Our Visual Legacy
Hyper Light Breaker is the next iteration of our trademark Heart Machine aesthetic of bright neons punctuating vast, striking landscapes. Nowhere are these features more prominent than in the game’s rich 3D environments and the detailed design work that’s gone into Breaker’s set pieces.
As Danny Moll, Art Director, puts it “We’ve put tremendous effort into translating the spirit of Hyper Light Drifter’s impressionistic and painterly pixel aesthetic from 2d into 3d, while simultaneously imagining and bringing to life a host of entirely new settings and set pieces that exist within the alluringly mysterious worldbuilding and forgotten technology of the Hyper Light universe”.
Creating an immersive world for Hyper Light Breaker has been a complex and collaborative process, from the initial nugget of an idea → concept art → in-game assets that the player experiences. The journey involves multiple stages and teams, each contributing their expertise to building our vibrant, immersive world.
From Concept to In-Game
Idea
Alx Preston, Creative Director / Founder, is hands-on throughout the entire creative process. When it comes to environment art, Alx kicks off the process with moodboards, references, color sketches, and themes to inspire the team and set the tone.
An example moodboard from the early visual development phase of the Overgrowth by Alx Preston
Concept Art
Danny Moll, Art Director, and Sarah Morris, Senior Concept Artist, work closely on concept art, with support from Lilit Beglarian and Nick Carver. Their work defines the style and vision for Breaker’s distinctive environmental features and props.
An Example of Environment Concept Art by Sarah Morris showcasing visual development of the Hub
Modeling + Material Creation
Meagan Glennon leads the enviro team. She works closely with Cameron Hughes, Danielle Wallace, and Marissa Borowski, along with additional contributions from Jaume Rovira, Wolfgang Traenkle Will Tate, and Cordell Felix.
From Concept to Blockout to Art Pass
Get (the art) in the Game!
Game levels in Hyper Light Breaker are procedurally generated, which means that instead of using the traditional process of placing set pieces by hand, the assets need to be packaged into flexible dioramas. The vast majority of the Enviro Art goes into the game in the form of Points of Interest (POIs), small slices of the world where we can control the design and composition. Here’s the typical workflow for a POI:
- Brainstorming: The art, design, and narrative teams meet to pitch ideas for new set pieces in the game. This is always a fun process where everyone’s ideas are heard, and we can all look forward to making new stuff that we’re excited about!
- Concepts: We put pen to tablet and turn our wild ideas into designs that the environment team can run with.
- Blockouts: Enviro artists and/or level designers create an initial blockout to evaluate the set piece from a gameplay standpoint. Our collaboration with design is very important to our process.
- Replacing Blockouts: This is where the magic happens! Enviro artists take those gray boxes and turn them into trees, buildings, mysterious ruins, and anything we can dream up.
- Set-Decking: The new set-pieces then undergo several feedback cycles that focus on details such as tertiary decoration, collision, and the relationship of assets with other objects in the world. Collaboration with tech-art and engineering is essential to making sure these assets blend into the world seamlessly so that everything feels natural.
- Final Handoff: Finally, assets are handed off to Randi (Tech-Art) or Ben (Design) for Runtime Placed Assets (RPA) implementation, which means they can now appear in the game world!
POI Breakdown - Giant Stump:
Concept Art by Danny Moll - Greybox by Ben Strickland - Blockout by Meagan Glennon
Blockout by Meagan Glennon
Interior Set Dressing by Cameron Hughes
Model and Textures by Danielle Wallace
Collaboration with Proc Gen and Tech Art
One of the most complex areas of the environment art pipeline involves procedural generation (procgen) in close collaboration with the tech art team. According to Meagan, “A lot of iteration time has gone into this process, and it requires constant maintenance. We’re extremely lucky to have the Tech Art Wizards that we do and that they are so responsive and flexible to our needs. Together we can make unique, procedurally generated maps that still feel purposefully laid out and full of exciting landmarks for the player to explore.” The main areas of collaboration include:
1. Landscape Creation
Houdini Landscape by Len White
2. Foliage and Grass
Wolfgang Traenkle, Senior Environment Artist says “The grass system was a true example of having minds come together. Working with tech art and Engineering, we were able to develop a system that both had a distinct visual look and functionality that could propagate across all our maps. Environment art set up a visual goal using the foliage volume system and then engineering came in to analyze those data tables to create our own custom tool that used the terrain generation data to mimic that style. In the end this left us with a look that has a great natural variation and distinct looks per zone.”
Forest biome grass by Wolfgang Traenkle
3. Scatter Decking - small pieces to fill out the world between POIs
Example of rubble piles to fill in between larger POIs
4. Hyperfabs
This is the proprietary tool and system that Enviro Artists use to author POIs
POIs packaged into Hyperfabs by Cameron Hughes
(For more on our Tech Art pipeline, check out this two-part post.)
Design Integration and Implementation
The enviro team collaborates with designers to place NPCs, loot, hazards, and enemy spawners into POIs via locators.
