Creating a Scene – Kew Gardens in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
Prior we leave to Game Development Conference to meet some press and media, I wanted to showcase another location in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and the exact process of how we do it. Those who follow us on Facebook may have seen this poster advertising an exhibition of rare and exotic plants; we are still accepting your suggestions on why Mr Holmes and Dr Watson would visit an exhibition like this:
Not that I am going to reveal their interest in the exhibition, I’d probably bring your attention to the place itself that took us nearly 2 years to create! Tempting? So please follow me…
Creating a scene is a rather complicated and even scrupulous process – the final result differs tremendously from any given idea. Usually our sketch-artists start working on the locations long before we finish with game story; while we are in the middle of a story pitch, they already have their first drafts and prototypes:
Now guys can export it to Unreal Engine with the basic geometry to check how the character(s) will move inside the location; this is something they are going to change on countless occasions. Once edited, an artist receives the screenshots right from the engine to start playing with the details, lightning and atmosphere. It is still a sketch though:
Now level designer can add these details, textures and lightning to the in-game location itself. If needed, more modelers join the ride to work with smaller details required for the given location as designed in the sketch. In this case, I am talking about these flowers, bushes, trees, fences, palisades and benches:
(Yes, you may see same benches in other locations as well.)
As we tend to refine our work, guys usually take these small objects from our library (like these benches for example) while some objects are unique and need to be done from scratch:
As the objects are already added, it’s time to set the light source for the objects and others for the characters. We also need the light- and shadow-maps for the final image to reflect the atmosphere of the location whether it is natural sun or a lamp shining:
Any additional effects like a fog, moving clouds vs static ones, stream of sun, they all are to be added now:
Texturing plays a huge part when creating location, especially its atmosphere (I wonder how many times I’ve mentioned ‘atmosphere’ here?). Basically, once texture artists finish with their part of painting the environment or bringing life into it as designed by the sketchers, the location is done. This is when scripters and programmers pop in as the location is to be considered gameplay-wise. You are supposed to move inside the level, interact with environments, open doors, so on and so force.
Level designer continues editing the location: move the object 2 centimeters left or remove the object at all. At the same time, he edits graphics, helping the scripters with their gameplay parts. I’d say it is time to fine-tune the level now.
Once the QA team patiently tests the level countless number of times and project manager accepts the level (like never), there are still some edits to do (like always). This process has no limits, it goes on and on and on … Two years later Kew Gardens are now finished. You may want to share your impressions from visiting Royal Botanic Gardens in London and in Crimes & Punishments with us.
Initially, it was designed to be a huge location (one of) inside of the level, so we had to decrease it, split it into pieces, and minimize its geometry for the best capacity of your PC, PS3 and PS4, Xbox 360 and maybe more. Crimes and Punishments is on its way to hit the stores in 2014!
Stay tuned and I will show you more.
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic