would have to say biomes. They are probably the easier part of a new character package when it comes to all the various elements needed to create it but mainly it's the time I really get to work with color and lighting in a serious way. Playing with every little value and fine tuning things into something that is visually compelling is always very fun along with created the other elements of a biome to create one cohesive visual.

Can you describe your acceptance process for player submissions?

It actually just changed recently. It used to be that I would browse through all the mod accepted submissions on the creations sub reddit, provide feedback to every rejected submission, and compile an email to Atronos for the accepted ones to be eventually put into the game. However, we get hundreds upon hundreds of submissions a week and it is just too much for me to handle in addition to everything else for the game. I was originally the filter for quality control on props, weapons, etc. but I've since handed that responsibility on to the mods. They are AMAZINGLY awesome folks and I think they do a great job with it. Once the style saver really started getting used and players became able to decide for themselves what looked cool for them, the need for me to be extremely granular in my feedback faded a lot. Now I only handle the dungeons and lairs side of player submissions. I decided to still run that section because I feel it has a much larger impact on the visuals of the game as a whole and I now have more time to devote to it. I'm very happy with the new direction of submissions so far.

Do you have any words of wisdom for those who are starting out creating content for Trove?

First note is please please please read things. I get so many PMs just asking me how to make things and that's like me walking up to you and asking how you drive a car. You know how to drive a car, you could explain it, probably really well but it's too expansive to cover all the more subtle bits of info like rules of the road etc. in a simple conversation. That's why we have created all kinda of intro posts and guides over the months to help you out and the community is there to help you out too. So I love the passion and drive but you need to know how to make things correctly before you can really create well.

The core info I have though is to really keep things square. That sounds simple but I get attempts at organic shapes all the time with voxels and it just doesn't work for Trove's style. Take what ever idea you have and approach it as a cartoonist would approach a drawing. A cartoonist doesn't draw every bit of detail, they simply try to capture the idea of something. You get simple shapes and solid colors but you know what it is. Trove is the same way. If you want to make a bear mask, don't try to make the most accurate version of a bear that you can with the voxel space you have, that's just not going to come out well, but if you drop the details and make a square face, square ears, solid colors, and try to capture the idea of a bear. You will be more in line with Trove.

What is on your desk right now?

Well, like I said, I'm answering from home right now and my home desk is much more boring that my work desk... right this second I have a sketch pad, a cold cup of coffee, and a cup from something else that i have no idea. I just cleaned it though so it's even more boring. Now my desk at work! I have all kinda of stuff including my DVDs and dvd player, also probably old coffee... but I have a 3D printed cubesly that made for the team to grab an that's probably the coolest thing. Also some toys, cars, maybe some apple juice... mostly I live on coffee and apple juice.

Can you describe your experience on Hot Pepper Gaming? would you do it again?

Once my anus recovered from it's trip around the sun and back through the earth's atmosphere, I was able to remember it a lot better... It was a lot of fun before, horrible during, and a lot of fun after. It just doesn't seem that bad in the first seconds but it creeps up on you and doesn't stop. I started sweating and dripping from various places and it wasn't pretty. That's probably the core thing. When you do hot pepper gaming, you aren't going to be looking your best and confidently talking about your game. You are going to look like you just finished your tenth keg stand at a frat party and are trying to hide your shame under the deck out back when I was younger....

If you had to survive a zombie apocalypse, which Trove team member would you like to have with you most and why?

I want to say Avarem because he is amazing with split second decisions and changes in course. The man's a serious genius. BUT, were talking zombies and I think he'd die. Adam (decoy) would be great too because we enjoy each other's company (or I just put out there that I enjoy his and when I get back I'll learn he doesn't like me that way) and would have a very fun time probably before we died. In that scenario we also die. Probably hiding in some kind of small room. Now if we are talking survival. Hands down Khari. That man is a beast. Pretty sure he was some kind of Gladiator or spartan warrior in a past life. The man's arms have veins on top of their veins to supply blood for extra veins. He's also good company so I think we'd be in the whole small room scenario with dead Avarem outside blocking the door, dead Adam inside probably also blocking the door and then Khari would punch his way out the other side with me on his back in a sort of Luke and Yoda situation.... or master blaster depending on your knowledge of things...

