BERNICE WONG
3D Artist specializing in props and environments
Ironhog
Roles: 3D modeller, technical artist, level designer, concept artist
Engine: Unity 3D
Platform: PC
Team size: 4
Development Time: 8 Months
Ironhog is a competitive battle-racer-looter, born from a sponsorship opportunity provided by Gearbox Software
As an intense 4-8 player experience, players battle each other and the loot truck, and use their rewards to customize their car. Due to the pandemic, our team conducted the entire pre-production and production process remotely.
Design Challenge
The design challenge given by Gearbox was to “merge a loot mechanic into anew genre, as Looter Shooter did”. Through a pitch-vote process within the team, the racer-looter genre was chosen over the stealth-looter and RTS-shooter options.
Although the initial goal was to create an experience with a strong racing component, we quickly realized that players had a lot of fun battling it out in an arena-style match. Thus, we shaped the project into one that included both a racing and battling component. The loot collected in every game would enable players to customize their car, enabling them to not only become stronger, but also play in their preferred play style.
Art Conceptualization
Environment Art
Our team decided early on to strive for a retro-futuristic theme. In an attempt to reject musty brown and yellow tones (commonly found in desert environments), I suggested a more peachy-pink tone for the environment.
The goal of creating concept work was to establish a visual style early on in the project. Due to the time constraints of the project, I stopped creating concept work once the visual direction was clear.
Car Designs
Prior to having to down-scope our project, I created concepts for cars and the shape idea each class would convey. I wanted players to know straight away which car build they are driving as well as what car builds their competitors were driving. The initial idea was to have each car be fully customizable, and not have each car type concretely defined. However, we had to cut that idea due to scope.
3D Modelling
There was a lot of work cut out for me, with over 50 items in the initial spreadsheet of all the environments we aimed to have for our final game. There were also over 300 individual assets/parts. Thus, it was important to streamline the process as soon as possible. Below are some notable models found in the game.
To make the 3d modelling process more efficient, I batch modelled numerous assets before unwrapping, texturing, and implementing all of them. The order of priority was based on our sprint and weekly goals.
Level Design
There were numerous iterations in terms of the level design of the game. After numerous rounds of playtesting, we realized that we couldn’t have players race and battle on the same track as it caused too much confusion. Thus, I made the executive decision to separate the racing and battling components into separate section of the track, with the race track being an introduction to the battling part of the game.
To ensure that players weren’t just driving on a straight path, I added some torus-shaped areas on the track to force players to turn and possible provide an opportunity or car builds with better handling to catch up
The end of the racetrack features three paths, in which racers would be able to collect a power-up before entering the area. The idea was that players coming in first, second, and third would be rewarded or their efforts in winning the race portion of the game.
When a power-up has been collected, their associated light turns off, alerting players behind them that the powerful has already ben collected and that they should be entering a different tube to collect a remaining power-up.
As I was both the level designer and environment artist for this project, it was crucial for me to leverage art to better suit the needs of the level, while trying to indirectly give the player a sense of the retro-futuristic style of the environment. Our game didn’t have an explicit narrative component, so I relied on “showing, not telling” to convey the environment.
One of the ways I illustrated the environment was to use the highest point of the track as an expository shot.
I wanted players to not only be able to see the end of the track (the three tubes), but also to get a sense of the environment they area in. So, I made sue the player could also catch a glimpse of the retro-futuristic city and its bright lights from afar.
Below is the process I took to get to the end result:
While wearing the “environment artist hat”, it was important or me to make the level make sense in the given environment.
The finished track was shaped oddly, so making it make sense in terms of the environment was definitely a huge challenge.
In the end, I decided to have part of the track be underground and turn the jump to the area a jump over a cliff. Having players traverse through an underground portion of the track also allowed me to make a distinct section in the track. This acts as a landmark, which helps players understand where they are on the track.
Development Process
The overall timeline of the project was as follows:
September – December 2020: Pre-production, paper prototyping, conceptualizing the game experience, core loop and pillars, technical playtesting
January – March 2021: Creating game-ready work, rigorous playtesting
Below are some screenshots for the game as it was in April 2021.
