
In animation, they are called ‘key frames’ or sometimes ‘extremes’. They are the most important part of an action, essentially the parts that defines for the viewer what the action and emotion is; the parts of an action you remember. After creating ‘key frames’ an animator will draw the in between frames, connecting the key frames in an organic and expressive way.
In game development, I’ve heard the terms ‘vista’ or ‘set piece’ used to describe a memorable and important part of a level. A set piece is what you would remember when trying to describe the game experience to another friend, such as an amazing event or a particularly striking view.
I wanted to marry these two concepts of key frames and vistas and ended up with something I call a ‘key vista’. Clever? I chose some locations on this map that I decided would be the most visually crucial for the plot and important for gameplay.
I started with screen capturing these locals, and then took to the sketch book to develop a more comprehensive look for each place. I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have a scanner, so the images you see are credited to my MacBook Pro’s webcam and poor lighting.
The next step will to fully realize each scene in amazing 3D with textures and everything!
Then, using these key vistas as a guide, I will continue in the same style connecting them together and filling out the entire map. However, I imagine this stage will not come until later, rather when I complete these scenes, I will use them to introduce this game concept to other developers.
Then, maybe I can get an actual game working

The above shot is a concept for a big open field/meadow place thing.
More shots below…
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