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Matthew Birkett-Smith
Lead Artist & Art Director in the games industry
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Rigs - Nevada

The Nevada level for Rigs (2016) was one of the levels we started to art once we'd reached a bit more confidence of the art style for the game and the technical limitations of the engine and VR. I particularly enjoyed the balance of natural rock with well engineered manmade elements.
Lighting was in some ways quite straight forward but also had some unexpected complications. We knew we wanted a real sense of brightness and heat but the balance of this had to be very careful to not hurt the gameplay by dazzling the player with brightness. Also the fact that the gameplay area is covered on all sides heavily limited the range of sun angles we could look into using, caused shadows to be more vertical than I would like. It also caused some of the large areas of floor to have fairly flat shading due to being hit so face on by sunlight. One of the areas I really enjoyed with lighting this level was in working with all the red bounce light from the rock and sand.

Bounce light was absolutely key to getting Nevada to feel right. Without all the warm bounce from the red sand the level would have felt off. You can also see a lot of yellow bouncing off the twisting ramps.

Bounce light was absolutely key to getting Nevada to feel right. Without all the warm bounce from the red sand the level would have felt off. You can also see a lot of yellow bouncing off the twisting ramps.

The ramps were an unusual structure, they needed to be large to break up line of sight on such an open map. The concept team did a great job making them into something quite iconic.

The ramps were an unusual structure, they needed to be large to break up line of sight on such an open map. The concept team did a great job making them into something quite iconic.

We decided that the majority of the level should have sunlight reaching it otherwise it would just feel too dingy. This meant the sun was very high. Note in this screenshot I've disabled fog otherwise it would look to dusty from this height.

We decided that the majority of the level should have sunlight reaching it otherwise it would just feel too dingy. This meant the sun was very high. Note in this screenshot I've disabled fog otherwise it would look to dusty from this height.

This was one of our less symmetrical map layouts. Though more symmetry would have saved time we needed a completely different look for the support structure under the hoover dam.

This was one of our less symmetrical map layouts. Though more symmetry would have saved time we needed a completely different look for the support structure under the hoover dam.

This is one of the areas of the map where I'm quite happy with the lighting balance. Too much sun can be overwhelming, it's always more interesting to be navigating through small areas of light and shade.

This is one of the areas of the map where I'm quite happy with the lighting balance. Too much sun can be overwhelming, it's always more interesting to be navigating through small areas of light and shade.

The dark metallic structures contrasted well with all the light sandy organic elements. They were also designed to look heavy and over engineered in a stereotypically American way

The dark metallic structures contrasted well with all the light sandy organic elements. They were also designed to look heavy and over engineered in a stereotypically American way

Here you can see a heavily shadowed underside of a massive support structure. We found any manmade lights needed to be very low intensity to remain balanced. Some of the lights in the far background are punched up to highlight routes.

Here you can see a heavily shadowed underside of a massive support structure. We found any manmade lights needed to be very low intensity to remain balanced. Some of the lights in the far background are punched up to highlight routes.

We knew we wanted a lot of dark materials for contrast but getting the balance right was sometimes hard. Readability was always our top priority for VR.

We knew we wanted a lot of dark materials for contrast but getting the balance right was sometimes hard. Readability was always our top priority for VR.

Some of the routes in deep shadow were very hard to highlight from certain angles. Sometimes we just had to accept that as any workaround would look too forced.

Some of the routes in deep shadow were very hard to highlight from certain angles. Sometimes we just had to accept that as any workaround would look too forced.

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