Environmental Assets Pt.2 - Matt Glen (Concept Art)

Continued on from an earlier post, here are some further asset designs to fit into our game level.

Crystal

At least one of the rooms should contain a mystical glowing gem stone. Below are some ideas about what that could look like.

The concept on the right is a more standard crystal type of structure, which is fairly recognisable from the off. The left hand image is somewhat different, but not particularly clear. Someone remarked to me that it looks like a squid. This is not ideal. One piece of advice about creating concepts I hear often is to ensure that a design is easily understood within a matter of seconds, and so it seems to be a good rule of thumb to avoid going with an image that does not achieve this. The right-hand crystal is more obvious and works off of previous design shorthand visible in other games to tell the player exactly what the object is. The idea of it floating and glowing should also draw the players attention to it as a usable item pretty immediately as well.

Sarcophagus

Another object that should work well in the environment is a sort of small tomb that could act to divide up certain larger areas and add interest to the scene. In my first sketches, I decided to make this a fairly simple shape for the modelers, so that it could be quickly made and implemented, and potentially be made into multiple variants quite easily. I also included a human figure atop the sarcophagus, however, somewhat echoing the forms of ancient Egyptian coffins and making them more imposing and foreboding.

However, almost immediately after completing these drawings, I realised that in order to sculpt a decent human figure for the tombs, the 3D artists would need to spend an inordinate amount of time working on this small set piece, which completely defeated my original intention for the asset. I quickly began another drawing without the human figure, and also added a bit of damage and plant growth to replace the interest.

This should hopefully look quite good once it's in game, and provide a bit of cover-like scenery to the level.

Roots

One idea for the cathedral-like Crystal Room is to have a series of tangled roots dangling down from a shaft in the ceiling. Modelling these should be fairly straight forward, as they are only there for visual purposes and don't need to be amazingly detailed. 

Three twisted roots like this should look fairly effective and set the mood pretty well. While only a simple illustration, it should be enough detail for a simple model to be put together to drop in with a basic texture. Hopefully for only a small amount of work this should look quite good when in the game.