Palace of a Thousand Curses - Breakdown
Sub-Kit - Gardens
Sub-Kit - Ruins
Sub-Kit - Palace Entrance
Layers that make up the game's unique looks (aside from the specific asset authoring techniques)
Hero Character, Weapons, Enemy
Hero - Real World Self
Hero - Concept Sculpt - Polypaint (3D Coat viewport - Toon MatCap)
Hero - True Self - Texture Paint (3D Coat viewport - PBR)
Waq Waq Tree - Turns and parts
Waq Waq Tree set dress. Talk and wiggle anims via lattice deformation
Sub-Kit - Cordoba Mezquita
Layers that make up the game's unique looks (aside from the specific asset authoring techniques)
Real places comparisons - Cordoba Mezquita and Aljaferia
Sub-Kit - Aljaferia
Sub-Kit - Doncallas
Real place comparison - Doncallas
Fairy tale reference images comparison
Thunderstorm, Rainy Window, Refraction, Baked Lighting (Using Bakery)
Real World - Streets
In engine animation via transforms - no bones, haha. Cheers!
All pictures were taken directly in Unity 2022.3 URP (unless stated otherwise).
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All 3D and tech art by me, including characters, environment work, and custom full screen shaders.
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The goal was to depict an old fairy tale 2D illustration look in 3D, such as the one seen in Arthur Rackham's work or old Arabic fairy tale paintings, with the focus being on line work/ink and a watercolor/wash-on-paper-like feel. It was a real challenge to mimic the analog feel of those depictions in 3D. A lot of different techniques had to come together to land at it.
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There is no real time or baked lighting or shadowing used to avoid the inherent digital feel that comes with it. The picture is entirely composed by an interplay of custom full-screen shaders and post-processing. Everything is sculpted mid-poly in a way so it catches outlines. None of the visible line work is painted into textures but is created by purposeful normal changes and gaps between geometry, which get caught by the shader. Shadowing is exclusively done via decals to get the effect of hatched and watercolor wash-like shadows. Every decal is hand placed, which offers a painting/sketch like flexibility and feel, as there are no mathematically calculated shadows in the scenes. Texturing consists of only color maps, which are hand painted per object and solely dependent on emission, with additional in-engine paper layering, hue and line weight variation for further per-object breakup/variation. To help with BG values, volumetrics were used in a way so they introduce darkening and some aerial perspective, as well as contrast reduction.
Furthermore, in-engine lattices are used to deform architecture and bend and twist objects to further kill the inherently digital, gamey feeling perspective and mimic some of the lively perspectival imperfections inherent to organic drawings.
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More in game shots and info here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Nqg0ZD
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Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3330540/Palace_of_a_Thousand_Curses/?l=english
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80lv posts:
https://80.lv/articles/an-indie-2-5d-action-platformer-inspired-by-old-school-prince-of-persia-games
indie games devel:
https://indiegamesdevel.com/palace-of-a-thousand-curses-hands-on-preview-a-dreamlike-journey-through-the-bewitched-pages-of-an-andalusian-fairy-tale/
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I also created some temp music tracks for the project in my spare time, of which two are still heard in the demo:
https://hardev.bandcamp.com/album/palace-of-a-thousand-curses