Unearthly Challenge 2009 | TheThing (2)

As far as I understand and approach this challenge, everything is in the way one can achieve an environment that really depicts the two words 'end game' and the meaning behind them. Lighting is the key factor in this matter and I plan on working on this aspect the most throughout this experiment.

A teacher once told me that I don't have to draw the entire circle; 75% of it, or a round, curved line that 'almost' makes a circle, with the ends never closing in the shape is enough. The rest is done by the eye of the beholder. Not only this will make a drawing less precise and dull, it will also leave room for a bit of imagination. This works just as well for drawing on paper as it does for a virtual environment in a game engine. A door cracked just a bit open and a fragment of the corridor behind it, merely visible, conveys just fine the idea that through that door there is a way out (or in) and who knows what else, depending on the story development thus far.

Therefore, an interesting environment has brutal visual elements,say, an axe with blood on it, quite an instant message, or more subtle elements, such as marks on the wall of a cell in the belly of an abandoned prison; meaningless messages at first but proven to be key in solving the last puzzle in the game.

Ranting quite a bit, let's see some progress, shall we ? :)

I added just a small amount of details to the scene since last time; I did some more UV work and pre-baking for the base mesh of the level and further went on to figure out the best camera angles and lighting.



A couple of fuse boxes and wires on the walls. Wires and fuse boxes will be used quite a lot in this scene for a couple of reasons. One, would be the functionality of the room; there is some need for electricity I should add. Two, wires and cables and fuse boxes and the like make for really effective visual elements; bare walls with a picture hanging from them aren't that telling, unless the picture sends out an interesting message, like a riddle doodled over with pink blood :)

I also added some shattered glass and played around with ways to make it look well using various materials. Given the size of the glass parts and the overall lighting, I picked up a material with high specular values against reflectivity / cubemap based materials.

And finally, placed the 2 main light sources in the scene for a preview before baking the textures. One casting shadow, of a dark, blueish color and a more dim light, for the main room. The far corners of the room and the hallway are dark areas, helping the viewer to focus on the main element of the scene, the thing.





Thank you for reading and feel free to comment,

Apparatus