We’re a little into the dev of Merek’s Market, its going well, and someone suggested we get a blog started! ‘What a top idea,’ we said back, so heres a bit of the art work and how its progressing.
When I said we’re a little into the dev, I mean quite a bit. The character are, for the most part done, the modelling for most of the environments are there, so now Im into the fun UV/texture side of things. I’ve never met someone who likes doing UVs. Apart from you, the one who just thought, ‘well, I do.’ You my friend, are strange!!!
Let’s talk about the latest environment. As the game goes on, Merek moves from store to store, getting better as he goes along. This is the fifth environment so it’s a biggie. Things are looking up in his medieval ways. (Don’t tell him about the plague and the Great Fire of London that are just around the corner.)
The way we work is initial sketches and scribbles to explore what we want in an environment. This one is late in the game so needs to be fairly complex and home to every game mechanic we have. We were playing with multi level set ups with ladders but this left the player in transitions between levels for too long, so instead we settled on a single level shopping mall theme.
Next, the tried n tested old style of doing a grey/white box rough first that goes to code and design. They see if it works and any tweaks and changes, or complete redos are then done.
A more complete basefile is then done, and again checked to see it works, no issues with the layout etc.
Then onto the stage where the next pic is at, where the UVs and textures are done. (Im still watching you, the UV fan!)
We’re still working on this environment so it hasn’t got past this stage yet. But! The next stage would be to export it all out to unity and add lighting, particle effects if needed and there it sits proudly until someone says, ‘I’ve just had a thought but it might mean some environment changes…!’