Arbiter - Monthly Recap - January 2023 (Patreon)

Greetings adventurers! 

I want you all to know that I deadass spent an entire week this month modeling ROCKS. It wasn't too ROUGH, but it was a bit HARD at first. At one point I hit ROCK BOTTOM, so I had to get BOULDER—I had to find something more CONCRETE. After digging through the RUBBLE however, I finally got there. I became what I was always meant to be. Maybe it was something I always was. I became a STONER.

Anyways, this month was all about THE ENVIRONMENT! 

THE ENVIRONMENT!

I spent the first two weeks making a blockout for the game's tutorial level. I'd liken Arby's level design to something like Dark Souls III, so generally linear levels with areas of openness spread throughout. Pacing wise I'd say it's closer to something like Kingdom Hearts or Devil May Cry though, as it's generally broken up between platforming sections, lite puzzles, and combat encounters. 

Something I've consistently wrestled with was whether to use terrain or meshes for my environments, as Arbiter is primarily comprised of outdoor spaces. Terrain is generally pretty optimized and straightforward, but can lead to a lot of wasted space while feeling a bit limiting at times. Meshes give total freedom, but the workflow is a lot more back and forth between different programs whereas terrain is more or less all in Unity. I ultimately opted to use terrain, as it allows me to use the finished space from my blockout directly in my final level (with some polish, of course).

With that, I went to blocking things out! (Spoiler Alert)

For blockouts I use a combination of Unity Terrain and ProBuilder. I use the terrain to define the floor and walls/borders of the map, and ProBuilder for... everything else. 

All in all, the blockout phase went pretty well! It's a tutorial level so I mean there's nothing crazy going on or anything, but it gives me some fun stuff to work with visually and gameplay wise it more or less explains all of the core mechanics. Yippie!

NOW MAKE IT PRETTY

On a much less "Yippie!" note, I spent the next two weeks working on the actual art for the level. This is the part I unironically, unequivocally, unilaterally suck complete ass at. I've basically entered an Art Fundamentals Training Arc ™ in which I'm trying to make the game not look like shit. 

So far it's going...okay? I mean I'm definitely not there yet but I'm starting to see where I went wrong with my earlier attempts and I'm refining my process to get the results I want. I'm also about to start getting input from ACTUAL ARTISTS, so hopefully they can help guide me on my way. 

All that said, I'm still trying to be realistic about everything. I don't want Arby taking another 5 years and I have an idea of what I can reasonably hope to achieve, so my goal for the environmental art is to more or less be a step above "passable." I don't really expect to be making Genshin-tier "literally every single frame is a painting," but I do think I can eventually make something "good." It'll be a process for sure, but I'm committed to getting better at it. I've got the power of god, anime, AND artists on my side! I literally can't lose!

Note that I haven't actually started talking to said artists yet, so things might be a little uggers for the time being. We'll get there!

As of right now, I've worked on terrain, rocks, cliffs, and grass. I'm currently working on smaller objects like trees, foliage, and props, and soon after I'll be looking at overall colour palettes and lighting. Lots to do but until I wrote this, I didn't appreciate how much I've done in the past month. I did a whole ass blockout and I've started finally making assets that don't look like COMPLETE shit. Not bad!

PATREON CHANGES

Anyways, I mentioned this to my patrons already but there's been some changes! The $10 tier has been removed, and now anyone in the $5+ tiers get access to exclusive posts as I make them. The $20 tier is now simply a Giga Chad Supporter tier for the folks who feel like supporting me at that level (thanks btw). They even get a fancy role in the discord and everything! That could be you! 

Lastly, ANYONE who donates at least $20 in their lifetime pledges will get access to a free digital copy on release! This was previously exclusive to the $20 tier, but that was dumb so I changed it. Yippie!

For anyone in the $5 tier, I also recently wrote a post about Arbiter's Counter Colour system and how it works! I'll be doing more posts like these in the future, so if there's anything you specifically wanna hear more about, let me know! 

And as always, thank you so much for your support! I bought Frosted Flakes with it recently! Heck yeah!

THE END

That's it! It's over! Go enjoy your weekend!

Cheers,
Jordy