Early Wayfinder : Part II
We wanted the game to be as immersive as we could make it, some of the first building blocks started being worked on, combat, characters, animations, in the meantime, I was looking at adding the seasons system with Isabel Grayce (Technical Artist) Because the game was going to be online, we wanted to have a visual representation of time passing throught the world that we were creating.
For summer we wanted to have a calm and warm feeling (all models of trees and foliages were blockouts in order to test the tech that we were building) I was experimenting with color variations, how to use the small foliages to bring to hints of blue and red?
Autumn, which I think represents the bestAirship's art spirit, it's been a huge visual marker since Battle Chasers. The changes were happening in real time, leaves started to fall, the grass was being dried up and tinted, adding color variations to the environment.
And then Winter, we reused part of the tech for the Reaver Woods. Snow was starting to fall in front of you, accumulating and completely changing the visuals and landscape.
The Reaver Woods went throught many different iterations, at the time it was called Grimshaw's Forest (after Jesse Carpenter online pesudonym) For one moment, it was an autumnal birch forest. Which later became a swamp forest, and then a frozen one, thinking about it today, the art team made some much content for so many different biomes.
Jesse Carpenter and myself worked together on our beauty corner, which was supposed to show off the style, tech and mood that we wanted for the game. We played a lot with different seasonal settings, different lights and ambiance.
We wanted to convey a feeling of mystery, something that players could explore and discover, dangers could be lying within the caves of Grimshaw's Forest. The Character and animation team were working on our first goblins at the time, Jesse created this red warm cave to give them a place to hide.
And there it was, after months of work, we had something that started to represente what we wanted, subtle noises in the background, river flowing with branches stuck in the stream, mysterious caves and ruins, all under a dark shiny sky.
We ventured and asked ourself where our players could go? I was working a lot of foliages exploration, different type of woods and forest (on top of the Ruins, Skylight) We had this idea of a lost wood, dark, mysterious, swampy, Baldi created wonderfull concept arts of twisted trees at the time.
Some places could be calm and beautifull, exploring those woods while hunting deers and seeing the sun going higher in the sky in the meantime. I remember going back and forth with Jesse and Baldi on the mood, the amount of details, should a bush cast shadow or just be here to bring color variations? Tons of questions to answer, and also tons of debates on what was the best solution for the game.
Other places could show the strenght hidden within the world of Wayfinder, beings capable of burning centuries old pine trees in an instant. (This kit was later reused for a boss fight in the Highlands and Reaver Woods)
One of the pillar of Airship Syndicate is called the "Rule of Cool" Gigantic monsters walking on top of you? Forever Burning lands? Hidden Technology? Baldi Konijn and Joe Mad are masters when it comes to finding those great ideas.
While exploring the woods, some could find the entrance to old Forgotten Ruins, this video shows one of the small “beauty corners” I made for it. This later became the Lost Zone called Aurelien and the Codex Halls.
Others, could find long lost civilization and technologies.
There’s still a lot to share, next time, we will look at even more ideas, concept, and art. In the meantime, Wayfinder is releasing in 1.0 on October 21rst, if you haven’t already, you can find the game on Steam!
