VR Game Skylight (2017)
Client: E McNeill
Tasks
Look Development, 3D Asset Creation, Unity Integration
Project Description
The game was first created for the Gear VR and later ported to desktop VR. Similar to its predecessor Tactera it is a strategy game that takes place on a holographic table in a realistic looking sci-fi environment. It was important to give the room depth and interesting features to look at but at the same time keep it non-obtrusive as it only serves as backdrop for the main game. As resources were limited I decided to use a ready made high-poly asset as starting point as it was almost tailor made for our purposes. I did a retopo of the high-poly geometry and reduces a polycount of 2 million down to around 20k tris. The löightbake of the highpoly version was then transferred onto the optimized gameready geometry. This way no expensive real-time lighting was necessary and all the intricate details of the original room, including the photorealistic lighting effects, could be preserved.
The second main task was the creation of the starship fleet of the game which consisted of 12 ships of different sizes and detail levels. In regards to modeling I was on a tight poly-budget as performance is always an issue with VR projects, especially on mobile platforms. So I went for a modular approach where I literally stuck a bunch of primitives onto simple low-poly base-shapes. This is a bit unusual as you normally want closed, water-tight meshes when it comes to game-engines. But as no real-time lighting and shading was needed open meshes were not an issue.
Links
final assets vs. highpoly wireframe overlay
an early concept of the "Dreadnought" class and two other capital ships in comparison
the "Missile Carrier" with an alternative weapon layout
the four medium sized ships in comparison