Engine & Technicals

How We Are Building A Spoopy Game

We are using Unity 2021.3.5f1, and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP). We decided to use Unity simply because its a program that I have been learning and using for nearly 15 years, naturally, I want to use my skills. We chose 2021 because it is a stable release, and has long term support, simple.

Render Pipeline

The render pipeline took a fair amount of time to decide, and we went through several sample iterations of each of the pipelines to find the right answer. We initially didn't want to use URP because of the limitations to lighting, which is very constrictive. Which was a shame because, performance for quality was by far the best with URP. Fortunately though, I managed to come up with a solution that solved the issues with URP.

Lighting

Many voice their concerns about URP's ability to deliver a quality lighting experience. It does require more attention to make lighting good enough for an immersive experience within URP but it's not impossible, we take steps and design our lighting intelligently to make sure we not only fit within the limitations of URP but also to deliver a rich and immersive experience.

Art & Design (Unity Assets Explained)

Art and design will always be evolving within our project, since it requires talent that extends past our initial capabilities. However, we have enough skill in some areas that can pull us through to start. Yes, we do use Unity Assets. The unity store is a beautiful thing, what once was primarily for systems and prototyping assets has quickly become a place that delivers AAA quality assets.

We want to leverage that, but also, we do want to become 'another unity asset game'. We believe there is a balance, and generally speaking, we do not like to use things, 'out of the box' so to speak, most things will be modified, changed, chopped apart, re-stitched etc.

Eventually, we want to be able to hire the right people and grow our project organically, and provide a unique experience and aesthetic. All of the equipment so far, barring the screwdriver is designed by us, level design, enviroment and lighting, everything else apart from the meshes/textures are designed by us, and we have plans to overhaul all the textures on the assets we buy as well.

We should be pragmatic but also maintain creative integrity.

Character Design

Character models, clothes, hair and accessorys, will be handled and exported from Daz3D, this is also something I have been using for a very long time. We will be using Daz3D store assets in a similar way to Unity Store Assets. Character design however is going to take a bit of a back seat until we can support additional team members and have an operating budget.

Will update this section more, as we go.