Chapter 3: Harmonizing Across Teams & Outsourcing

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Harmonizing Across Teams & Outsourcing — Style Systems: Stylized ↔ Realistic for Weapons

Why harmony is a style feature, not a management chore

In a weapon‑heavy project, “style” is the sum of a thousand micro‑decisions made by different people under different constraints. If those decisions do not sing in the same key—shape language, edge discipline, value scaffolding, palette rules—the arsenal fractures. Harmony is a design deliverable: it keeps silhouettes coherent, surfaces readable, and cadence aligned with Audio × VFX × Animation from concept sketch to shipped asset. Treating harmonization as a creative system (not just a Jira status) lets internal teams and outsourcing partners produce work that looks authored together, even when built apart.

The style spine: four rails everyone must share

Harmony rests on four rails—shape, edge, value, palette—that every contributor can recite and apply. Shape sets mass priorities and negative‑space rhythm. Edge defines perceived danger and scale via bevels and fillets. Value creates hierarchy that survives distance and motion. Palette allocates color’s scarce attention budget. If any rail is ad‑hoc, the rest will not rescue the read. Your style spine should be a one‑page plate with examples at three ticks along the Stylized ↔ Realistic slider so vendors and juniors can self‑calibrate without guessing.

From art direction to operations: codify the sliders

Translate taste into sliders you can enforce: scale distortion, edge graphicness, micro‑detail density, value compression, palette saturation, decal verbosity. For each slider, show 20/50/80 examples and list do/don’t rules and failure states. Example: “Edge graphicness 50 → structural edges 2–4 mm chamfer equiv., precision edges 0.3–0.8 mm; avoid hairline chamfers that shimmer; no cardioid micro‑bevels.” Sliders turn critique into shared vocabulary and make vendor feedback fast and objective.

The proportion plate that anchors the arsenal

Proportion drift is the #1 reason families look unrelated. Ship a proportion plate per class with mass ratios (stock:receiver:barrel), sight heights, control spacing bands, and acceptable barrel profiles. Include three silhouette variants (Speed / Authority / Discipline) so artists can compose inside a safe triangle. Provide greyshade turntables at two FOVs and thumbnail tests at 5% scale. Vendors must match the plate before adding detail; this saves weeks of rework.

Edge glossary and highlight discipline

Edge behavior is where “realistic” and “stylized” diverge most visibly. Author an edge glossary with three tiers (structural, precision, interface) and show their highlight footprints under neutral light. Provide normal‑map exemplars, radius ranges, and “what not to do” (sparkle confetti, over‑tight chamfers on big panels). Require an “edge pass” screenshot on every delivery: a clay render with specular only. If the highlight map looks like TV static, the asset fails regardless of texture beauty.

Value scaffolding and desaturation tests

Mandate a 60/30/10 value scaffold: 60% mid body, 30% supporting, 10% accents. For stylized sets, compress to two or three steps; for realistic sets, allow soft curvature gradients but lock the big blocks. Every vendor submission must include a desaturated render at gameplay distance and a 128‑px silhouette test. If class and focal mass disappear, the artist must adjust values before proceeding. This single gate prevents 80% of readability bugs at the end.

Palette rules that travel across lighting and LOD

Color is the most fragile rail under varied tonemaps. Provide palette triads per faction: chassis neutral, function hue, hazard accent, with permissible saturation windows. Show how these map to tracer color, muzzle flash grade, and compliance labels so Audio × VFX × Animation remain coherent. Supply LUT previews and “safe” color ramps for mobile or compression‑heavy targets. Lock hue ownership—no two factions owning the same accent at the same saturation—so screenshots remain self‑explanatory.

Decal voice, compliance clusters, and legal safety

Decals are the loudest style element and the easiest to go off‑brand. Define a decal voice: number of font families, stroke weights, contrast levels, and a strict ban list (extremist/charged marks, real brand lookalikes, assembly instructions). Use compliance clusters—serials, inspection stamps, hazards—grouped into a single panel per weapon to reduce chatter. Vendors receive SVG/SDF packs and must not invent text. Include a localization note: English block text is placeholder; icon‑first designs survive language swaps.

Cross‑discipline cadence alignment

Style is audiovisual. Provide per‑class cadence notes that tie visual decisions to sound and VFX: flash envelope length, tracer frequency, impact tail bias, bolt return weight. Heavier receivers → deeper body thumps; micro‑comps → tighter flash, higher chatter pitch. Vendors should deliver a 2–3 s “cadence preview” turntable: greyshade model, placeholder flash/tracer/impact ticks, and foley clicks. This prevents surface polish that later fights the mix.

