Creative Highlight: MetalCore’s Environment Process
My name is Will, I’m a Senior Environment Artist at Studio 369 and I’m going to walk you through our development process for creating the worlds in Metalcore. My goal was to develop a process that allows our players to play on large maps, with unique details and carrying atmospheric conditions to provide a very scenic, artistic map that can be transformed into an incredible play space for our various game types.
The Environment Process
Understanding worlds is just as important as level design as we bridge the gap between art & design with powerful tools, having a harmonious process not only expedites our workflow but allows quick iteration and enormous amounts of variety all while allowing the artist detailed control.
In our first example and construction of workflow, I decided to integrate a tool that allows us to procedurally generate terrain and then tailor it to our needs. Here I decided to use a powerful software called World Machine. This tool allows us to create height maps and various textures that can be processed to render for both conceptual pieces, as well as real-time game scenery. Not only can I adjust the size of the terrain, but I can also render details that are extremely high resolution, perfect for next-generation hardware and 4k fidelity.
With World Machine’s powerful node-based system, I created a network of nodes that allow full control over both the height of the map, the number of mountains, the steepness of peaks, valleys, canyons, and absolutely any topology I might need in creating the terrain for Metalcore. Using these nodes, I apply various math instructions and calculations to transform simple shapes, into beautiful thermal weathered mountains and terrain. I first create an advanced perlin node that generates a randomly seeded heightmap with either a high amount of noise or low. From there, I simply create several radial gradients to represent mountains and valleys. By combining these nodes, I input an erosion node to have the software calculate natural erosions once fully rendered.
Once I am happy with the topology, I build outputs for heightmap renders that will be later brought into our game engine and used to generate our height field. Thus, our world begins to come to life.
Once I’m working inside the game engine, I bring in our heightmaps and create our scaled environments, in this example a very large 8-kilometer map that allows for breathtaking views in any direction. I then create the materials required for our landscape from scratch, using a custom material that blends all our textures from World Machine. In our example, I include graphical features such as Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Distant Light Functions, Detail Overlays, and performance features such as Real-Time Virtual Texturing.
While building the material, I create parameters to allow the creation of material instances, in which very fine control can be established. Art is an iterative process and allows powerful flexibility that is paramount in establishing a polished look.
Once the master material is complete, I move on to lighting the environment. Using traditional techniques, I include simulated volumetric clouds, and masks for our lighting to simulate cloud shadows, slowly panning over our terrain allowing very warm light spills as they hit the mountainsides. Scale is important so I create a strong sense of atmospheric depth through the volumetric fog and adjust the test camera’s field of view to ensure our landscape is both aesthetically pleasing, yet easy to navigate for future design choices.
Once the lighting is complete, I include various technical volumes and post-process to tie the dynamic scene together, showcasing a polished and engaging landscape that begs the player for exploration and adventure.
The Hanger
Creating the hangar uses the same treatment and process as our landscape. Using similar techniques for consistency I first block out our hangar for scale and fitting of our assets. Since I know that this is an interior scene, it’s important to understand how surfaces react to lighting, and how light bounces through temperature and humidity.
I begin with a basic lighting pass, to allow block out while working in tandem with a lighting and non-lit mode (since set dressing is very difficult without light!). I then continue to dress the scene and create materials to both acts as lighting (due to emissive values) in parallel with our physical lights. To encourage the player to appreciate the asset they’re previewing in-game, we focus more lighting and design details on that location. With natural perspective flows, we allow the player’s eyes to naturally gaze towards our hero station.
Combined with steam, sparks, and fog, I proceed to add other details in order to tie the scene together. The result is a very dark, gloomy, yet visually interesting piece that allows the player to appreciate their achievements in-game.
I hope this brief walkthrough of our artistic pipeline for environments interests you. I look forward to making more to come and showcasing more of the journey to you as we build MetalCore! Thank you MetalMercs!
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About MetalCore
MetalCore is a first-person shooter (FPS) mechanized combat game set in an expansive open world. Developed by Studio 369, MetalCore is built within the Unreal Engine 4, where players can engage in PvP mega-battles, cooperative PvE fights, and faction-based, open-world clashes. MetalCore combines the engagement of traditional gaming with benefits of digital assets and in-game asset ownership. To learn more, please join the conversation at metalcore.gg/discord, follow us on Twitter @playmetalcore and visit www.metalcore.gg.
