Thoughts/Development process (Josh Knoppel)

When it comes to the development process for our project this semester, things started off in a somewhat rocky and uncertain way. At the beginning, two of us weren't exactly sure what our specific responsibilities would be. All we really knew was that we were both going to serve as artists for the game. Because of that lack of clarity, we initially took the approach of each creating our own versions of the assets we thought the project needed. While this allowed us to begin producing material quickly, it also led to inconsistencies in the visual direction and a lack of cohesion across the art we were generating.

Fortunately, after our first milestone check-in, the team realized that this workflow wasn't the most efficient. It was then decided that each artist should take ownership of different categories of assets. One of us would handle one set of visuals, and the other would focus on a separate set. Once this division of labor was established, our development immediately became more organized and consistent. From that point forward, production flowed much more smoothly.

The main challenge I encountered during this transition was adjusting my art to match the style of the other artist. Josh J. had already established a strong visual identity through the way he textured his models, so making sure my work aligned with his became a priority. To address this, Josh J. walked me through his texturing workflow and showed me how he approached shading, detailing, and material surfaces. Using that as a guide, I started by giving him the enemies I had already created so that he could texture them. This ended up being extremely helpful, because it allowed me to focus my time and attention on an area I was ultimately assigned to handle-creating background assets.

Once my role was officially centered on background art, I began by creating the tileset for the level. This part of the process went very smoothly because I reused a tileset I had developed for a previous project at my former college. I modified and refined it so that it better matched the abandoned-factory aesthetic our group decided on. After that, my next major task was designing the full background for the level. This included cracked walls and glowing pipes, which helped distinguish it visually from the assets that would later be layered in front of it. From there, I worked on a set of broken pipe assets that would be placed in front of the background but behind the platforms the player interacts with. This helped further develop the atmosphere and added depth to the environment.

As of this point in the semester, I feel confident saying that once our group clarified roles and responsibilities, we really began functioning like a well-oiled machine. The early confusion gave way to a much more streamlined and productive workflow, and our final assets feel stronger because of the collaboration and adjustments we made along the way. I was recently asked to make a new tileset that would fit more with the other assets we had made, as that was one of the comments we got when we did the playtest on the zoom class, with how smoothly things have progressed so far, I feel pretty confident in my skills that I can get this request done.