Hey, everyone! 👋
Today we will talk about the creation of two assets you will see a lot of during Alpha: the fabrics of the Portinus culture, as well as some textures that will cover the tropical regions of Semisus.
Fabrics of Semisus
As you know, the Portinus culture, which inhabits parts of Semisus, is famous for its use of fabric and cloth on structures, architecture, and aesthetics in general.
Knowing this, we would need tons of different fabrics and patterns to represent this culture with fidelity in-game.
And this is where "Frango", our Senior 3D Environment Artist, comes in.
He has been studying a viable way for 2 people to be able to create hundreds of different fabrics with the least amount of time possible while maintaining quality. Substance Designer is being used for this, where he can generate many different patterns and textures for fabrics, as you see in the video. The goal is to make iteration easy and practical, where many different variations can be tested without having to start from scratch.
To create these textures, Frango based himself on concepts we already have of Portinus (and that we shared with you in the past) to grasp the essence of the patterns and colors.
It's hard to tell yet how successful this is since we still need to test them in-game, but it's looking pretty good! 👌
One of his biggest challenges was to understand this tool and master it since it's very different from a traditional canvas, usually used by artists to create assets, such as Photoshop or Substance Painter. This one has more of a "programming" look to it, and it required study to be used to its fullest. The funny thing is that fabrics were a by-product of this because the tool was initially used to create textures for more common elements, such as roofs and floors. However, when Frango started to master the tool, he noticed it could produce many other assets with varying patterns.
This includes creating a "deteriorated" variation of the patterns, where it looks burned, torn, or bloody, which can be very useful for in-game purposes and storytelling.
So, how do you like what you've seen? Eager to see the Portinus culture in-game?
Tropical Textures for Alpha
What you see here is a Shader Ball. It's used by artists to expose their work, so don't mind the shape! What's important is the texture that is being exposed, okay? :)
These ones show you what our Senior Environment Artist Flavio has been working on: terrain textures that your character will probably be walking over in the future.
Of course, keep in mind that we are still under development, and changes might occur until release.
What you see, respectively, are textures for:
• Sand
• Brick road
• Dirt road
• Rocky terrain
• Grassy terrain
Flavio had to study and learn a few things before reaching these results.
His first challenge was transitioning from Unreal Engine to Unity, which is the engine used on Profane. He was used to working with Unreal, so he needed some adaptation before he could really put his hands to work.
The second challenge was finding the trace that best matches the art direction for Profane to really bring the feeling we want these textures to portray.
Profane's art direction aims at finding a balance between a realistic look and a cartoonish one. Since he was most familiar with a more realistic look, he had to do some research. The goal is to have a cartoon style that is able to transmit realistic physical information. We want our art to be rich in information such as glow or allowing the player to tell the difference between rock and sand.
Flavio shared that the trickiest texture (out of the ones shown here) to create was the sand. Although it seems to be the most simple, it was challenging to find a shape (the wavy design) that was neither too aggressive nor too plain. Finding this sweet spot while also adding details (such as tiny spots and glowy bits) that were subtle enough and keeping the sand feel was the biggest challenge.
Our Environment Artist will also work on creating vegetation for Profane. We are eager to share that with you too!
So, how did you like these terrain textures? Let us know!
