Big game project – E.R.A – Eternal Resonance : Arena – Post 2

Our work on the graphical part of ERA has been running smooth, the other two has been working really swift and so we’ve gotten a lot of the content checked off our list. Almost all models for the game is done and now on we will have a lot of texturing and particle effects to create. After the quality time with the graphics teachers we came to the conclusion that i had to write a style guide for our game, something i’ve had in mind but didn’t prioritize cause i was more keen on working with the actual game. But i think they had a good point since we’ll probably continue developing this game and there for a styleguide is vital. Also all of us will probably have to work on the textures in order to get them done and because there wont be enough work. So in order to make my mental image of our game come true the other two artists will have to have some kind of framework to direct them. To set our style and way of texturing i worked with our first hero “Copperman” as a base and this is the result i came up with after many iterations.

So this is what the character looks, i read and followed the dota2 texturing guide in order to reach this result with some modifications. After everything was set according to the Dota2 guide i made a copy of the AO(ambient occlusion) and point light maps, merged them and changed their color through the Hue/saturation tab to a complementary color. I also copied all of the layers, merged them and created a highpass which would be the top layer of my diffuse to make some details pop a bit more. While working with this i learnt a lot not only about texturing but how valuable it is to create basemesh with a lot of large faces to work with since you’ll have a rather zoomed out camera.

Part from texturing this badboy i’ve been creating highpoly meshes of both the helmet and his backpack which i would say is a part of the texturing process in a way.

This week i also finished up the last of our concepts; A healing platform, a home for our forest creeps in the shape of a pinecone hut(AWESOME RIGHT?!). Shown below is the concept for our forestcreeps, what will be different from the “normal” forest creeps and their chieftain is his awesome hat which i made a sketch of in the bottom corner of the image.

Shown below is the healing platform, the statue i sketched up in the upper left corner of it will be placed one in each corner of the very simple platform. Lorewise these are very early sculptures of the leading god of man kind, now a days more refined sculptures of him has replaces these early rather grotesque ones. The images are balinese demon sculptures which i found really inspiring so i took a lot from them.

Last but absolutely not least is the pinecone hut that the forest creeps will have as their homes spread across the map.

Part from this i have been leading the other two graphical artists, they’ve asked me for opinions on their work, if they had to make any changes and so on which takes up a lot more time then i ever thought it would.

Now that we have the texturing method and almost all models done we’ll start working towards the BETA, atleast on the graphical side as we’ve already passed our alpha goals. We have a lot of work ahead of us but i don’t doubt we’ll be able to make it.

Over and out, Henrik Rosenborg