At the moment, what game outside of Trion products has you hooked?

It was Dark Souls for a long time. I REALLY want to play Bloodborne but from what I hear, I need some serious free time for that. Right now though I actually have been playing a good deal of Star Craft. Not well, but I play it.

How much do you enjoy deleting traps from submissions?

That joy actually goes to Adam. My joy is much more in the mental scaring area because I just tell you what's wrong over and over until you either dislike me or it becomes something I accept visually. After the visual step is where Adam looks at the design side of things and gets to exercise his delete button.

What do you think makes Trove a unique game?

I think a combination of two things: the community and the team's ability to pump out patches every week that address so many things or even provide a whole new layer of content. I haven't worked on a game or really seen one that so heavily involves the community. It's funny, because some times I will be reading the forums and see the random "why don't the developers read the forums" posts. We often don't reply because we simply can't spend our days replying to every post ever but we pretty much read every post ever. We also talk about you behind your back and are like "ha ha. They don't know we're reading it" then we go home for the day in separate private jets and roll around in money.

Seriously though. We read everything and it's amazing to be so involved with the people who love and play our game. Sure, we put out a LOT of content at an insane pace but what is really awesome to me is how much we want to make a game just for the players. There's a larger idea sure and certain things we need to have happen in the development of the project but we really do take everything to heart and I think our ability to listen to the player base and actually make meaningful changes connected to that feedback in a fast way makes Trove something other games just can't be.

Which Trovian class do you most enjoy and why?

I'm gonna go ahead and say pirate. That guy is super cool. He's my lowest level right now but it's insanely satisfying to collect those coins from doing damage and listening to my parrot turret level up. Also his dance is my favorite (awesome job Robin)!

Which biome do you think is the most visually impressive and which do you think needs more love?

I think visually, Radiant Ruins is the most successful. I feel like you get that feeling up bursting up over the clouds into the bright sunlight that I was looking for. That being said, I think all the biomes need more love. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Radiant looks great but is lacking in biome props and variety in lairs. Pirate is awesome but also just starting out so doesn't have a lot. Tundra was too drab for what Trove is becoming and so I did a lighting change to it but still has a long ways to go. Not to mention a number of broad stroke visual adjustments I want to do.

Creating art for video games is strange. It can always be better. There's a point where you have to step away and move on to the next thing though because of the schedule you need to keep. That's where I try to get time back to do small tweaks and passes here and there because nothing is ever done. I think there would be a problem with me as an Art Lead if I believed something was "finished"

Looking at other games, does any art style stand out to you/leave an impression?

There's awesomeness in most games I play. I have to tip my hat to the new Sky Saga coming out. Their lighting is rather nice. It's a pretty different game when you play it but the visuals are cool. Outside of the voxel realm, I love the style of games like Dark Souls, Hearth Stone, Dead Space, Metal Gear. All of them have impact on me in different ways. I absolutely love the visuals of the silent hill teaser P.T. on PS4. Their rendering is wonderful and they captured creepy in a very masterful way. I'm actually very partial to gritty and dark so Trove is a polar opposite for me and I think that's good. Oooh also the visuals from the new Star Wars Battle Front look great. So many people saying it's pre-rendered but knowing how modern game art is constructed and how it can look in real time, that stuff is legit. I also just love Star Wars.

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[Deleted User]

I legitimately cackled like a madman during a few different bits of this, (especially the zombie scenario.) What a great article! Aside from being generally pretty hilarious, I can really appreciate how earnestly Grump treated this interview. I couldn't agree more with his comments about Trove being unique in it's approach to the community. I've never been a part of another game so focused on spreading not only enthusiasm but also actual opportunities to get involved. The team seems pretty darn devoted to continously adding content, as well as keeping their playerbase informed. It's a really awesome thing to be a part of on the newbie side of things.

Great interview. Thanks for making it happen!

[Deleted User]

Great interview mate, really enjoy behind the senes with TW team!

Clearing up a double post