Colour palettes and lighting

Rebecca Michalak - 26 Jul 2016

[Concept artist Rebecca Michalak explores colours and lighting for Avoyd.]

For the fourth round of concepts I wanted to explore palettes some more, since colour is an important part of Avoyd. This was my biggest challenge, being generally used to doing fairly monotone paintings and letting texture denote form.

I started by gathering a range of colour palettes from various sources (I have a library of about 5000 reference images saved to my computer for when I want to start a new painting or need inspiration) in order to have a starting off point. Working in a more abstract way was unfamiliar to me and difficult when I started the project, but I've found that as long as the basic tenants of any artwork are solid (values, colour schemes, composition) then you can push experimentation much easier and further.

At first I tried to apply colour to previous concepts, but although it was useful as a way to gather ideas there wasn't the definition I wanted. I went back to very quick sketches, which removed the need for rendering and allowed me to focus on idea generation. I feel that it's good to go ‘back to basics' every so often with concepting. it's too easy to get stuck into a loop of refining and close yourself off to the introduction of new ideas.

For the lighting ideas I wanted to explore different ways to suggest 360 degree movement in the world, there being no ‘up'. Any main light source will automatically suggest direction, after all people have been using the sun and moon to navigate by since the beginning of time. A diffuse light is one possible answer. The one problem with that is that it makes it more difficult to create drama, or points of interest. harsh lighting can often vastly change the mood or feel of an area, and lighting is often used in games (and real life) as a way to draw players attention to places of particular interest.

The idea was to make the lighting part of the materials themselves, possibly even one that could be created and destroyed by the player. They could use them as a tactical advantage or sabotage. If the lights spawned as part of the materials of the world itself then no particular clue to direction would be given and could potentially seem like floating in a starry night sky (which was a pleasing mental image.)

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 ›› Colour palettes and lighting 
 › Concept art by Rebecca Michalak

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 › First Avoyd tech update video
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 › Explosions galore
 › Spring fixes
 › Open source and ports to other operating systems
 › Avoyd LAN Demo Version 1.1 is out
 › Thanks for the support
 › Avoyd LAN Demo Ready

 › Game Tech

 › Optimising Voxel Meshes for Games Using Blender
 › Implementing a GPU Voxel Octree Path Tracer
 › Importing Minecraft maps in Avoyd Voxel Editor improved
 › Runtime Compiled C++ Dear ImGui and DirectX11 Tutorial
 › Boxes in Space: procedural generation of abstract worlds in Avoyd
 › Procedural python word generator: making user names out of 4 syllables
 › Speeding up Runtime Compiled C++ compile times in MSVC with d2cgsummary
 › Internals of a lightweight task scheduler
 › Implementing a lightweight task scheduler
 › Normal generation in the pixel shader
 › Lighting voxel octrees and procedural texturing
 › Octree streaming - part 4
 › Octree streaming - part 3
 › Octree streaming - part 2
 › Octree streaming
 › LAN discovery with multiple adapters

 › enkiTS

 › Internals of a lightweight task scheduler
 › Implementing a lightweight task scheduler

 › RCC++

 › Runtime Compiled C++ Dear ImGui and DirectX11 Tutorial
 › Speeding up Runtime Compiled C++ compile times in MSVC with d2cgsummary

 › Web Tech

 › Procedural python word generator: making user names out of 4 syllables
 › Python Google App Engine debugging with PyCharm CE
 › Python Google App Engine debugging with PyTools
 › Domain masking using Google App Engine
 › Presskit for Google App Engine
 › Implementing a static website in Google App Engine

 › Avoyd

 › Implementing a GPU Voxel Octree Path Tracer
 › Avoyd Release Streams and Minecraft Lit Materials
 › Avoyd Beta Stream
 › Isometric Render of a Minecraft Map in Avoyd Voxel Editor
 › Importing Minecraft maps in Avoyd Voxel Editor improved
 › Boxes in Space: procedural generation of abstract worlds in Avoyd
 › In-game building
 › Player-deployable turrets in Avoyd
 › Avoyd Game Singleplayer and Coop Multiplayer Test
 › Voxel Editor Evolved
 › Multiplayers toxic last hit kill and how to heal it
 › Avoyd Editor Prototype
 › Black triangles and Peter Highspot
 ›› Colour palettes and lighting 
 › Concept art by Rebecca Michalak
 › Feral Vector
 › Patterns and spheres
 › Interview
 › Black triangles and nervous_testpilot
 › Playing with material worlds
 › Website redesign
 › First Person Editor
 › First Avoyd tech update video
 › Multiplayer editing
 › First screenshots
 › Thoughts on gameplay modes
 › Back in 1999

 › Avoyd 1999

 › Developer Diary archive
 › Back in 1999
 › ECTS 2002
 › Avoyd Version 1.6.1 out
 › Avoyd Version 1.6 out
 › Biting the bullet
 › Avoyd version 1.5 out
 › Monday Mayhem
 › Avoyd version 1.5 alpha 1 out
 › Avoyd version 1.4 out
 › ECTS 2001
 › Fun with Greek letters
 › Closer just a little closer
 › Back already
 › Artificial Humanity
 › Products and promises
 › Ecommerce
 › Explosions galore
 › Spring fixes
 › Open source and ports to other operating systems
 › Avoyd LAN Demo Version 1.1 is out
 › Thanks for the support
 › Avoyd LAN Demo Ready