Project Description:
Cyberdrome is a fast paced, first person action game in which you use a high-tech sword and enhanced movement abilities to traverse dangerous environments and kill robots before they kill you. Project Title: Cyberdrome Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Development: 4 months | 255 hours Team Size: 15 developers |
Roles and Responsibilities:
Role: Environment and Visual Effects Artist
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Postmortem:
What I learned:
What I learned:
- Communication with level designers and programmers is key to make sure everyone is clear on expectations
- Working with the team directly and indirectly through a lead
- Optimizing materials and textures
- UE4 visual effects
Early Development:
Development began with concepting enemies and their weapons so level designers and programmers would have more time to balance them. I created my own concepts and merged some of mine with the other artists' ideas.
I then took renders of the levels the designers had up to this point to paint over environment concepts. Referring to the art style guide, I painted over their primitive shapes keeping in mind that the environment should be modular.
Development began with concepting enemies and their weapons so level designers and programmers would have more time to balance them. I created my own concepts and merged some of mine with the other artists' ideas.
I then took renders of the levels the designers had up to this point to paint over environment concepts. Referring to the art style guide, I painted over their primitive shapes keeping in mind that the environment should be modular.
Environments:
We decided to do both interior and exterior spaces for our stages to better facilitate the game's early story. To make the most of our time, I made the pieces modular to assist with more accurate and flexible level design. Each stage's pieces are also interchangeable with each other.
Keeping our art style and theme in mind, I unwrapped and created the materials for these pieces - making sure they flowed from one to the other smoothly.
We decided to do both interior and exterior spaces for our stages to better facilitate the game's early story. To make the most of our time, I made the pieces modular to assist with more accurate and flexible level design. Each stage's pieces are also interchangeable with each other.
Keeping our art style and theme in mind, I unwrapped and created the materials for these pieces - making sure they flowed from one to the other smoothly.
Visual Effects:
This was a new category of art for me. I learned much about Unreal's material editor and how to coax effects from them, different ways to manipulate the particle systems, blueprints, and post process effects. Working closely with the programmers and level designers, we came up with several visual effects we wanted for conveyance and juice. Many of these effects I needed to learn from scratch.
These include:
Marketing:
As things were winding down, I also had a hand in creating marketing materials for the game. These include an alternate poster and achievement icons for Steam.
This was a new category of art for me. I learned much about Unreal's material editor and how to coax effects from them, different ways to manipulate the particle systems, blueprints, and post process effects. Working closely with the programmers and level designers, we came up with several visual effects we wanted for conveyance and juice. Many of these effects I needed to learn from scratch.
These include:
- UI effects to show players enemies obscured by the environment including a fill and outline effect
- Spark particles to indicate a slashed enemy
- Lasers for bullets and beams
- Transparent/translucent material for enemy shields that also deform when struck
- Pulsing lights
- A glitch effect to show when the player is low health
Marketing:
As things were winding down, I also had a hand in creating marketing materials for the game. These include an alternate poster and achievement icons for Steam.