During the production of Lost in Random, we faced many challenges in this area, and had to rethink and rework many parts of the game to keep it looking as great as possible, while keeping performance on top. So we put a lot of work into getting the most out of URP, figuring out our own solutions and using the assets available to us, like implementing volumetric fog, decals, planar reflections, and so on.įor an environment artist, it’s always a battle between art and performance. This was a hard yet necessary decision to make, and I’m actually glad we started out with HDRP because we used those visuals as a benchmark for what we wanted the game to look like in URP. We decided to switch to the Universal Render Pipeline (URP). But we realized that this approach would not work in the end, since we needed the game to run smoothly on all platforms – and HDRP focuses more on high-end PCs and consoles. In the early stages of development, we used the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) to really push the visuals and leverage the realistic lighting, volumetric fog, and so on. We solved for this by creating alternative, heavily-optimized assets for the objects that were further away from the play area. One downside to this technique is that the polycount needs to be quite high when patching together bigger objects with smaller pieces. This, in turn, led to less texture memory usage and fewer draw calls onscreen because most of the larger assets could be merged together and still share the same material.
This workflow not only looked great, it improved performance as there were fewer materials being used than if we’d created many uniquely sculpted assets. Art Director Victor Becker and I would always stress the importance of contrasting shapes and materials, as well as playing around with crazy color palettes to create interesting contrasts that push the stylized look further. Buildings bend in weird ways, some are huge while others are tiny. We even made stuff in real clay, just to see how it behaved and what it looked like up close, so that we could recreate it in Unity.Īnother part of our art style is the exaggerated shape language – I don’t think you can find a single straight line anywhere in the world of Random. To really sell this claymation look, our materials needed to appear believable. The world of Random is crafted by materials like clay, wood, and cardboard. To study and recreate realistic materials and lighting was a new challenge for us as a studio. We wanted to create a world with high-quality graphics without losing the Zoink vibe from our previous games.
LOST IN RANDOM DEVELOPERS PC
As to how we went about making this vision a beautiful reality runs smoothly on PC and all other platforms, our Environment Artist, Leo Brynielsson, is here to enlighten us.īrynielsson: When we started working on the art for Lost in Random, we knew we wanted to go out of our comfort zone and push our limits.
Rather than create a hyperrealistic game, we to use this new freedom to recreate a realistic claymation world – something that I think Klaus Lyngeled (our CEO and creative head) had been wanting to do for a long time but hadn’t been able to until now.
LOST IN RANDOM DEVELOPERS PLUS
We wanted to combine the mystery of Fe with the funny and smart dialogue writing of Flipping Death, plus the deeply emotional storytelling of Ghost Giant. This, in turn, opened a variety of artistic paths we could take, which became somewhat overwhelming, so we began by setting some sticks in the sand:Īfter the cute and colorful Ghost Giant, we wanted to make a dark and epic fairytale, the setting, style, and gameplay revolving around giant tabletop games, including dice, cards, and playing pieces. Our next adventure, Lost in Random, brought with it a larger budget, as well as loosened technical restrictions. These games feature completely different styles, atmospheres, and tones, a longing for exploration in game design and for telling great stories in gorgeous, handcrafted-looking worlds.Īfter these two games, we went on to make Ghost Giant, a VR experience that really tested our ability to deliver a great-looking game – a fairly realistic cardboard, dollhouse world – without losing frame rate. When I first joined Zoink in 2016, we had just signed our first EA Originals project, Fe, which we worked on alongside Flipping Death. Redmalm: Zoink has always been an art- and innovation-driven studio, starting new projects with a strong visual and conceptual hook – fueled by our passion for exploration.
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