Art Direction and Atmosphere

So when we started building the level we had a rough idea of the kind of direction we wanted to take it in atmosphere-wise.  We'd done some concepts initially and so I was feeling okay about it, but when it came to actually implementing the lighting we began to struggle since there wasn't anything completely clear cut to reference back to.

This was even more important after receiving some feedback from the CryDev forums and our tutors.  We began to think a lot more about how we wanted the level to look in terms of CryEngine settings, since alongside terrain improvements the main criticism was that the only lighting was the sun, and that was obviously not enough to 'sell' our assets.  Alongside that the weather was essentially set to a rather unrealistic summer's day and although it created some nice shadows it did not have the feel we wanted.  However, since building the level I finally got the chance to do something I had been planning to do for a while - atmosphere paintovers.

 

Although I didn't really get the kinds of colouring in the above image that I should have been focusing on, it definitely helped define the sorts of lighting we wanted outside of the time of day settings, as well as give me a loose idea for the set up of that area.  Mike began to look into projection lighting so that we could have the shapes of lit windows casting onto the ground, as well as particle effects for fire, candle flames, smoke and fog.

We also began to tinker with the lighting a lot more heavily.  We finally settled on dawn - we'd wanted that for a while but were unsure how to get everything looking nice with such an intense lighting set up.  However, I'm so glad we went for it since with the addition of overhead beams and laundry in the level there were some gorgeous shafts of light from certain angles.  With my skybox lined up in accordance it really helped too.

After putting in more particle effects and lighting I was loving how it was coming along.  We also changed the ambient fog to blue, contrasting really well with the orange light of dawn (but thankfully not too intensely).  We also dropped the darkness of the shadows down, meaning that there was a feeling of ambient light due to the fog, whilst still getting some lovely shadows.

At this point it's mostly getting the particle effects just so, and because of this I did a quick paintover for what I was aiming for.  I'd love to push the amount of low, rolling fog as well as increasing the number of flickering candles, lanterns and fire braziers.  I also really want puddles.  Muddy, grimy puddles everywhere.

- Anna