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CREATING THE VISUAL STYLE OF ONYX

ONYX Concept Art

OVERALL STYLE

One of the most important things to get right in a game is visuals. Not high fidelity graphics but visual presentation, this is what gives your game a unique identity and flare to help it stand out. When writing the story for ONYX it was difficult for me to envision a cohesive visual style. But eventually I began to collect the main elements I knew I wanted: anime style characters, desaturated colors, cinematic effects, contrasted lighting. These choices reflect the setting and world, and set the tone for the game from the main menu to the end credits.

Girl’s Frontline

Gears of War 2

Overall, I wanted to pair muted environments and grounded character design with stylistic presentation and intense soundtrack, similar to arcade racing games. The fine line between over-the-top but still believable enough to exist in our world.

Blur

“CINEMATIC” FEEL

Since the story in ONYX mostly is told through cutscenes and scripted scenarios, I wanted to have elements that enforced the cinematic nature of the game. Lens flares, bloom and color grading help provide the cinematic flare. Of course, a balance is always needed when using these effects and we are taking care to not overuse these elements.

Battlefield 3

DEFINING COLOR PALETTE

By choosing to limit the colors and lighting within a specific style, I had encountered a problem. “How do I present visual impact within the gameplay?” This is how I came up the primary colors of ONYX: Blue, Purple and Green. These are the same colors that are used with our Cinematic Action System, so by using them for gameplay inputs we are already showing the consistency of our art style. The blue and purple which pair well together are used for visual effects, while the green is used more as an accent color for technology and weapons. You will be seeing these colors all throughout the game.

ONYX Pistol Render

It was fun reflecting on my thought process, writing this out has also helped me in nailing down our art style in a way I can explain simply. We have a few systems currently in development to help us achieve the desired visual presentation for ONYX, and are looking forward to sharing more soon!

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