Visual Progress (Vertical Slice to Beta)

Hey Gamers! I am here today to showcase our progress so far from the Vertical Slice to the Beta release of Exclusion Zone: Reclamation.

The Vertical Slice of Exclusion Zone: Reclamation was comprised of only the base assets needed for building the level terrain. However, this left plenty of room to expand.

I started by making various models that would serve as obstacles to vault over and slide under such as bins, vents, ventilation boxes, rubble, and more. I took extra care to ensure these models fit the area they were in, adding chipped paint and rust as these objects exist within a post-apocalyptic city.

As with the vertical slice, these assets were created modularly, allowing the pieces to be used in various ways. For example, using the pieces of rubble as platforms and using the vent sections as falling objects.

One challenging addition for the Beta was the modular suspension bridge. The suspension cables required a lot of hard work to perfect, and many textures had to be added to accentuate the design including rust and moss.

I also used a new method of texturing to create chain-link fences. The original plan was to make the fence a complex shape made from the edges of a subdivided square, but this was hard to unwrap properly. Unwrapping is a vital step in the modelling process as it allows the models to be textured. Unwrapping requires the artist to "cut" the shape of the object up into a flat pattern--similar to a sewing pattern. Because of this, the more complex the shape, the harder to make the pattern. Due to this issue, I decided to make it a flat thin rectangle and use texturing to create the holes.

When texturing it, I added a fence texture and with the opacity element of the material turned on so that holes would appear in the fence. I was able to use this same method for other assets such as the crane.

But the visual updates did not only consist of new models, they also included camera updates and cutscenes. During testing, we found players had a hard time figuring out where to go. To fix this, I was tasked with creating small cutscenes that would reveal the goal of each level. This was done in Unity through the use of Cinemachine cameras (A Unity addon) and the Unity sequencer.

The cutscenes proved effective in helping our players orient themselves when tested and also demonstrated just how important frequent and thorough testing is when creating a video game. Visual polish also includes quality-of-life improvements, not just pretty models! We hope to provide even more quality-of-life updates like this one in the final release of Exclusion Zone: Reclamation