[D06] Deep Dive: Graphics Update

CACTUS » Devlog

1 year ago by Axon Flux (@AxonFluxStudio)

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CACTUS Devlog

All About Art

For today’s devlog, we thought we could for once shed some light on what our artist has been up to. You'll learn how we decided on the art style of our game, and our thoughts behind the designs of our characters. Specifically we'll talk about the inspiration and practical considerations behind our enemies, the lizards.

The Beauty

Our artist joined Axon Flux when development on the game had already started, and the artist before him had already done some work on it. After sitting down with the developers, they agreed to step away from a cartoony approach of the aesthetics. One reason for that decision can be found in the HDRP render pipeline that Unity provides, which enables us to create more detailed textures.

The rework of textures is what occupied him the most the past few months as it went hand in hand with the ongoing optimization of our assets. At the same time, he also created a style guide for the game. Keeping it simple, he documented the shape language, color schemes, architecture and environments in there, as well as showcasing mood boards with real world references as well as art style references. With this Art Bible we pursued the goal of decoupling the art from the artist (as far as that is possible), so that, if maybe one day we get to welcome a second artist on board, they could trace back the decisions and easily blend into the project.

The Good

All that is more or less in the past, however. More recently our artist has come up with some drafts for a new animation, which will be used for the upcoming charge shot.

Animation of the arm model. All you can see from the hero in a first person perspective

However, while a rework of the first-person model – the arms – is now finished, for a full glimpse of our hero, we still need to be a bit patient. Since we are focusing on polishing the first level to get it ready for a demo release, the third-person model is not quite first priority yet. The gameplay takes place solely in first-person and therefore doesn’t need a fully rendered model.

“So, why drafting the full model at all?”, you may ask. Well, the ancient powers that foretold the epic adventure of our protagonist, certainly knew how the Cactus looks like, as they painted the prophecy on murals. What that means is that there are images of our hero to find in the environment of the demo level, to draw them correctly we need to know how the Cactus looks at least in shape.

...and of course, the Cactus is our main mascot. The face of the game, so to say.

Drafts of various possible appearances of the Cactus

The Bad

With the murals out the way, it’s the enemies’ turn to get a makeover. More specifically the Collard Lizards. They needed some rework, because their outline was difficult to differentiate from other enemies. We want to provide simple signals, which the player learns to associate with certain dangers. Therefore, enemies with different attack patterns should look differently, so that they are easily distinguishable.

In the demo level you will encounter three different types of enemies, all of them lizards. But there are the Collard Lizards, which just want to punch you, then there are the Dragon Lizards that throw fireballs at you, and finally the nutjob Armadillo Lizards, that are trying to roll you over.

The Collard Lizard before and after beefing up.

To signal the type of attack the player can expect from the Collard Lizards we send them to hit the gym and bulked them up. Our artist imagined them as tavern brawlers, because all they know is to run up to you and punch you in the face. While attempting to animate the new models, we encountered a minor obstacle. The retargeting of skeletons to the model in Unity only works for humanoid models. Since our lizards have tails, they seem to be problematic. Thus, we have to do the whole thing in Blender which takes a bit more time, but at least it works.

The Mood Board for the Collard Lizard. You can see the Tavern Brawler inspiration in Thor or Rey Mysterio. Some of the images serve as "anti-references", so as not to get too close to someone else's intellectual property

When the rework of the Collard Lizards is done, the focus turns toward the other Lizards. However, they don’t need as much attention. The high poly model of the Armadillo Lizard is already very close to its desired appearance, while the Dragon Lizard sends clear signals but needs to fit a bit better into the art style. That means after the Collard Lizard the rough work is done for our artist and he can turn to the final touches of his work.