Age-able Effects Creation

From the beginning of Singularity’s development, being able to use the TMD to age items, enemies, and major game events needed to be as memorable and dramatic as possible. An early decision was made to have as many of the age-able events happen in game rather than in cinematics, and to have world objects age-able in a dynamic fashion.

This sketch describes the motion of taking e99 energy or infusing e99 energy, and the connection between the TMD and the age-able object via a moving beam of energy:

The beginnings of the effects process really took off once early animations offered inspiration. Age-able items have a small set of requirements:

• The color palette for age-able items needs to visually tie to the TMD (in this case “E99 Orange”)
• The age-able item needs to have a deliberate change of form from one state to another.
• The animation timing is a baseline for effects composition.
• Particle and material effects need to establish a solid link between the TMD and the age-able objects in the world.
• Particle effects need to feel non-magical.

Animation and Concept

Animations were the baseline for the age-ables, so after the initial animation was completed, a concept was made:

The concept phase allows an artist to figure out a basic idea of how the materials were going to transition in conjunction with the effects before going to the team with it. I spoke with the engineers to make sure the material that was made had all the controls needed and ensured we were within our memory budget.

Material Transform

The material played a really big part in how the effects were going to move across the form of the item, so we needed a way to have the material transform over the surface while maintaining a direction.

Moving the material from the break points in the animation was visually too smooth, so I added some noise from the color channels of the texture to show the surface peeling away or reforming in a more natural way.

Particle effects

We wanted to make sure the particle effects for age-able items didn’t look too much like magic, so after some discussion we went with a peeling ash looking effect. The direction of the effects are dependent on whether or not the age-able item is being aged or renewed, and follows the transition on the surface material of the item.

After the initial age-able item was complete, the same concept and process was custom-tailored and refined to match each of the age-able items and enemies.

Fred Hooper
Senior FX Artist
Raven Software