Look and Feel
Animation Design
The main animations created for Temple of Tempo was the character’s walk and jump animation. A crouch animation was made but was never implemented as obstacles that would’ve required the character to crouch were pushed back and other mechanics took priority. As with the models in the game, the animations also took a focus on simplicity. With the speed of the player, we wanted simple moving animations that looped seamlessly while still being somewhat realistic. The character animations were also made so that they could be transitioned smoothly between actions.
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Lighting Design
For the lighting of this game, an importable lighting level was made with generalized lighting. From there, specialised lighting was added depending on the level. God rays using directional lighting, height fog, and volume were created to simulate natural light hitting the environment's dust particles. Other than the lighting being emitted from the flaming torches, some lighting was placed under the caps of the mushrooms to create a majestic feel. (VFX lighting is explained further in the VFX Design section.) And finally, to illuminate the exit of a level, bright white lights are placed in the door that shines outward.
Asset Model Design
The team had less than a year to design and develop the game with the goal of mostly using assets created by the members, the team couldn’t spend too much time creating assets for the game. A focus on simplicity and modularity was used when designing the models for the assets used in Diamond Rush: Temple of Tempo. To ensure that designing levels were simple, all assets related to level design (walls, floor, platforms, traps, etc) were modeled to be used in a grid layout. For example, each floor piece would be a 1x1 block, whereas the crushing block would be a 1x2 block. This allowed easy design of levels without having to create specific assets for each level. Reusing assets within the levels had the possible problem of the look of the levels becoming repetitive, so to overcome this problem most scenery assets were created with unique faces where possible. By allowing the assets such as floor blocks to be rotated, it would seem to be slightly different from the blocks around it. To ensure that the necessary assets would fit to the grid design harmoniously, all the assets were made using low to medium-poly models. This was also done so that all assets would be consistent with each other, as well as for optimization reasons.
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Texture Design
For the texture design for this game, a stylized/semi realistic texturing method was used to contrast the low-mid poly modeling. Using Substance Painter and Designer, PBR textures for each model were able to be made. These PBR textures were imported into Unreal to create materials. Within the Unreal hypershader, some textures, especially the metallic aspect, needed to be edited as the export from Substance was either missing or incorrect.
VFX Design
For the VFX of this game, the Niagra particle system along with base Unreal systems were used to create custom sand drips, dust, glowing particles, fire, lava splatters, and more. VFX brings a special atmospherical aspect to our game. Some of these FX included emissions that help contribute to the environment's lighting. These include the glowing on the diamond, lava, and flames from the torch.
