I started working on some images for the in base, or at least some rough stand ins for the final art that will give an idea of where it’s headed. Here’s a shot of a landing pad:
In the game that screen will allow you to enter the base proper, or return to your ship orbiting the planet
I’ve got a lot of really great models from Daz Studio, but I still have to light them and composite them, and I’m discovering that there’s a lot more to lighting than I had previously thought. I’m working now on an internal scene and I thought I’d light it up with just a single point light, and that failed utterly. After some experimenting I realized I needed about 8 different lights to get the place to look somewhat natural, and I’m thinking I will probably end up putting in a few more.
This was a little bit perplexing for me, because most of the rooms in my house have a single light in the center, and that seems to keep the place pretty well lit. But Friday night when I was with my wife at the mall, I took the time to look around the different shops we were in, and to see how much lighting they had. And let me tell you, it made the eight lights I had in my interior scene seem wholly inadequate. There were all kinds of lights all over the place. It really increased my appreciation for how much work goes into a well lit scene.
So there you go. Being an effective indie game developer even encompasses a little bit of interior design. Who would have guessed.