Outsourcing brief: what to send, what to forbid

A good brief is a small kit: proportion plate; edge glossary; value scaffold example; palette sheet; decal atlas; compliance and ratings plate; naming conventions; and a delivery checklist. Forbid: custom decals, unique fonts, non‑standard bevel profiles, micro‑greeble packs, and numbers on diagrams. Require: clay/specular renders; desat thumbnails; wireframes; UV density check; and a parameter table (roughness ranges per material family, sight height, muzzle thread proxy). The less a vendor must infer, the more they will harmonize.

Naming, metrics, and folder hygiene

Style collapses if files are chaos. Enforce a naming schema that encodes faction, class, variant, LOD, and material set (e.g., FAC‑ALP_WPN‑CAR_AUTH‑01_LOD1_MAT‑A). Provide meters‑true proxies for grip heights, optic rails, muzzle offsets, and collision extents. Lock texel density bands per class (e.g., 512 px/m for hero panels, 256 px/m for undersides) so materials look like the same universe. Vendors must ship a texel heatmap screenshot; mis‑scaled roughness reads as style drift.

Review cadence and objective gates

Create fixed gates: (1) Silhouette+Proportion; (2) Edge/Value clay; (3) Palette+Decal pass; (4) PBR+LOD; (5) Cadence preview with basic VFX/audio. At each gate, use checklists that map to the four rails. Keep feedback short and ranked: must‑fix vs stylistic nits. Limit subjective paintovers; instead, annotate against the plates. Vendors escalate faster when they know which rail they missed rather than decoding taste.

Handling variants without style noise

Variants are where drift explodes. Define variant rules: what can change (muzzle device, stock profile, optic mass), what cannot (core mass ratios, value scaffold). Provide “swaps plates” with before/after examples and slider changes marked. Use shared decal anchors so variant swaps don’t create new typographic noise. When adding faction skins, hold value and roughness constant; vary hue within the allowed window. QA a grid of variants at thumbnail scale; remove any outliers that read like a different game.

LOD, compression, and platform read‑through

Harmonization dies if LODs diverge by team. Author deliberate LOD materials: keep macro normals and value islands, drop micro noise, flatten decals into the base at far LODs. Establish strobe‑safe muzzle/impact profiles for low‑power devices and apply to all weapons. Provide platform‑specific tone‑map previews so vendors can judge palette collapse points. Require a “5% test” GIF (fast pan + firing) to check that edges and values hold under motion and TAA.

Integrating mocap and hand poses

Character teams need the same plates. Provide grip archetypes per class with safe handling ( index off trigger, muzzle awareness). Lock IK targets and magazine angles so reload arcs look like the same doctrine. Share a “contact map” of wear and polish zones; animation can push foley there to unify surface storytelling. If a vendor changes control placement, they must update the pose guide or the asset fails at the next gate.

Failure modes and rescue strategies

If a delivered asset looks noisy: compress value steps, broaden structural bevels, and delete micro‑greebles that create specular chatter. If it looks toy‑like: re‑introduce soft occlusion, push metal fresnel at silhouettes, and deepen receiver values. If it feels from another faction: swap accent hue to the owned ramp, replace decals with the compliance cluster, and realign tracer/flash palette. Use the sliders as dials, not as rewrites; most rescues are two or three decisive moves.

Communication rituals that keep style alive

Run short, recurring “plate reviews”: five minutes per artist to show clay/specular and desat thumbnails next to the style plates. Archive wins and fails in a living style wiki with side‑by‑side notes. Hold monthly cross‑discipline cadences where audio, VFX, and animation play a 10‑second loop per class to catch envelope drift. Vendors should join at least one cadence review per milestone; hearing the mix locks their surface choices.

Documentation that scales

Your style bible should be modular and scavengable: • One‑page spine (shape, edge, value, palette sliders) • Class proportion plates and cadence notes • Material swatch sheet with PBR ranges • Decal voice + compliance atlas • Ratings & accessibility plate • Outsourcing checklist and naming schema Ship it as a small package with embedded images; never hide it in a 200‑page PDF.

A practical rollout this sprint

Pick one class—say, carbine—and produce the full kit: spine, proportion plate, edge glossary, value scaffold example, palette triad, decal atlas, and a 3‑second cadence loop. Send to one in‑house artist and one vendor. Timebox two iterations using the gates above. Compare results side by side at thumbnail scale. If they read as siblings without art‑director intervention, your harmonization system is working; if not, adjust sliders and plates before scaling to the rest of the arsenal.