512 Neon Tiles for the Environment

To help fill out the environment, I was tasked with the construction of neon tiles that would feature in and around the shops to add that extra realism. As I had mentioned earlier, in the game I had been tasked with creating neon signs that would feature throughout the environment, however after testing these 3D models throughout the environment, it did not work as well as we anticipated. This meant that I had to go back a create for cheap 512 tiles using what I had learnt on vending machine when it come to luminous maps.

A selection of neon signs that I created.

The signs that I made where ones that we were expecting to see in a shopping mall, such as the exit sign, or food neon signs. I made the signs look like they were made out of the same neon tubes that you see of side of buildings in cities. In total I made 16 signs which I felt was appropriate, at least to see what they look like when they are placed around the map. There were a huge variety with what I had made, however, if we wanted to make anymore, it was fairly simple for m to get back to.

A coloured neon sign.

With a couple of the 512 tiles, we wanted them to have different color variety. this meant that when I was working on the files within Photoshop, I had to assign them the right colors there. The main Neon signs that I had to do this with are the food signs. According to the game designer, this means that we have to create a separate materials for each one of these signs, which can take its pressure on the game. I tried to make sure that these colors were left to minimal, however, with signs such as the burger or hotdog, these really required.

A plane Sign to colour later.

With the other tiles, we wanted them to one color, this meant that when we put the tiles within unity, we could change the color to whatever we want. By making it white, it means that we can reduce the amount these actually affect how the guns run. After these are put in the game, we can then look at the tones which it is surrounded by and judge accordingly.

A redone sign in order to make the game run better.

Coming back to the 3D sign that I had created earlier, I had a discussion with the game designer George Burchmore, who said that a way in which we could make the game run better, would be to change the 3D signs into 2D ones. This is one example, I had created a 3D pharmacy sign, which sits in a cross shaped box, however, it does start to look fairly wrong, with the motion blur on, when the player runs passed it. A way in which this could be improved, again is to create a 512 tile that will sit in the box, which is exactly what I did.

Neon signs in shop windows.

The selection of tiles that I created is something that I'm rather happy with, especially since I only had a 512 x 512 pixel space to work with. Its now to see how these look within the game, compared to the 3D ones, to see what looks better within the game.