So far in our Art of Modulus series, we’ve covered the game’s origins, voxel foundations, and the art-tech collaboration that keeps it all running. To wrap things up, Antoine and Thomas share the tools of their trade, how they empower player creativity, and what visual treats you can look forward to in Early Access.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
WHAT TOOLS OR TECHNIQUES (E.G. SHADERS, LIGHTING SYSTEMS, PIPELINES) HELPED YOU BRING THE LOOK OF MODULUS TO LIFE?
Thomas: We don’t use many fancy custom systems, it’s mostly default shaders and lighting, plus Antoine’s strong modeling, colors, and lighting choices. We add some post-processing like color lookup, adjustment layers, outlines, and tilt-shift effects. That combination carries a lot of the visual style.
Behind the scenes, a lot of technical work goes into performance. Any "magic" we implement is primarily for performance optimization. For instance, islands are completely culled when far away, meaning they cease to exist rather than just being hidden.
Currently, this is a visual optimization, but in the future, we aim to "abstract islands." This would involve treating an island as an operator with an input and output, allowing us to average them without significant loss of precision. This would be incredibly beneficial, enabling an immense number of islands to work seamlessly with factories. Other behind-the-scenes optimizations include the clouds in the game, which are sized to the camera frustum and are vertex-elevated to maximize detail.
Another subtle but impactful optimization, which most players won't notice, is that all operator animations are vertex animations driven by shaders. While not all are currently implemented this way, they will be, as this approach significantly boosts performance by eliminating the need for animators. These are just a few examples of the many quirks and optimizations we employ.
Antoine: And also tell me if I'm wrong, but the interior view of operators, like when you get inside the cutter, assembler, all of this exists in the same world, right? It's just somewhere else on the map.
Thomas: Yeah! There was a humorous bug we encountered because we had flying modules appearing within inside views, and we couldn't understand why. It turned out that "modules preview" also existed as a module somewhere else in the game, thousands of miles away. Consequently, those modules would appear inside the views, also existing thousands of miles away. It just so happened that they were at the same random location. It was quite funny to observe and realize the reason.
LOOKING AHEAD
ANY VISUAL FEATURES, POLISH, OR UPGRADES YOU'RE EXCITED TO BRING TO EARLY ACCESS?
Antoine: It’s not a promise but we are all really keen to introduce a day/night cycle during early access. We believe this feature will greatly enhance the visual experience, especially with the existing emissiveness in the game and new cosmetic additions like lampposts. The increased emissiveness of buildings and other elements during nighttime will create a cool and appealing atmosphere, especially with the small lights and neons already present.
While I’m less inclined to implement full weather effects like snow, we are considering occasional rain as part of the day/night cycle. This could contribute to the overall mood, particularly enhancing the zen-like atmosphere with accompanying music changes and... Thomas: …Reflections on the ground…
Antoine: …yeah, and puddles. Yeah it would be so cool. That's something I'm looking forward to.
Thomas: I really hope I have enough time to properly enhance the building completion effect, as I feel it's currently lacking. It's a bit underwhelming and doesn't "pop" enough, despite being a core part of the game's reward loop. I know we previously de-prioritized this because players might miss it if the camera isn't focused on it. However, I believe that if a player is nearby when a building completes, they should witness something truly cool. I'm going to push to make this a reality.
Antoine: I still don’t know all our priorities so take this with a grain of salt, but I aim to enhance the world's liveliness. This could involve incorporating elements such as birds, mechanical creatures traveling between islands, or even spaceships coming from the Colony below.
We've also considered adding decorative, non-buildable islands. These could feature unique focal points like a crashed spaceship or a cascading waterfall, enriching the environment with more life and adding to the lore.
A LITTLE TEASER OF WHAT PLAYERS MIGHT SEE MORE OF (WITHOUT SPOILING ANYTHING MAJOR)?
Antoine: We've already touched on some of the exciting new features we're planning to introduce without revealing too much.
This primarily includes new colors, which will naturally lead to new buildings, and potentially new recipes, resources, and even new operators. Additionally, we'll be introducing monuments that players haven't seen yet. There will be several quite large monuments to create, and we're eager to see players construct them.
Finally, during early access, players will work towards the game's ultimate goal, which we've outlined on paper, and I'm excited to see how we collectively achieve it.
Thomas: Yeah same for me.
Both Antoine and Thomas agree that the beauty of Modulus comes from the balance of constraints and creativity. For Antoine, it’s the readability of buildings and the monumental structures players can make. For Thomas, it’s the sheer creativity of the community’s builds.
Thank you for following along on our deep dive into the Art of Modulus. If you want to see the art in action, you can play the free demo right now. And don't forget to wishlist Modulus on Steam & join our Discord where we like to hang out with the community.
You can catch a more detailed video version of this interview below.
Thanks for reading.
Team Happy Volcano