We've
got an update directly from Sophie, who works as an artist on OFF
GRID. She is fairly new to the team, but she's been doing a stellar
job! We hope you enjoy:
- -
Hi! Soph here!
I’m
here to keep the art side of things rolling on smoothly. Which mostly
means asset creation, like props, but also set dressing.
Modular Props
Let's
talk modular: doing things this way allows you to have just a few
meshes that you can make a lot of things out of. For the Apostle level,
I made a couple pieces of modular furniture to speed up asset creation.
Think
of it like an Ikea range where you could buy a desk, drawers,
cupboards, etc. that all fit together physically and look like part of a
family. Some of the pieces in that range will share exact parts, and
some will have unique ones. This is the basics of modular building.
Modular desk components.
With these six pieces I can make six variations of desks. Going
beyond these, you could make a broken desk with only three legs that is
being propped up with other assets, or you could scale the length of the
straight desk-top as much as fits the space you want (since the
textures are vertex-painted faces there’s no distortion).
Modular sofa components that can be put together in endless ways
Different from these desks, this four-piece sofa set is mostly
one-off models (they all share the same feet). Yet when placed in the
scene, there is no real end to the possibilities you can make with it.
Make a snaking three mile long sofa if you so wish!
The modular sofas creating a comfy space in the Apostle level
Set Dressing
Set dressing is pretty straight forward as a
concept. You’re placing things around the world to make it feel like a
more real lived-in environment. It’s a little more than just throwing
assets around the place (although that’s a lot of it), you need to think
about each environment differently.
In the run up to the
Kickstarter, I spent a lot of time in the Apostle offices discussing
with the team what the general feel of the place is, and then looking
room to room talking about what happens in these rooms in a gameplay
sense.
The Apostle is being closed. There are boxes everywhere as
stuff is being packed away to go elsewhere. These boxes are great for
the stealth aspect of the game, but also tell the story of what is
actually going on. Most of the larger offices are quite sparse, having
already been packed up, but a few offices are still very much in use.
Set
dressing has to work alongside the game in making the environments look
more interesting but not distract from what the player needs to do.
This means I can’t place new hackable devices around the place and not
block the player’s path. But what I can do is direct the player to
places of interest.
Set dressing is cleverly used to direct attention to this office in the Apostle level.
For instance, most of the offices don’t have much in them that the
player needs to notice, these are kept very sparse and all packed up.
But there is a particular journalist's office that is a key place in the
Apostle level, and it’s one of the few offices that’s still in use.
There’s things scattered around the desk, a coat that’s been left on a
hanger, a board with all the bits of information that the journalist has
been working with.
Fun with set dressing - a DIY standing desk.
There were a few other places less important to the player that I was
able to just have fun with. Such as this office where it’s being packed
away. A friend of mine wanted a standing desk but her work wouldn’t
give her one so she stacked things up to make her own one. I made a
little desk in honour of her here. I bet it really annoys the person on
the opposite desk!
A secret corner for slacking off!
Here the occupants of this office have used the fact the office is
moving as an excuse to move furniture around and create them a secret
coffee corner for slacking off.
Hope you've enjoyed!
Help OFF GRID succeed!
We have just 10 days to go with the campaign and need to raise another £4,318 in order to meet our goal. Please help us!
Share the campaign with others: if each of you shared just once, the
campaign would be shared to thousands of others. We need this exposure!
THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
p.s. Did you read the last update?! BIG NEWS coming Tuesday!
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
If you’ve read anything about OFF GRID
or played the demo, you will have picked up that our hero, Joe, is a
technophobe dad who relies heavily on his hackivist daughter, Jen, for
everything: to get his phone to work, keep the smart fridge firmware up
to date, and make sure the IoT toaster doesn’t get any funny ideas.
Our
last update showed some of the early art tests we did, and explained
that we landed on following a low poly art style pretty quickly.
Environments in this style are somewhat straightforward - you can make
some really interesting scenes quite quickly. Even ‘programmer art’
doesn't look bad in a low poly environment, which is one of the reasons
we went for it! But when it comes to characters, it takes something a
bit more special.
We started by mocking up a very basic low poly
character so that we could get straight into prototyping movement and
mechanics. We didn't really have a story or background for him at that
point, we just knew that we wanted the character to be a bit of a
luddite and incredibly dull - the very opposite of the superhuman, infallible secret agents of most games.
Our initial model was made as a placeholder and he was seriously vanilla:
The very first Joe - a placeholder!
We quickly pushed it on by defining the ‘shapes’ of character that
could be used to portray different attitudes. As you can see in the
bottom half of the sketch below, we felt that rectangular characters,
and especially ones with a lean to them, a bit like a parallelogram,
provided a nice dynamic. Over time, this lean also seem to fit the
notion that our lead character is ‘forced into situations’ unwillingly.
Shape studies during Off Grid character development.
There is some interesting theory around shapes and personality
floating about on the internet, but essentially, the shape of a
character will often convey their attitude.
Pixar are a great exponent of this, and a good example is Carl from UP.
