Hi Gang-
Heres a peek behind the scenes of a short animated sequence I needed in the game.
In our story, Centari Corp produces a VR game console called the ‘Facebox’. From the beginning, the concept for this Facebox appliance was to have a sleek appearance but with something sinister about it under the hood. To reinforce the sinister aspect, we wanted to show Faceboxes being mass produced on an assembly line. The point was to reveal their menacing skeletal innards being encased in a more user-friendly outer shell. The video reveals a little bit of how the effect was achieved.
We used 2D pre-rendered artwork (as with the rest of the game) but mapped it onto simple 2.5D shapes to enhance the illusion of depth. I wanted the outer shell to look like it was actually being 3D printed over the skeleton. To achieve that effect we used a nifty ‘invisible mask’ shader on a flat quad that hides the 3D shell mesh from the camera. But as we animate the invisible mask shape downward, it exposes the shell mesh as it passes through it. Hopefully what I’m trying to describe is more clear in the video.
I really had a good time putting this little sequence together for the game and just figuring out how to make it work was a fun challenge. Kinda like solving an adventure game puzzle. 🙂
As an added treat, here is some early concepts from artist Brent Forest (and yours truly) showing the evolution of the Facebox appliance.
My initial concept
Brents awesome sketches. Very disturbing. Brent captured the menace perfectly. But who in their right mind would wilfully strap one those to their face, right? So we dialed it back. But then reintroduced the alien-like menace by showing the inner workings of the Facebox in the assembly line sequence.
Image from a April fools Press release we did in 2016
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