The Asset Kit Begins

This week was spent getting a good start on the asset kit and setting up a mood image that could demonstrate how someone might use the assets in an appropriate way to create a scene. This consisted of a lot of trial and error, as I re-measured edges and UVs and took new ideas into consideration. One particular challenge was making the doorways operate such that you could put a doorway piece on both sides, allowing travel from one room to another and have assets lie back to back without Zfighting (when two assets have faces in the exact same virtual space, causing visual artifacts). Another restriction to grapple with was that the standard piece of wall was 2 by 2 meters, which is quite a bit smaller than the standard door height. 

After the assets were all created, I spent an hour setting up a little test hallway to demonstrate their use. I had fun finding use for some assets that were never intended for use in a hallway. Take note, for example, of the balcony railing pieces on the tops of the walls, adding visual interest.

After one week of asset creation and two placeholder textures, I think its safe to say this modular system is relatively successful.

Another small but important bit of work done this week was enemy concepts. I'm no character artist, but that doesn't diminish the importance of the enemy assets in our game. the main task at the moment is to figure out exactly what visual trickery we can use to make the enemies appear interesting, without making them fully animated bipedal characters. The goal to shoot for is a flickering ghostly image, which we can achieve through mean of technical art.