Mike M's Capstone Development Blog

This week, a number of tasks lay before me.  -Create assets for the Heads Up Display... -Create a final character asset that the enemy shader could be applied to... -Make some flashy art for our next presentation... -And finally, spend whatever remaining time I had making new assets that would work in various settings such as lounges, halls and lobbies- and then using said assets to polish existing levels. Fortunately, the HUD and character took significantly less time than it could have. The general layout of the health, energy and corner spaces (which can hold  numbers for collectables or other information) are meant to be as out-of-the-way as possible, complemented by the vignette effect on either side of the screen. The vignetting also helps suggest the player is indeed wearing the mask, which is a pivotal part of the narrative, and helps make the game feel a bit more claustrophobic and cramped. Much inspiration for the overall shape was taken from...

This week, I was tasked with prioritizing the creation of the mask- the source of the player's abilities in the game. The two major parts of that were making the actual mesh and base material (which as an environment artist proved an interesting challenge), and developing a design scheme and layout for the designs of the mask. Begins the designs are a representation of the player's upgrades, they must exist as a separate entity from the mask material itself so they can be progressively added on during gameplay. For now, I just had to finalize the designs themselves. This was the task I started with- finalizing the mask shape and creating the designs. After a good deal shape meddling, I ended with a shape and set of designs I really liked. Because of the three upgrade category, three distinct design languages needed to be present in separate areas of the mask so that players can easily differentiate one type of upgrade from another. All in some come were inspired by Ar...

This week consisted of the creation of more props, and an establishing of an official Art Bible. Prop work consisted primarily of assets that could furnish out halls and stateroom, as after much discussion, the pool was cut in favor of a more generic, less unique area. This was done to accommodate the creation of more frequently used assets like hall and bedroom pieces. It was better to get these out of the way first, so more areas could be created quickly, as opposed to assets that could only be used for a single area which would limit level designer flexibility. What's more, an official art bible was started in earnest- This allows both the rest of the team and possible oncoming artists to have a concrete source of information for everything- from the art style and inspirations to prop modularity measurements and pipeline details. Finally, we developed a final title, Empirical, and created a system of fonts and backgrounds to use within documentation to maintain consistency...

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 pi...

This week was spent really nailing down the Hotel Setting from a more practical perspective. Much time was spent discussing things that would have large impact on the months to come. These include everything from design and color schemes to full on floor plans of the hotel floors. From a more concrete level, I also stared work on the level kit, and certain basic gameplay props. While not finished yet, these can give other members of the team something solid to work with while the final artistic form is still being created,