P1: Creating a Gritty Office Den

Documenting the process of creating a Gritty (sci-fi/cyber-punk) office den in Unity!

For today's post, I want to document the process of building a scene from scratch. It’s part of an assignment to conclude what I have learned from GameDevHQ.

As a student, I am given a starter scene as a base to work from. The image below shows the base:

On the image above, instructor Al Heck shows an example of his final scene, using the same base, and what we can accomplish from our learning. The scene looks amazing! Al is a veteran artist who can accomplish realism by using the tools provided in Unity. He taught us how to level design, the different cases of each rendering pipeline, and its tools to make beautiful scenes!

Drawing Inspiration

Drawing inspiration from the sources that speak to us is a must for developing anything. They give us ideas and a direction to follow. Generally, it’s always best to grab more than a few inspirational sources to work from. It will allow you to mix different elements to come up with something personal and original.

Being a dark and gritty sci-fi/cyber-punk fanatic, I am thinking in many ways to make my scene have that sense of moody living space. The image Al Heck produced above has a Resident Evil vibe to it. So I googled Resident Evil to look for some inspiration.

The image below captured my interest.

I like the mood and how the fireplace lights the character, Jill. I also like the extra small details evoking the feeling of living and disaster.

My next inspiration comes from Deus Ex. The world is dark and beautiful. It has everything that speaks to my heart! Look at the details that surround the room. It shows character. It also shows the emotional state of the character’s psyche. It has that old but sci-fi/cyber-punk feel to it. It is something that I will strive to add to my scene.

The mood and the feeling they give are powerful.

I want to strive for a mix between Resident Evil and Deus Ex. So in my next post, I’ll begin the scene by adding furniture and making some changes to the layout.

Gabriel