Captains Cabin
A downloadable asset pack for Windows
Introduction
For the Rising
Star competition, the Environment art brief was set for the artist to create as
scene around 4 key assets, following through the complete production pipeline
from concept through to in engine implementation. This document will breakdown
my initial thoughts and understanding and then detail some of the technical
steps I took to achieve the final scene shown.
I wanted to
create a small interior scene with a realistic art style using PBR textures. I
wanted to not only demonstrate my skills as an artist but challenge myself to
learn and improve. To this end I wanted to really push my understanding of
lighting in scenes to take advantage of things such as volumetric rays and
using light as a key factor when focusing player attention towards certain
object or area. I wanted to support this with the use of particle effects to
increase realism within the scene.
This led me
towards wanting to create a scene set at night or in low light. This would
allow me to experiment with particles to create flames and moving light sources
and would also allow me to focus on lighting a scene in a subtler manner using
a number of lights to create the right atmosphere.
After a recent
trip to a dinner on the HMS Victory in Portsmouth. I was captivated by the use
of small confined spaces on the ship and seeing how the evening dinner event
was lit mainly by candle light, it inspired me to try and recreate a small
scene using a 1700’s era naval ship. With all this in mind, I decided to try
and recreate a Captains Desk in order to keep the scene focused and within size
constraints. This also meant that I had to be focused to try and tell some
story. To kick off the design and implementation, wanting to keep the scene as
true to life as possible, I set about gathering as much real-world reference as
I could.
The scene is designed to highlight the Compass sat on the captain’s desk. In a gameplay context this may be an item that the player would have to acquire to navigate the ship of complete a puzzle. This played in well to my goal of using light to aid towards narrative and highlight what is important to the player without obvious glowing arrows or other “gamifying” elements.
Final Thoughts
On the whole I
think the project has turned out well. I have achieved my overall learning goals
of understanding and implementing lighting better. I have also achieved the secondary
goal of learning more about particle systems.
Some of the
high points of my work are:
1. Well establish scene mood. Use of light
has helped to focus player and viewer attention and has helped to add ambience to
the scene.
2. Setup and positioning of the cameras.
The beauty shots of the scene highlight the key assets well and give a high quality
finish for the scene.
3. Texture authoring. Using a combination of
Substance Designer, Painter and Photoshop, I have been able to create realistic
and high-fidelity textures for all the assets in the scene. I have created good
final textures with a reasonable texture size.
In hindsight
and having worked on the project there are a few areas that need improvement to
really make the scene perfect and to also help me inform my design process.
1. Model fidelity. This point is
especially in regards to the compass. This was a hero asset and will remain
close to the players vision. Some of the curved elements such as the dome that
the compass sits in when closed are too low poly. In my aim to keep tri counts
down, I have noticeably reduced the fidelity of the final product. I should have
used a higher number of sides to avoid this.
2. Planning and concept stage. As
mentioned earlier in this analysis, there were some drastic changes to the
final piece when compared to the block out. More thorough research and
compositional planning would have meant a much smoother development journey and
would have allowed me to nail the look and feel of the scene I wanted to
achieve earlier on.
3. Shader optimisation. By trying to
include various glass elements in the scene, I have impacted on shader complexity.
This is not the end of the world, but there is probably a better way to implement
material translucency in a realistic fashion. This is something that will come
with further research into material properties.
In summary, my aim to create a scene with 4 key assets and to showcase my skills as a 3d environment artist in training has been achieved and I am happy to have learned and created a portfolio piece.
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