Acclimatize Blog of Work

Acclimatize is a game where the player controls a turtle in a vast ocean reef in hopes of finding its hatching baby, all whilst avoiding clouds of pollution spewing from barrels polluting the water around.

The main goal behind this game was to create a beautifully immersive and ambient experience. Siding more towards the slow paced cinematic single life, single play through style of game as opposed to a fast paced high respawn style arcade game. Stylistically, me and Dylan, discussed many ways we could achieve this goal of a full immersion into both the turtle and its environment. We wanted the turtle to be the main focus at all times. We decided to completely negate the idea of HUD or any on screen representation of time or scoring.

The controls for the turtle are unique in that we used a flight simulator style control system to cater for all three planes of movement underwater, where the camera is controlled by the mouse and the AWSDQE keys are used to bank and move, forward, left, right and back.

We wanted to create an underwater atmosphere that was realistic but would also encourage exploration, the game was posed as being just as much about finding the end goal as it was about exploring the depths of the ocean and the reef mazes we wanted to create.

Drawing initial inspiration from thatgamecompanies 'Journey' we wanted to take the vast environment that rewarded exploration and the simple colour scheme and low poly appeal.

These low detail textures were our first experimentation with texturing our rocks and environmental assets:

Low Detail Texture

Low Detail Texture

I liked the low detail and minimal colour pallet, thought it suited with the Journey theme nicely.

After some deliberation and experimentation with textures and overall aesthetic style of the game we opted for a more high texture/ highpoly look. We did this because we found ways of creating realistic water and depth of field fog that really suited the underwater look we were going for. We then restyled the turtle as well to suit the new aesthetic.

High Detail Texture

High Detail Texture

High Detail Texture

I also UV mapped the model for the turtle so we could have multiple painted texture maps for the turtle.

These are some of the textures used for making brain coral. Sadly I don't think they made it into the final game.

This method of texturing spherical objects is called polarizing. The top pixels are stretched to remove seems.

I researched the kind of flora and fauna that is common in coral reefs around the world and started to create some 2D and 3D assets to populate the environment with. Ranging from seaweeds, rocks, boulders and corals.

Creating 3D assets for Acclimatize was a difficult process because we had some issues with frame rate dropping when we had too many objects in the level. This was one of the major draw backs of creating a game that had an expansive map, detailed models and visual effects for the camera.

I did some research into how to create low poly organic models and started working with 2D flat images that are then projected onto planar maps which are then distorted and bent into suitable positions to mimic the natural growth of plants without being high poly.

Unity has a built in feature to allow flat 2D image planes to always face the camera at a flat angle. This way grass (or for this game, seaweed) doesn't disappear when the character passes its location.

Assassin's Creed 3 did a really good job on their environmental assets. They had a huge amount of foliage and plants etc but kept them simple and low detail.

I tried to create my coral and sea plants and coral similar to the way current games do it.

Low poly rocks in AC3 show how important the textures are.

Research into low poly plant modelling methods.

Coral

Coral

Coral

Coral

Seaweed

Seaweed

Grasses

Grasses

Seaweed

Kelp

Kelp

Grasses

Above is a list of the flat 2D images I painted in photoshop to resemble organic structures found in coral reefs. When applied to planar maps they can be modeled to appear three-dimensional while still retaining a low poly count.

Above is the final product for a variation in models of organic plants. Some of them are poly-plane plants which act as small bushes that are comprised of multiple flat planes to appear 3D, others are skewed planar maps with flat images

This is an image of all the assets for the environment, ranging from pebbles, rocks, boulder, corals. 

Here is an image of the depth of field and fog maps used in-game.

Screen shots of the in game final product:

Sadly we had a lot of issues with frame rate and lag when we included huge amounts of assets. I think this was due to the camera and motion effects we added to the turtle and the depth of field. But these mechanics were so important to the illusion of an underwater experience that we couldn't find a way around it. If we had more time I'm sure we could have worked out how to increase both the poly count and frame rate but in terms of Acclimatize as a game I think I made some important choices for the style and aesthetic value of the game itself. Considering we wanted to capitalize on the ambiance and beauty we could create in an underwater environment I think we did a great job.

Final Video:

High Poly Character V2 - Project 1 B resub

My final character is a Rock Back Turtle! A turtle that has grown in size and composition. With defenseless herbivorous perishing in great numbers due to rising waters and reduced land space the lowly turtle had to adapt to survive. Through evolution the Rock Back Turtle's shell lumped rocks and dirt over its shell to the point of creating a small ecosystem atop its back with nourishing mushrooms to fed on. The grassy mound doubles as an ingenious disguise to hide itself from viscous predators. The Rock Back Turtle spends much of its time slowly trudging through the low under crops of enormous forests, searching for rays of light to grow its shells foliage to keep him well fed.

One of the major issues I had to face when developing my low poly character was how essential it was to find a way to create a grass effect on the characters body. Its a major design aesthetic of the character and it needed to be created in a way that would not compromise on computer performance, render time and overall logistics of high poly character modelling.

I decided to create a transformed plane poly with a png transparency texture. This way a basic two dimensional grass was created. With a few duplication's and tweaking a low poly grass clump was created. With this low poly replacement for something like the fur tool or paint tool (incredibly high poly) a really nice effect was created.

The re-texturing of the model brought the character to life in a really organic and natural way. The level of detail in the arrangement of the grass was something I spent many hours playing around with and I think it really paid off in this case, especially when comparing it to the prior model.

Building grass over the model, I thought a little grass beard could look cool but decided against it as it covered too much of the characters face and drew attention away from it.

Initial rock and mushroom coverage

Animating the character was impossible with such a high poly count, by using reduced poly grass it lowered the amount of polys compared to if I tried to populate the character with the grass or fur paintbrush effects. But this characters animations were always going to be very simple and clunky considering what he is, his body is a shell that is supposed to stay static that would simply sway from left to right as his legs moved him along, this is seen in the low poly animations.

Here is a basic playblast of how the character would move, his limbs are reasonably restricted and hidden anyway so the animation is meant to be basic.

For the final turn table and hi-res renders I went for a slick lighting scheme to try and put the character in a sunny environment, as this suits his character perfectly. Using mental ray and messing around with the shaders and illumination details the grass clumps look reaaallly impressive. The rocks also have a really nice shiny tinge to them just like as if he was walking around a sunny forest or meadow. 

I think I accomplished my goal of re-texturing my character and bringing him to life in a creative and imaginative way. 

Turntable:

High Poly Character - Project 1 B

BUILDING IN MAYA FROM LOW POLY

Initially I used my original low poly model to begin creating a high poly mesh for texturing, but almost straight away I found a better way to model my character so it look more like the isometric and concept drawings from the beginning. 

I messed around for countless hours trying to get a dynamic grass fur looking good but it was reasonably unresponsive and by the end of painting ever face that needed grass it was incredibly processor dependent so I decided to go for a normalized grass texture on blinn, the colouring was done with a PSN connection.

RENDERS

HIGH QUALITY RENDERS

HD BABY 

By the end of the texturing and animation process I feel I have developed this character well from my original concept drawings and a great deal since my first low poly mesh.