Hey all! 👋
As we continue to work on the game, we continue to want to share the process with you! There are all kinds of ins and outs that happen under the hood and behind the curtains to make the game look pretty, so we decided to share the more interesting aspects here once in a while. Today let's dive into the secret of how 2D becomes 3D!
In this game we paint backgrounds in 2D 🎨, but use 3D characters, which gives us the ability to have more camera angles and use character animations in more varying scenarios. So this time we'll tell you about how we turn Bill's beautiful paintings into actual 3D environments, and what perks we get out of that.
So, where do we start? Right! First and foremost, Bill paints a pretty scene with all the important objects in separate layers. Then we take the image and try to figure out where a camera would be if it were a real world environment. 🤔 That includes the camera's position, direction and view angle (or field of view). This is slightly challenging, because the world is painted with all kinds of twisty shapes, which makes it so unique, but also hard to align with the real world rules. When that is done, we go over each object in the scene and recreate their shapes in 3D and project their pictures on them. In the end, the scene looks identical to the initial picture from the camera's perspective, BUT that's where the magic happens ✨. This is what we have in the game engine:
When we have a 3D scene like that, we can actually move the camera when the characters move around or when the players moves the cursor, concentrating their attention on different parts of the screen. This creates a nice parallax effect and makes the world much livelier 🚶♀️:
In addition to that, the 3D characters can actually walk around in that newly constructed 3D world. That gives us the ability to have real-time lights and shadows between characters and 2D backgrounds, which really blends them together. All kinds of extra effects become possible and more convincing too – lightrays ☀️, dust, falling snow, smoke and so on. See how she receives light from the surroundings and casts dynamic shadows on the environment:
Phew, hope that wasn't too heavy on the technicalities! 😅
What else is new with us? ⭐
If you've missed it, check out this awesome video, put together by Tomasz just before the New Year, where Bill talks about our project and our plans for the future, together with many other adventure game developers who share their holiday greetings too! ✨
One of Tag of Joy founders, Šarūnas, joined the latest Scene World Magazine podcast to talk about his journey from the fan-made Broken Sword 2.5 to Tag of Joy, Crowns And Pawns and now the upcoming A Vampyre Story: A Bat's Tale! Give it a listen 🎧
Also, if you're a console player, Tag of Joy has some news about our previous point and click adventure, Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit! The game is coming to the Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Sony’s PS4/PS5 on February 27! 🥳 Mark the date!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1125910/Crowns_and_Pawns_Kingdom_of_Deceit/
Have a Monstrous Day,
Autumn Moon Games & Tag of Joy 💜