PGA Tour 2K23
HB Studios
Renowned for its meticulously detailed courses, PGA Tour 2K23 faithfully recreates many real-world PGA Tour locations. Airship Interactive has been honoured to collaborate with HB Studios on the PGA Tour franchise over the past two years. Discover how our reliable and knowledgeable team fostered an integrated relationship with HB Studios to bring this vision to life.
Challenge:
- Building a strong, integrated team from scratch while scaling up. Ensuring rapid onboarding and seamless integration for all team members.
Solution:
- Project Refinement: Ensuring alignment with client expectations through continuous refinement of workflows and project goals.
WHAT WE DID
Airship Interactive’s expertise stretches across a broad range of facets. Our dedicated specialist teams have displayed their efficiency in environment, character, and groom art. All subsidiaries perfectly orchestrated by our passionate team leaders and producers.
Airship Interactive created a vast range of assets for PGA Tour 2k23, from courses to clothing, always going above and beyond to meet the client’s expectations and push boundaries on the realism of assets. With a drive to not only satisfy the client, but genuinely impress them. In effect- galvanising HB’s trust in our artistic expertise, resulting in our leaders being granted creative freedom and direction across many areas.
“They appreciate that manpower. There were things that they taught us. And there were a few things that we taught them. So we sort of exchanged knowledge in that sense. And that also helped elevate the overall quality bar as well.” – Salman Ijaz, Senior Generalist Artist.
HOW AIRSHIP WORKS DIFFERENTLY
Our dedicated team fully immersed themselves in the workflow, striving for maximum efficiency. We continually strived for innovative approaches to asset creation, gathering an extensive array of references and diving into minute details to meet the client’s expectations. Whether the task involved low-poly or high-poly assets, our meticulous attention to detail set us apart.
Airship excels in creating realistic clothing, particularly clean, new clothing which requires careful detail balance.The team successfully re polished hundreds of assets, creating comprehensive documentation to maintain consistent quality
THE POWER OF FOSTERING STRONG INTEGRATED RELATIONSHIPS
Airship Interactive are privileged to have a diverse team of industry experts. From artistic prowess to communications and production proficiency, our level of quality distinguishes itself in the field of technically focussed visual development. Our strong, integrated relationship with HB is much to the credit of, Production Lead, Daniel Brooke’s excellent professionalism and industry experience.
“It’s not just about getting the assets done. It’s about a relationship. It’s about having a dialogue. It’s about really integrating ourselves within the team. And I think as a company, we’re really good at this and we really do care.” – Daniel Brooke, Production Lead.
A key strategy for success has been intuition-driven decision-making—analysing ways to enhance material details, ensure efficient optimisation, and achieve exceptional asset quality while maintaining cost-effectiveness.
“They’re very particular. They like things done well, and quality is always key. But on a personal level, they’re lovely to work with—kind, always providing the right feedback, especially in terms of artistic input and workflow improvements.” – Bradley Horne, Lead Environment Artist.
Salman Ijaz, Airship Interactive’s Senior Generalist Artist has displayed a matched level of dedicated and passionate leadership throughout this project. Salman credited the impact and influence of working on DLC with fostering strong relationships with the client HB. The opportunity to keep pushing boundaries and impressing the client post main game release is gratifying and fulfilling, elevating the buzzing excitement and team motivation towards the project.
” I definitely believe working on DLC helps to maintain your long term relationship with a client, It keeps us interacting, on daily basis” – Salman Ijaz, Senior Generalist Artist
TEAM EFFICIENCY DRIVES WORKFLOW HARMONY
Bradley Horne, Airship Interactive’s Lead Environment Artist, has overseen the Environment Team over the past two and a half years. His exceptional leadership was recognised with the Outstanding Leadership Award at the Game Dev Awards.
Bradley’s reputation with both the client and his team is a testament to his creative curiosity and charismatic communication style. His passion for the project is evident in his team’s willingness to push boundaries, particularly in workflow innovation.
“A good work environment has been key. People want to stay on the project. It’s about balancing hard work with fun. We’re in the games industry, so enjoyment in the process is crucial. If the game’s not fun, maybe we’ve missed the mark.” – Bradley Horne, Lead Environment Artist
Internal feedback was pivotal in ensuring that all art delivered to the client was clean, concise, and accurate. We prioritised optimisation, ensuring assets ran smoothly within the game without compromising consistency or quality.
“Our primary goal has always been to send the client solid, polished assets that inspire confidence. I still conduct constant reviews of assets to maintain this standard. Ensuring a balance of artistic excellence and technical functionality remains a cornerstone of our process.” – Bradley Horne, Lead Environment Artist
Team leaders Bradley Horne and Salman Ijaz, ensured quality control via the solidification of their concrete and watertight onboarding process. Through vigorous and detailed documentation, it is warranted that team members are onboarded and trained to the highest standard in just under a week.
“One thing that has benefited the team alone is the confidence documentation that we’ve made on our side. So anyone that comes onto the project can go to our conference page and read up on how to make everything from start to finish. And they can be on boarded within a few days. It’s a pretty seamless process, and it helps guide artists, especially if they get stuck anywhere” – Bradley Horne, Lead Environment Artist
CONCLUSION
Airship Interactive’s collaboration with HB Studios on PGA Tour 2K23 exemplifies the power of integrated relationships, innovative workflows, and meticulous attention to detail. By fostering a culture of excellence and adaptability, we delivered a project that stands out in quality and efficiency, setting a new benchmark in game development.