I've been working on the level design for the interior of the crypt this week, and yesterday I finally started to put the pieces together. So let me explain how we design a level then create the art for it.

We created a demo for our graveyard containing the crypt by creating background layers, then randomly placing an assortment of graves, rocks, and statues which Jen has created onto those layers. The actual gameplay will take place on our main layer which will contain the crypt.

To make creating the artwork for this level easier, I created a level template. The coloured areas in the image represent different areas of the level. The purple areas represent an underground level of the crypt. The wireframes about them represent areas above ground. As you can see there are two levels of our crypt above ground and three below ground:

The inside of the crypt is still in the planning stages (although last week you saw a bit of the original plan from 1996), so we can't show you the inside yet. However, Jen has created the initial version of the external crypt wall , with a few steps leading to the locked door. The player will only see this portion of the exterior wall, because once the player has retrieved the key to the crypt, this wall will disappear to reveal the inside:

In the following video you will see the graveyard with the play layer template inserted and the crypt exterior. Notice the crypt wall begins over the purple ground in the template. In this video I move the camera to the right and up the wall so you can have a good look of how the wall fits into the scene:



This week we hope to finalize the look of the graveyard, just in time for Halloween!

In my face-sketching practice today, I tried for speed in the drawings, knowing that some detail and accuracy might be sacrificed... and it was! However, speed sketching is something I need to practice, and I know that accuracy will eventually follow.

Today I sketched actress Lotte Verbeek, who plays Geillis Duncan on the TV show Outlander. I sketched the image on paper first, then scanned it and worked on digital inks in Corel Painter:

Today I would like to talk about the genesis of the game project Jen and I are working on. This game is a fantasy action 2D side scroller which we initially designed almost 20 years ago, in 1996. It wasn't the right time to make the game then, but it is now.
You see, the game market back in those days was ruled by publishers, just like the record industry was. If you wanted to get your game out there you needed to submit the game to a publisher and if they liked it, they would possibly fund your game to completion, or simply publish it when it was finished. Nowadays, most PC games are published over the internet, affectively removing the middle man. This has caused an explosion of indie titles in the market, and has spawned innovation.
But let's get back to 1996; publishers at that time were looking for sales, not innovation. At this point in gaming history, the new hype was 3D games. 3D gaming hardware had finally come into its own, and publishers saw 3D games as the only ones which would sell. We recognized this trend and put our 2D game on hold. Eighteen years later, the market has exploded with 2D games, as consumers are controlling demand, not publishers.

When we decided to work on a 2D title, we pulled out all of our designs from back then, salvaging gameplay elements which would still be fun today. The graphics Jen had created back then were of course too old to be used in a modern game, but it is fascinating to see how similar they are in style.

Here is a scan of our design of the crypt from 1996:

The crypt, is of course, in a graveyard, which you've seen us creating in pictures and videos from my last couple of posts. Here's a look at how our graveyard layers originally looked in 1996, when we were limited to a resolution of 320x200 pixels:

Next week I will bring you some more of our original artwork and how it compares to our modern versions.

In the meantime, I've done a bit more work on our modern graveyard. I've added a creepy mist, and some ambient lighting so the environment outside of the torch light is not in complete darkness. Jen has created a couple more rocks for the environment as well:





Jen is working on more creepy statues for the graveyard, and I'm adding the outline for the crypt itself. Let's see if we can complete our creepy graveyard by Halloween...

I was going to try this sketch in ink, but I keep going back to pencil for the variety it allows in sketching subtle shadows. I admire artists who so skillfully sketch portraits in ink, though. I guess it's something to aspire to!

This week Jen and I are trying out getting the look for the graveyard/crypt level of our game. The graveyard is the back drop for a multilevel crypt which they player will be traversing.
Jen wanted to use some celtic style grave stones, which added to the mystery of the game's world:

This level will use dynamic lighting in the form of torches scattered about. The light from the torchs scatter in a circular area, and strike objects on multiple scrolling levels.



Here is a quick look at some rain. In our engine rain drops and snowflakes are particles. Particles are objects with a limited lifespan which don't really interact with anything, they just head in a direction and disappear off screen. To create rain the engine makes thousands of these particles every second. Organic elements like rain take a lot of fiddling with to appear realistic. Here is a video of driving rain in a very simple scene:



See you next week!

For practice today I took a crack at sketching Foyle's War actor Michael Kitchen:

One of my all-time favourite animals to draw is this bird that I photographed a while ago. His big, staring, reproachful eyes and the stark markings around his beak give him an angry look no matter which way he faces!

We've added a couple more elements to the eerie forest from last week, and they are quite spectacular. I have added fog to the scene and improved the rendering speed. Jen has kindly created bushes for the ground:

The final result is exaclty as we envisioned it in concept, so we are quite pleased!



Here is a quick look at some rain and snow. In our engine rain drops and snowflakes are particles. Particles are objects with a limited lifespan which don't really interact with anything, they just head in a direction and disappear off screen. To create rain the engine makes thousands of these particles every second. Organic elements like rain take a lot of fiddling with to appear realistic. Here is a video of driving rain in a very simple scene:



See you next week!

This was a sketch from a couple of weeks ago. It's interesting to look back, even just since the start of my faces and figures sketch book, to see how my drawings have changed. There have definitely been some flubbed pieces, but for the most part, my skills are developing for the better!