“3D Art Showcase Level”

Made during Ryan’s Fall 2020 (5th) semester at GMU. Created for the “Final Project” assignment in Professor Grimsby’s GAME 398 Advanced Game Design Animation course. All art is created by Ryan Bone, programming for the level provided by Professor Grimsby.

The Building Exterior and Interior

The centerpiece of the art showcase level in the large school in the middle of the playable area. It is entirely modular, made up of pieces of the walls that line the exterior, and of the hallways that snake around within the interior. Seamless repeating textures of bricks create the illusion of the building being one entire structure rather than separate, organized pieces that click together perfectly. The more unique aspects of the exterior walls, like the drain pipe to the right of the front entrance, the shed, as well as the exit and entrance were all made as separate pieces, then attached to the walls of the building, each with a unique texture. The interior of the school uses the same concepts, but the separate pieces are shaped like cubes rather than long, upward rectangles. Within these cubes, the models and textures are made to connect seamlessly, regardless of the corners or pathways open in each piece. When all the pieces were connected into the large structure, they make for a fun centerpiece that, through its in-repair state, gives the player a fun, world-building structure to explore.

The Props

The level Ryan designed is littered with objects, some natural, and some man-made. Ryan first designed the toxic waste barrels and practice target dummies to give the player objects to interact with, as well as making seven different construction tools to be hidden around the map for the player to collect. All of these interactable objects used striking, unique-to-the-level color schemes that allowed them to stand out as special to the player. To suggest that the main character entered the playable area without hopping the fence, a broken lever was also made, to indicate why the player cannot exit the area through the front gate, adding to the world building.

Decorations that cover the natural landscape surrounding the the school yard include varieties of trees, tree stumps, and bushes, which are all able to come in various sizes and shades of green, to add additional variation. The mountains that surround the school were made with Unity’s terrain editor, sculpting the landscape onto which these props were placed. As to not waste computer power rendering many trees in the far distance from the player, tiny low-poly trees with basic textures define the distant mountains. The size of the natural props decreases quickly in the distance, giving the illusion of the mountains being much farther away than they actually are, relative to the player.

The Special Textures and Systems

Ground Textures: Four seamless repeating textures were made by Ryan to be used in Unity’s terrain system. They are used to define what the player and props are standing on, for grass, rocks, mud, or mountaintop. Painting these textures onto the ground with Unity’s terrain system allows for each of them to blend together naturally, creating realistic transitions between surfaces.

Crack Textures: A few crack textures were made, which were placed onto transparent planes in Unity, then put on top of objects in the environment to give certain repetitive structures and textures more variety that adds to the under-repair aesthetic of the level.

Grass Textures: Three tufts of grass were designed by Ryan, and used in Unity’s terrain system’s paint details tool. Using this, the blades of grass were put into the level, lining the grassy areas around the school building. The Unity terrain system assisted in making the tufts look realistic, as it allows the grass to blow in the wind, adding to the feeling of nature brought on from the lonely, mountain-surrounded environment.

VFX Textures: Ryan designed some images to be used in Unity’s particle system. The first particle is a green puff cloud, made to act as the smoke rising from the toxic barrels behind the school. Second, Ryan made a water droplet, which falls occasionally from the bottom of the drain pipe found to the right of the front entrance. The third particle is a lightning bolt, which shoots off from the broken lever’s wires which are located next to the front gate on the walls surrounding the playable area. The last particle is a stand of hair, which shoots off of the main character’s hair tuft, which increases in frequency as the character moves faster, as if shaking the hair loose in the wind.

Skybox Texture: The sky surrounding the entire level was made by Ryan as a texture of a sunset. The Unity lighting system was then used to make the skylight, that illuminates most of the level, be sourced from this art, creating a natural, dark blue light that defines the late-afternoon atmosphere within the level.