top of page
  • Writer's pictureCallum Winfield

Devlog 15 - Enviroment Art

Before starting working on fleshing the design of the enviroment of our game I refered back to the original design plan of the map to look at them key points we wanted to include.

In Game Map

Below you can see progress of the map design with the first picture showing a view of assets on the map and the final shape. The overall scale of the game world is huge so its crucial to keep on top of the overall level design and that there isnt areas that become dull to the player.


Custom Built Assets

One area though that we hadnt planned on fleshing out was multiple structures on island, with there only originally being the main beacon for the player to get to. Though during playtesting it was clear players would only go to the optimal point to make their way through the may so we decided the flesh out and include multiple buildings on the Island to either guide the player through the map or to offer areas of exploration.

Above you can see all the base assets that I created for the ancient abandoned structures the player could come across in the game including -

  • Pillar - used in large interior sections of the map as a storytelling device of the building's stability along with an emissiive light source seen inside the pillar via to light beams colding.

  • Arch way - used the block out cave entrances that take the player into mountanous areas of the map.

  • Waypoint statue - Used as emissive lights in the game world to help the player see but also used as a sort of guiding device to help the player navigate the world

  • Viaduct Pillar - In the central area of the game map their is a long viaduct like bridge that seperates that game area up into two section. The bridge is built up of these pillars.

  • Temple/Healing Building - One of the few assets in the game that will allow the player enter inside. Within the game it will also include healing station that the player will be able to use to regain lost health points. (More close ups can be seen below of the building.

The final asset I worked on for the game's architecture was the final beacon you reach in the game. The structure is huge and uses a simular structure design to the small ones found across the map. It had a simular work flow just that the scale and resolution of the model are alot bigger.

The model has a full interior and the colliders fully allow the player to explore all parts of the model.

I also began to implement assets created by other team members. This involved creating unreal blueprint classes so I could easily drag and drop them into scenes and animate them and creating material assets in unreal to apply the texture maps provided in a node set up so the textures work correctly. Below you can see the asset for the enemy drop ship called a Manta Ray Gunship or MR Gunship for short. Assets and texture maps where provided by Rafael

Below you can see the working ship which will be how the robots arrive on the planet the game is set on. The asset has custom unreal textures and is in an animatable Blueprint Class. Assets and texture maps where provided by Rafael

[Size comparissons shot of all assets on the developer map]

Flying Manta Ray Gunship

In gameplay there would be several instances where the player would encounter flying versions of the manta ray gunship over head, so I needed to create a seperate blueprint class that utilised lights and particle systems to give the idea of the ship flying. The flying effect simply involved adding point lights to each engine and to give the impression of the engines being so hot that they vaporise the rain near them I added steam particle systems to them.


Dead Friendly Ai

As we could never get the interations between friendly Ai and Enemy ai there was no visual storytelling of a conflict happening on the island so I created new animation systems that would make a variant of the robot Ai to be found dead on the floor.

Below you can see an addition of a spark particle effect added to the dead friendly ai blueprint class.

Escape Pods





Loading Screen

Unrelated to enviroment art but I needed to document it somewhere, there was a need for a loading screen. I made a render that would add to the overall tone of the game before the player had even enccountered gameplay, with an image of a broken down robot head sourrounded by rocks. Along with this I added a small paragraph that sets the player up with the situation they are about to play through. which reads "Crash landed on a mysterious planet, seperated and hunted by the anti unit Sanmiittai organisation. Make your way through the perilous landscape, reach the beacon, find SALVATION."

- [CUT FROM FINAL BUILD]

Easter Egg Statue

One final asset I created was a statue that called back to a game created in second year that all of my team members worked on. I made a simple plinth in the style of the architecture in the game and then imported the low poly of my character model from year 2 and applied the cement texture.( So yes the games are now connected and part of joined universe ;) )







22 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page