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Dev: pestibug
Position: character / level modeler and concept / texture artist
Details, details…
Alright, last time I wrote about building the Quarterstone graveyard, now I will tell a bit about how I try to make it more immersive for the player.
Of course I could just build all the needed models and leave it at that. It would work; there’d be tombs and crypts in game, well the stuff you saw last time. But, it needs a bit more to make it all come to life.
Now some things will have to wait till later, but right now I’ve focused on aging the models.
Mostly this means I’ve been destroying my lovely models, making cracks, ripping parts out of walls, collapsing pillars into rubble. This way, when you venture further into the graveyard it will (hopefully) become more, creepy and show how old it really is.
It’ll be a place where people no longer come to remember their loved ones, a place where things might be just not quite right.
Also adding textures like mosaics and patterns will add more depth to the whole scene, it shows perhaps what these people believe in when they pass on. Small details, most of it will go unnoticed, but in the back of your mind these things will ‘connect’ and make it seem more alive.
Next to the buildings, I’ve also been working on some plants and such, as the crypts and tombs become more sparse, plants will slowly start to take over. Growing over the remains or inside crypts perhaps.
Wanting and getting…
There is one ugly beast that stalks us game developers, and when we don’t watch out it’ll devour us in seconds! The beast called ‘Limitations’.
You see the thing is, when you start on something like, the graveyard for example, you have all these wild ideas.’ I’ll build this, that, want to do such and so textures, it’ll be amazing!’
Well, it probably will look amazing; only, it will most likely not run.
So we come to the trade offs. There’s always time issues of course, next to that you have to think: ‘will adding this texture not stress the pc too much?’ Because even if it’s one texture, things tend to add up eventually.
In the end you compromise, trying to create the best possible thing you can within the given limitations.
One thing that’s always very difficult to keep in mind is: you have no idea how many players will be on screen at any given time. And of course, more players means the pc has to work harder.
So it’s a shame you can’t do certain things. Usually it are small details, but it’s the kind of stuff that would add just that bit extra. But fear not, because we do pay tons of attention to create the most immersive world we can build.
All in all, the graveyard models look amazing, and I’m sure when our level-artists are finished with my models the whole graveyard will be just an amazing place to walk around in.
Music of the week: Tool – Lateralus
Pink Floyd – pretty much all their stuff |
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