System Shock - September Update

The september update of System Shock is about environments, art direction, characters and puzzles. The update comes with a lot of images.

Here’s a look into the approach we’re taking with textures of the game. With System Shock we want to create a quasi retro look that combines modern physically based rendering tech with a low-res, pixelated texture aesthetic that evokes the low resolution of the original game. To this end, the texel density of every object and character in the game is strictly limited to only 256 pixels per meter, to keep the level of pixelization consistent across all surfaces. Like some modern 2d games that combine old school aesthetics with modern framerates and effects, we hope to use some of the limitations of old graphical styles to give a unique feeling, evocative of how you might remember older games rather than how they actually looked. 

A consequence of this low-res aesthetic is that UV need to be very meticulously laid out to keep details as clean and readable as possible while also minimizing ugly distortions that would be less noticeable at higher resolutions.  UV edges need to be “squared off” when possible and lined up exactly along texel edges to try to ensure a clean, readable texture pattern.