As an environment artist, I spend most of my time thinking about how a space looks. Unit 10 gave me the chance to ask what a space does. The unit is a fifteen-week research project developed through pre-production, production and post-production. I’m documenting here the research, the tests, the mistakes and the decisions that came out of them gradually as I move forward.
I started with a broader idea, but it narrowed to a problem at the centre of environment work:
How can art direction guide players along a path through a game space, without UI or text, while exploration still feels like their own choice?
Every environment is a route. Light, colour, landmarks and the shape of a room can tell a player where to look and where to go, often without them noticing.
I want to understand those choices well enough to use them on purpose. My testbed is a room before and after a flood. Water, damage and time change the same space, and I want to see whether its art direction can lead someone through it while leaving them feeling they found the way themselves.
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