One of the main critiques from the San Francisco Postmortem was how lackluster the win/lose screens were. You spent a good 4-5 minutes kicking some evil bastards ass in a puzzling bout of mental fisticuffs and you were rewarded with a tiny little screen that said Mission Complete. Not so great.
After a few brainstorming sessions, I came up with the idea of having a giant hatch that would come from the top and bottom of the screen and meet in the middle. The hatch would then open and the player gets a full screen of information on their performance from the battle. Now that I had the idea, I needed to start making it!
The first thing I did was open up 3D Studio Max and start messing around with some basic ideas. Modeling it out in 3D is a lot easier than trying to paint everything by hand and it also gives me what we call an ambient occlusion map, which helps me out a ton when it comes to painting it in Photoshop.
The finished hatch in 3D Studio Max.
Using the AO map as a base, I can add color, hightlights, shadows, bolts, rust, grime, and all types of nastiness you would expect a dilapidated space junker to collect over years of planet hopping. Below is a progress shot of the hatch, from render to completion.
Texture Progress
Working in 3D first is a wonderful way to save time. If I were to do this all in Photoshop, it easily would of taken me a good 2-3 days. I was able to complete the 3D model and paint over in one night using this texture rendering technique. To learn more about texture rendering and how it’s used in other games, check out the tutorial section on the super talented Philip Klevestav’s website.
-Matt
