Go Go Go

So much to do! How is there only a week and a half left? Time apparently moves faster when you're making games or something.

We are SCRAMBLING to get this done. Chris got his whitebox for the fire level complete, which was taking a while just because of how much work and design he had to put into it. (Oh, I'm not even sure if I ever mentioned that he was redesigning it to be a bit less narrow and wind-y.)

Sibyl and Kyle were missing again on our Sunday meeting because they were still getting back from the conference, so it was pretty hectic just being able to talk about what needs to get done and who needs to get it done.

Sibyl and I went into Chris's level and looked at where we could place assets. Originally, we were just going to have her do a phoenix statue to represent the fire team. There wasn't really a good place to put it in the fire level. Chris had the paths designed in a specific way, and clogging any space with a statue would have messed up the level design. Sibyl suggested that her time would be better spent on clutter assets. But then we had to discuss what the "clutter" would actually be.

Chris had been telling me the fire level should be a mining facility for months. And I kept saying No! I felt like there was just too much pressure on giving it a "theme." Like, why did we need a theme? It's a sport. The theme is sport. The field is a sports field. Just LET IT BE. But then Matt named the level "Drago Mines" and I overlooked the connection.

When Sibyl, Kyle, and I started talking about clutter I finally caved (haha get it because mines are caves) and decided to go along with the mine theme. It would make sense. If we did it right, the assets wouldn't get in the way of the level design. I wanted to go for a more abandoned mining facility, because it just didn't make sense to me why they would use an in-progress mine for a sports field... but I guess since this a magic sport, all rules are out the window anyway?

I ended up giving Sibyl a lot of wood assets to block off "passageways" into other mining areas (so players can't actually get there). These would also act as supports or frames for the cave, and mine cart rails. She also did a minecart asset. Kyle was finishing up his column with the mage in the middle, which ended up looking pretty awesome. He was also tasked with a hanging brazier for another light source and decoration. He had to finish his totems for the Energy Totem spell, too.





So here is what Sibyl came up with for this week (untextured)

 

And here is what Kyle did (also untextured):

It's funny when you accidentally completely forget about assets when you have t push them to the side for more important assets. And then you're like OH CRAP and have to rush to get it done when it very well could have been done weeks ago if you had the time.

I had to give Rob, one of our level designers, assets too. We had so many assets to get done that it was spilling over to the designers now. But he was more than happy to do them, and he actually did a great job!

Here are the assets textured.

Chris also had me do some tileable rock textures. I'll admit: I had no freaking clue how I was going to do this. I had done tileable cobblestone textures before. Tileable brick, tileable wood. But how do you even start with a tileable rock texture? What does cave rock even look like? Oh god what am I gonna do?

Internet to the rescue. Tileable rock, luckily, is a WIDELY discussed topic on game art forums, because it's an unspoken rule that every game dev has to make a cave at some point. Sort-of-unluckily, hand-painted cave rock textures are slightly less popular. There are a good few forums posts, though, that were endless help. I took a lot of inspiration from everyday game artists (like me), which drove me even more to make good textures. 

These took me a good amount of hours to do, each. I really got this hand-painted feel with these, maybe even moreso than I would have liked. It's a bit more cartoony than the ice level textures are, but I think when they are applied to the meshes they will look like they make more sense.

I have no idea how it got to be so late in the year already... We still have a lot to do, but at the same time we're winding down and that feels incredibly weird.