Example of locators and other Designer tags in a POI
“What's interesting about the locator points is that they do not guarantee that x, y or z game object will appear at that spot. A locator is one of maybe hundreds of data points on a map that get fed back into our world generation systems and evaluated to see what should appear there. The world of Hyper Light Breaker is a web of relationships that, fingers crossed, translates into a compelling experience.” - Ben Strickland, Senior Designer.
Proud Moments and Player Experience
Several members of the enviro team shared what they’re most proud of and what they hope players notice in the game:
Cameron Hughes, Senior Enviro Artist: “I’m proud of the work we’ve done on the Titans. The scale and grandeur of these elements were inspired by Hyper Light Drifter, and seeing that verticality come together has been a huge win.”
Meagan Glennon, Lead Enviro Artist: “I’m proud of our team! I know it’s cliche to say, but even in the short time I've been here in my role as Lead, I’ve watched each member of this team grow and learn and become better artists and even better collaborators. I’m always drawn to stylized games because it gives the artists a chance to flex their skills in exaggeration, color, and shape language and it’s been so rewarding to see our style come into its own with little pushes and pulls from each artist in their own ways.”
Danielle Wallace, Enviro Artist: “[I’m proud of how] far we've come in our art style, and as a team. I've watched our world transform from what I believed was already a gorgeous art style, to every shot looking like a painting - with our tech artists putting that extra icing on the cake to take it to where it is now. It's rare, now more than ever, to be a part of a team that's so warm, has solid communication, and is driven to make sure the project is the best it can be in all avenues. Amazing projects are created from teams full of amazing people - in heart and talent.”
Marissa Borowski, Enviro Artist: “I’m really proud of the assets I’ve worked on, especially the graveyard pieces in the acid bog biome. Lilit was the concept artist for those, and seeing them go from 2D concept to 3D assets in-game was incredibly rewarding.”
Challenges Faced
Of course, no game development process is without its challenges. The ambitions of open world procgen presented some unique hurdles.
Cameron explains, “The Hyperfab workflow has really been distilled technically. We’re now focusing more on how dynamic the terrain can be while maintaining a consistent visual quality. We’ve moved away from overly complex setups to make sure everything looks interesting and cohesive at all times.”
Collision was another tricky area, adds Cameron, “There’s never a right answer when it comes to collision. You get something that feels good, and someone else will say it doesn’t fit. It’s a constant balancing act.”
For Danielle, the challenges presented major growing opportunities: “Prior to working on Breaker, I had worked on lowpoly machinery, but nothing near the size or detail of hard surface hero props. I'd say one of my biggest challenges at the beginning of the project was working with detailed hard-surface. It was also around this time that we were deciding whether or not we wanted to incorporate normal maps into our pipeline, as opposed to modeling in those smaller details. We overcame these challenges as a team, and personally, by asking our Art Director, Danny Moll, for help and best approaches for what we wanted to accomplish for these kinds of assets. Hard surface assets, which were previously incredibly intimidating for me, became one of my favorite styles to work with because I was able to have a mentor on the project, learn, and grow with our production.”
The Evolution of the Enviro Art Pipeline
Example Substance Painter set up by Meagan Glennon
While the overall visual direction of Hyper Light Breaker was locked in early, some aspects of the environment art pipeline evolved over time. Marissa, who joined the team later in development, notes, “It’s been interesting to see how the material pipeline has been optimized. Meagan made significant updates that simplified the process, making it smoother and more efficient.”
Cameron was one of the first people on the team, and reflects on the many changes, “We’ve gone through multiple asset pipelines, from basic diffuse to multitexture blends, and now we’ve returned to a more barebones diffuse approach. It’s a much cleaner, more stylized look.”
We’re Excited!
As we barrel toward Early Access, the team is getting excited!
“We’re seeing inklings of what the final product will be, and I’m confident that when we release, fans are going to love it.” - Cameron
“I’m really excited for early access. It’s always been my dream to have a credit on something, and I can’t wait to point out specific rocks and say, ‘I made that!’” - Marissa
“As a developer, you playtest your game with your team and go, ‘That was a nice time. That was fun’ and of course that's how you think your game should feel to play as an absolute minimum. However, I constantly find myself wanting to play more after each session…it's still wildly engaging. Like your favorite song you put on repeat for days on end during your lunch break. The feeling that still, every time I boot up the game and do a new run, it feels brand new. Every department has been absolutely rocking it, and I genuinely believe we have something special.“ - Danielle
“Everything is coming into focus now and the team is working hard on new ideas for POIs and new ways to make our maps looks better and better. I’m so excited to share our little game with the world and for players to experience the impeccable vibes that we have so lovingly crafted for them!” - Meagan
It’s been incredibly rewarding to see the full team’s collaborative and creative efforts come together to create a rich, immersive world for players to explore in Hyper Light Breaker. We can’t wait to share it with you!