Let's Build an Environment: Layout

Hey all,

I wanted to do do a series of blog posts focusing on the construction of the interior of our level and my process in creating it. Since I work as Designer/Environment Artists I'll be focusing on both, but this first post will be design heavy, and the rest will probably be much more art heavy. That out of the way, let's dive in.

Here are the things I know when I start designing this level: This level will act as the demo for our game, it will be based on gun battery Mishler, located at Fort Steven's State Park in Oregon, and the player's goal is to open a set of blast doors on the ceiling to reveal the weakness of the monster they'll be fighting later in the game. Because it's our demo, I want to make sure that we showcase all of our mechanics, with an emphasis on co-operation. With that in mind I start by creating two puzzle rooms that require both of our characters to work together.

Original Puzzle rooms

Now I have two areas (made up of a couple of rooms), that I need to link together with the rest of the battery. I move into 3D since that's where I'm most comfortable and quick. Here I can go crazy, slowly discovering what the space will be as I go. I know I want a main hub, which will double as the location the player's reveal the monster's weakness, so I create that first. When creating the hallways I know I want the area to feel a bit like a labyrinth, with a lot of strange turns and corners, to make the player feel even lost when spooky things happen. I also make sure that I have multiple elevations and a dug out cave for flavor.

First pass battery interior geometry.

I'm now left with a big messy piece of geometry that I need to turn into a old gun battery.

State of the Environment 5

Here are some quick screenshots from Unity to show you our environment so far Our second color pass is looking successful as we altered all of our original textures and used a cooler and bluer pallet to create our new textures. We still have interior assets and lighting, soon to come.

Color for the color god.

We've been spending a lot of time thinking about color and shadow recently. Getting the right color to make the environments feel like the northwest is key, so we're using a lot of cold greens and blues. Here are some color comps of our environment.

State of the Environment 3

Made some changes to the plant textures, added a temporary skybox, and added color to the remaining untextured elements. Not to mention adding Dani to the scene! Still working out alpha blending issues within unity, but the scene is in and playable. 

Unity Screenshot - First camera placement

Unity Screenshot - Panned first camera placement

Unity Screenshot - Panned first camera placement

Building a Battery

Environment work has started. The first area we're creating is based off of one of the many abandoned military gun batteries that scatter the pacific coast. We've got a full proxy of the level built and navigable and now we're putting forth the hard work of turning those boring grey boxes into something beautiful.

We started by doing a few paint overs of our grey boxed level.

And from there we've begun creating assets.

More art to come so keep your eyes posted.