This is the final blog post for Atlas Saga- it’s certainly been a learning experience from when I first started this project a few months back! These final couple of weeks have been a busy polishing stage- there are a lot of things added or fixed to improve the project levels.
Firstly, the individual areas with a comparison to the original moodboards and what the levels looked like before.
Level 1 Crescent Forest
- Polished and updated the artwork in general, adding more detail and introducing slight slants in the tree trunks, resizing and moving layers around where necessary
- Added post-processing overlay to give the scene a warmer feel
- Added a leaf particle animation
I’m quite pleased with the improvement in this level, especially as it’s the first area people will see. It looks far closer to the moodboard images than it used to and the post-processing really brings it all together.
Level 2 Market Town
- Reused some of the assets from the first area (trees, clouds) to give the scene a more cohesive feel
- Fixed the lighting to brighten up the scene
- Edited the artwork where the perspective didn’t fit, took the shopkeeper out and replaced with a treasure box
- Added small particle effects- the leaves from level 1 in the background and some feathers falling from the caged bird in the foreground
- Added animation to the birdcage hanging from one of the stall roofs so it sways in the breeze
This level ended up leaning more towards warmer tones than most of the images in the moodboard, but I think that works better for my project. The fixes made were small since most things didn’t need to be changed.
Level 3 Floating Islands
- Some colour corrections, some re-adjustment of assets
- Added a tree from the first level, again for cohesiveness and to create another layer of interest
- Added particle effect for leaves
- Animated the smaller islands moving, bobbing in the wind
The changes made here were also minimal since it was the level I worked on last. I think the slightly pop-out geometry of the islands was a good way to go and if I had more time I would go back and introduce some of it to the other areas.
Extra additions
In my first presentation I said that I wanted to create a fantasy visual exploration experience using matte painting techniques- a combination of 2D and 3D. But I felt like I could do more to tie it all in together.
Some stuff I added to the overall project to make it more game-like were:
- Added music
- Added a working menu screen when the project starts-up
- Implemented the map art as a loading screen between levels
- Set up a navigation system from level to level via little floating arrows. Click on them to move between areas
- Set limits for the camera so that it doesn’t show areas of the scene that shouldn’t be seen
Overall I think the project makes for a nice little interactive experience, a quiet exploration of a fantasy landscape, which is what I was aiming for to begin with. It’s been a long journey to a great result.
Future plans…?
There are things that I planned to have in the project that sadly didn’t make it in time for the submission of this FMP, but that I have a lot of ideas that I may continue to work on and develop further in the future. These include:
- An animated character to move about on the scene
- Point and click style rollover UI, bringing up flavour text when the player rolls over an area of interest with their mouse
- Character-object interaction! Pick items of interest up and add them to your knapsack
- Interactive map that grows as you explore more areas
- Different music for each different area, and possibly more ‘transition areas’ to bridge the change in style between each level
- And more areas to explore on the map!
- A holy temple dedicated to the Goddess of the Moon
- A dragon’s lair deep in a mountain cave
- A ship making its way through siren-infested seas
- An encounter with Frost Giants in the North…
ATLAS SAGA 