Posted June 16, 2025 by trweening
#Environment Art
Hey, I'm Tyler and I am primarily an environment artist for our game, Script Scrapper!
Working up to our alpha build, my focus has been on designing and modeling modular assets. Since our game has a variety of different puzzles and features to experiment with, it is important that our assets can be used in as many ways as possible so that were not limited when we want to try out new ideas.
During the first two weeks of development, I used my time creating modular assets to be used in our interior portion of the game. The interior takes inspiration from a gothic style castle made mostly out of brick and stone with a variety of architectural details and trim. In terms of style, we wanted our models to have minimal visible facets, creating a smooth beveled feel across the art of our game. For me, this was something that I had not done before, so it took some research to figure out the best way to go with this.
For my assets, I found the best way to go about this style was using one iteration of bevel on objects that are meant to be sharp, and two or more iterations of bevel for parts that are meant to be smooth. Additionally, beveling edges with the chamfer setting turned off creates fencing, which I found to be useful to add a highlight to edges that I wanted to appear sharp.
Here is an example of how my modular assets can be used to create a level. I found it really important to plan how different assets might be used when I had first started working on the interior. For example, the stairs can be reused in multiple different ways. One idea that I had early on was to make each stair piece half the height of the wall. Not only did this create a more gradual slope, but it gave level designers more opportunities to modify the shape of the stair cases by adding corners and split paths. I also made an effort to keep assets in as many different pieces as necessary. Instead of having the stairs attached to the walls and railings to make one piece, I left the assets separate and gave the stairs a bottom half so it could be used on its own, or with different wall pieces.
Moving on to the exterior architecture, these models are meant to be used on the main menu, the introduction to the game, as well as a few moments in between levels where the player would see outside. These assets use different textures from the interior assets, creating a darker color palette in comparison.
It took me just over a week to make these assets, including research and design time. I ran into a lot more problems when making these parts, mostly in the design phase. I was at a point where I had a lot of different ideas, but combining them in a way that felt natural within our world wasn't as easy. The part that created the most challenge for me the was the main entry way. This ended up being a large asset that isn't as reusable as the other assets. While I still had some flexibility with this, it ended up taking a larger portion of my time since it required me to have each of the different trim pieces work in conjunction with this unique part of the castle.
Here are the exterior assets assembled into their final form. All of the assets are made to work on a grid of two and a half meters, which made building new rooms quick and easy. I started out with the walls of the castle, and slowly added on trim pieces and details as I went. Making an example with the assets I made is an important part of my process as it helps to show me areas where certain assets might need to be adjusting, or where new assets might need to be made to fill in space. While working on a grid allowed me to quickly prototype ideas, I did run into areas where I felt I needed more flexibility. Moving parts freely after assembling them with the grid lets me add in smaller details to help balance out the castles design.
In the continuing weeks, I plan on revising and polishing my assets where I feel its needed. I'm also working on more organic environmental details, such as broken pieces of stone, rocks, and floating islands, to help make our game feel complete.