Killzone Shadowfall DLC - Stormgracht

The intention for this level was to make the exterior sections dazzlingly bright. However we are geographically just on the HGH side of the wall so we tinted some of the surround a pale green to suggest more toxicity.

One side of the level was HGH barricades whilst the other side was all VSA shanty structures. This kind of environment thematic helps reinforce clear navigation.

A panoramic capture of the exterior middle section of the level.

The back view of the wall had a lot of trickery. Lots of geometry was baked down to textures for optimisation, a heat haze effect was applied to it to mask some of the cheating.

The internal sections had some really nice scope for contrast where we created holes in the outer structure.

Most of this natural light is faked up, the actual sun angles involved weren't as vertical as this for the exterior of the level.

Another area where we could have fun with contrast. This also makes any exits from the internal areas very easy to spot.

Some of the materials were particularly dark when wet, this can make them harder to light and read correctly.

Sometimes you get to be cheeky and have a bit of fun in a level. Here we decided to create a theatrical shadow with some toy soldiers next to a lamp. It was very silly but fun.

The solider props were dynamic so shooting them would move the shadows. The fairy lights in the ceiling also helped suggest this was more of a childs play area of the slum.

We decided to do another bit of theatrical lighting by projecting an image of the map onto the wall from an overhead projector.

This map was actually painted over by our designer to highlight where some of the key areas for the level were.

This is a view from the spawn exit of the VSA section. The basecamp shields are casting a lot of soft orange light. The background needs some clear blue highlights to tell the player where they are and where they should go.

This is another area where we created holes in the superstructure to let in more natural light. This helps create a lot more contrast and also backlights a lot of interesting silhouettes.

In this area we tried to suggest that there was a hole in the ceiling that caused light to scatter through a tarpaulin. We couldn't literally cut a hole here as it would have clashed with the geometry outside.

This was an area that had to be very clearly HGH in colourscheme, if you stumbled into this area as VSA you were about to get insta killed.

The interior sections on the HGH side needed to feel a lot more toxic. We put sewage water under all the floors and used some caustic green uplights to complement the harsh red lighting.

Here you can get another glimpse of the gantries all over the HGH flooring and some of the water positioned underneath.

This is a shot taken mid flood sequence. If you weren't paying attention at got stranded in an exposed location like this player then you were probably doomed.