He’s a grounded and steadfast character who is immovable and difficult
- until he is changed by another character with the ability to always
bounce back and right themselves, even if a little naive:
Character shapes from Pixar's UP.
...and so we starting experimenting along these lines. Sazacat,
our character artist, started speed painting some thoughts on how we
might make some extremely normal-looking folks in game.
Early OFF GRID character concepts.
Reaching the concept below really defined how we wanted the characters faces to convey emotion in OFF GRID.
A defining concept for OFF GRID hero character, Joe.
We then progressed to the more twisted / awkward style that all OFF GRID character bodies (especially the knees and hands) carry:
The Joe concept art that truly began to define OFF GRID's character style.
That style was largely brought about with the drawing above, which
very quickly translated into a model for our player character, Joe:
The 3D model for Joe that brought together all the early concepting work.
You can see the kink in the knees, and the slightly crooked fingers, as well as the uncomfortable stance (even in A-pose!).
We
also defined our style with the use of specific hard and soft edges all
over the character, but most prominently around the jaw and forehead.
The final iteration of the OFF GRID hero, Joe!
These couple of major points have set the style for the rest of the characters in the game.
We hope this provides a little insight into the process. Don't forget, if you like this sort of thing, you can get your very own copy of the 'Making Of Off Grid' book by backing at the NAMESPACE level or above!
We look forward to showing you more soon!
THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
P.S. Please continue to share the campaign as far and wide as you can. Every single $ or £ backing is so important to us!
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
In case you didn’t see us shouting about it all over social media: Off Grid won the Indiecator Award at Sweden Game Conference!
It
came with the giant cheque of our dreams (literally - a HUGE check!)
and a very pretty bouquet of flowers! Rich was in Sweden speaking and
demoing the game, and was the lucky one to receive the award on behalf
of the team. We might have to stage reinactments next week so that all
of us can feel the glory of being handed a giant cheque!
All of us still have huge grins on our faces today. Thanks Sweden Game Conference - you've totally made our week!
Concept art, anyone?
We want to give you a little look at the beginning of Off Grid's visual style and whet your appetite for the 'Making Of' book!
Off Grid was destined to be low poly from the start. It’s an aesthetic style that we like and that is achievable for an indie team.
Here’s one of our first low poly environment tests:
An early low poly environment test for Off Grid
Another view of the early low poly environment test.
We also knew from the get-go that we wanted to create a world where
data was visualised and tangible. Not immediately visible with the
naked eye, but with the help of augmented-reality glasses.
This is was our first pass at what a 'data view' layer might look like:
An early concept of how 'data view' might appear.
We knew we were getting somewhere when we hit on this idea of using stealth mechanics to 'hide' your data.
Next
up was working out what the overarching objectives were for the meta
game. We wanted to create a dark, dull, dystopian near future, that
could be liberated with a new free internet (free as in open, not as in
cost). This led to thinking through what the liberating of zones or
areas of the world with 'mesh network nodes’ might look like.
Here's one of our first imaginings of what completing a level by installing a mesh network node might look like.
It's fun to look back and see how far the game has come, what has carried on, continued through, or has been left behind.
If
you like this sort of thing, there will be copious amounts of concept
art, sketches, notes, photos, and loads of other behind-the-scenes
exclusive content in the official 'The Making Of Off Grid' book!
Secure your own copy by backing at the NAMESPACE reward level or above! If you've already backed, remember you can easily up your pledge, too!
Funding update:
WE ARE 70% FUNDED!
Yesss! What a relief it is to say
that! We've been steadily climbing the £14k mountain this week, and
it's possible we have hit refresh more times than we care to admit over
the past few days.
We have had the best time sharing Off Grid with the world through this campaign so far. Nineteen days remain! A LOT can happen in 19 days.
If you have yet to back, please do! If you’re thinking about backing, please do! If you keep meaning to tell your friends to back, please do!
THANK YOU, BACKERS!
The Off Grid Team
p.s. If you're near London on today, go check out Inside Intel!
It's a very cool contemporary art exhibition with the theme of
surveillance running through it, put on by the Centre for Investigative
Journalism. It's FREE, and open all of Saturday.
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
The moment we've all been waiting for: Off Grid is now LIVE ON KICKSTARTER!
That means you now have the opportunity to:
-PLAY A FREE DEMO OF OFF GRID
-Secure your copy from as little as £8 (the SUPER EARLY BIRD deal is a steal!)
-Get your name or handle in the game
-Help shape the game via our FIRST ACCESS program (back at the PENTESTER level)
-Snag some official OFF GRID merch!
Support OFF GRID: A game about data privacy and mass surveillance. Launching on #kickstarter today with playable demo! http://offgridthegame.com/kickstarter #offgridthegame OFF GRID: A stealth hacking adventure where data is your most powerful weapon. LIVE ON KICKSTARTER TODAY! http://offgridthegame.com/kickstarter #offgridthegame Hack like you have to. Game the system. Don't get caught - your daughter needs you. Support @OffGridTheGame on Kickstarter TODAY! LIVE AT 4PM BST! http://offgridthegame.com/kickstarter #offgridthegame
Thank you!
The Off Grid Team If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
