A Lighting Pass

This week saw lots of new props and decorative assets, but the biggest jump was the light tests, which show new opportunities for making our environments look better than ever.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Early Experimentation

Image
Welcome! This is the start of Michael Manfredi's Capstone Development Blog, where you can get a closer look at the artistic progress occurring on the Phantasm Team. This week, the main priority was about finding a simple style that lent was appealing to the eye but had a speedy workflow. I wanted to emulate the intense colors present in images like these, by Dominik Mayer and Halil Ural, respectively: They provide striking color and contrast. I did some experimentation with color clashing in these brief thumbnails. Finally, I did some tests in Unreal to see if the style could be emulated in engine, and I think despite no post processing edits and basic building block objects, the results were quite successful. After these experiments, I think we can utilize this style effectively by having semi detailed modeling and simple, color focused textures.
Read more

Asset Crank

Image
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...
Read more

Immersive Sim Expansion

Image
Immersive Shock Studies For our second week of the ideation phase, I put my full attention on the third of our ideas: The Immersive Sim. The key challenge with this game is the vastness of its interior spaces, and the act of creating a narrative and setting that is simultaneously engaging and within scope. The setting also had to conform to a selection of other standards that allow for an intertwining of gameplay elements, narrative and location. The list of possible settings went from 25 to 2, and it was on for these two that the connecting was done. Lost City The first idea we had was a lost city that the player is exploring. This allowed for a variety of gameplay ideas regarding both level design and mechanic justifications. The big challenge here was coming up with a distinct architectural style that read as "ancient" but still felt vaguely advanced and mysterious. Abandoned Hotel Our other idea, which holds the most promise, was that of a long-ab...
Read more