When one utters the word “world building”, the immediate thought that arises in one’s mind is the construction of a building. This is a thought that occurs to a layman who does not understand fiction. What it actually means is the creation of worlds using words. World building plays an important role today due to the rise of new technologies in films. How?
Even before the story is written, world building gives an extended description of a character in a story, where and how the characters are actually moving and how the location should be. The primary focus is on explaining the fictional world.
Figure 1: An example for a world building chart
The fable of fantasy stories and mythological creatures where the hero crosses seven seas to fight against a giant octopus is quite popular in folklore of ancient times. But these days such stories no longer surprise the audience as there is no proper logic behind the characters or how they are positioned in the world. Hence there is a need for world building in the current age of storytelling.
Figure 2: A mythological create arising out of the ocean
Imagine explaining a basic story like “once upon a time there lived a crow…” suddenly escalated by drama after using world building as a tool, the story now is descriptively aided with the details of location, time, people’s way of life, rules, future of the village, and finally setting certain rules within one particular world can completely change the dynamic of the basic crow story.
Why is there a need for rules? Even if a story consists of pure imagination, there has to be some form of rules, only then the audience will pay attention to the story. Hence why the rules add a dominant line over the script formation for genres such as fantasy or anime or science fiction.
In the World of Comics
The idea of world building was majorly identified and acknowledged by fans all over the world from the early American comics era around the early 1950s. The comic books by Marvel and DC had stories consisting of characters from different planets and how characters evolve from these solar systems is given in detail.
Figure 3: A comic book cover of DC vs Marvel.
In the World of Animation
Another idea of world building extension can be found in anime series like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, where the character behaviours are detailed and glorified. The detailing is so high that there is consistency among characters and their interactions with the anime world make sense even after longer sagas.
Figure 4: A frame from the popular anime series ‘Naruto’
World building itself tends to be its own art form. These days a film with a lack of vision and poor understanding about world building seems to be boring and highly predictable. The audience has become intelligent, there is a new term for it known as “autonomous audience”. It means audiences don’t just passively consume films, rather they engage and take part in the films as if it were their own.
In the World of Feature Films
Figure 5, 6: The poster for the film ‘Lord of the Rings’ and the fictional map created for the film.
Films such as ‘Avatar’, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Tron’, ‘Baahubali’ or ‘John Carter’ can be good examples for world building. The famous TV series like ‘Game of Thrones’ visualises a middle western century way of life through detailed world building concepts, separating empires, their rules, and the people.
In the World of Gaming
Figure 7, 8: A poster for the game ‘Grant Theft Auto 6’ and the in game map for the game ‘GTA 6’
Figure 9: Screenshot of game characters for the game ‘GTA 6’
Figure 10: Screenshot of game vehicles used for the game ‘GTA 6’
Apart from this, world building offers a huge chunk into the field of gaming. Free roaming games, RPG (role playing games) likewise various other games use the concept of world building correctly. For example, the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series. The game has its own map, a city in which there are various different vehicle options, NPC (non-playable characters) have unique identity and lifestyles, attires, different buildings, and animals. All this has been created using concept art prior to creation of the game.
Figure 11: A poster of the game ‘Cyberpunk’
Figure 12: An image of NPC inside the game
‘Cyberpunk’ is an example. This game envisions a city in the far future and everything is thematically created. The attire is futuristic, tattoos that are digitally printed onto the body, there is a high amount of cybertechnics embedded into humans. There are different styles of building with unique glow lighting setups. This is totally a refreshing sci-fi perspective that stands apart from regular sandbox games. Unlike films, the character interacts with the world. Based on these interactions the progression of the level is decided. The decision is made by the environment, such interactions have been planned by the game developers. Here the concept of “world building” plays a huge role enhancing the creativity.
Conclusion
There are new innovations in approaching how world building can be put into practice.
Figure 13: An image of the screen from Google Genie
Reddit constantly has users producing world building concept arts as a subreddit. Google has launched an application called Genie that allows users to create AI generated 3D worlds. Another user-created world using AI is known as Marble World Labs. There seem to be plenty of options to explore and start creating a set of rules and ideas before creating a story and to add more reality. Every artist should consider the knowledge of world building as a basic before creating any fictional work.
