Nathan Trewartha, the art lead for Lego Fortnite, shared insights on crafting vast, immersive environments in game development with BYU students and faculty on Feb. 27.
Students gathered in the Talmage Building to hear from Trewartha, a BYU alumnus with nearly 25 years in the industry — 17 of which have been with Epic Games — as he discussed the challenges and artistic processes behind creating large-scale digital worlds.
Trewartha opened his talk by explaining the scope of Lego Fortnite and the difficulties of building an expansive, interactive world while maintaining game performance.
“We wanted to make a survival crafting game in an open world and in a physics sandbox. So there's two of probably the most difficult things that you can possibly do in making game art,” Trewartha said.
One of the key challenges, he explained, was designing environmental elements that are both destructible and serve as in-game resources.
“We wanted everything to be destructible. So you can destroy any tree, bush, plant — not grass — but anything that's of considerable size you can harvest for resources and break apart,” Trewartha said.
“If you see a tree, you should be able to chop it down. If there’s a rock, you should be able to break it apart,” he said.
The sheer scale of the game adds another layer of complexity. The world map in Lego Fortnite spans 59 square miles, significantly larger than Fortnite Battle Royale’s 3.1-square-mile island. Unlike Battle Royale, which is hand-crafted by artists, Lego Fortnite's world is procedurally generated.
“We also wanted variation of environments. We wanted your island in Lego Fortnite to possibly be different than somebody else's island in Fortnite,” Trewartha said.
Trewartha went on to discuss game platforms. Balancing such a large world with performance constraints is no easy task, and performance optimization is one of the biggest obstacles in environmental art.
“Performance is everything in games, and art has to be made in such a way that performance can be made possible. If your game doesn't play fast and well with a good frame rate, you're frustrated, not excited. It totally interrupts your experience with the game,” Trewartha said. “Artists have to make trade-offs. How do you make something look great, but also make sure it doesn’t slow the game down?”
Trewartha described how Lego Fortnite incorporates two distinct art styles — Lego-built structures and natural environments. There are two tracks of art created for Lego Fortnite, the Lego track and the natural world track.
His team focuses on the landscapes, trees and rocks that shape the game's world. The Lego-based elements, such as buildings and characters, are developed using Lego Digital Designer, or LDD, software.
"Anything that is a tree, a rock, plants, grass, mountains — this is the natural world, and that is what I am responsible for," Trewartha said.
His team, which includes internal Epic artists and external contractors, must ensure that all these elements work together seamlessly. He talked about how they use the LDD software for building Legos in the real world.
As part of the design process, Epic Games collaborates with Lego Master Builders — specialists in constructing intricate Lego models — to create assets for characters, creatures and structures.
“We get these master builders who are like, we need a creature. We need this building and they come back with just amazing art. It's awesome,” Trewartha said.
Beyond technical execution, Trewartha emphasized the importance of creative problem-solving. A student at the seminar, Rylan Chamberlain, asked Trewartha what he looks for in artists.
“I like to see ingenuity and proactive thinking. I don’t want to dictate every decision. I want them to be passionate and bring their own ideas,” Trewartha said.
Chamberlain, an animation major, shared his thoughts about the seminar.
“It was really interesting to see how much problem solving goes into making a game like this. There’s a lot more to environmental art than just making things look good,” Chamberlain said.
The seminar was part of BYU’s ongoing efforts to connect students with professionals in creative industries. Craig Van Dyke, an assistant professor who organized the seminar, spoke about its purpose.
“Our biggest hope is that we're introducing students to what's going on in the industry and to real-world problems and how people are solving this stuff,” Van Dyke said.
After the seminar, Trewartha reflected on how his time at BYU and earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration influenced his career.
“BYU gave me a great foundation in art and problem solving,” he said. “That ability to think critically and adapt to new challenges has been crucial in my work.”
As students continue to explore careers in game development, digital art and illustration, seminars like these offer a rare glimpse into the realities of the industry — from the creative process to the technical constraints that shape the world's players' experience.