Week 14: Improving the Lighting + Final Touches

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Playtests:








From observing the playtests, I identified tasks for me to complete, such as:

- Fixing the gap between 'loot' and 'the saloon' in the HUD, using a horizontal box. 

- Improve the footsteps SFX.

- Improve some sound effects, such as the sound effect for the door being locked. 

- Make the 'interact' and 'take' pop-ups smaller.

- Fix some objects, such as the wine bottles and glasses, which reflect light incorrectly. 

- Remove the black bar that appears with the leave menu. 

- Add a warning for the player to leave when they almost run out of time. 


Improving the Item Notification Icons

I added a drop shadow to my icon designs to make them stand out more. I also reduced the size of the icons slightly and moved the position of the rifle to diagonal instead of horizontal to stop the image from being squashed. 




Improving the Lighting + Adding a Skybox


Before + After:







The default lighting and lanterns made my environment look flat, so I decided to create custom lighting. At first, I wanted to use a HDRI, but I instead modified the values of the directional light and sky light, and added a skybox. 






I increased the intensity of the skylight to light the interior more effectively, and positioned the directional light to shine through the bedroom windows, as that room was the one lacking light the most. I enabled bloom so the sunlight would cast rays through the window. 




I created the material below using an HDRI image and applied the material to a sphere to use as a skybox. I created a material instance of this material and rotated the skybox so the sunrise within the HDRI image was aligned with my directional light.



Improving the Leave Menu

I made the border design more precise and used the same paper texture as my mission passed/failed UI.



Creating a Warning to Leave the Saloon

I created the script below in my timer widget to make the countdown UI turn red when there is 1 minute left and to notify the player to leave the saloon.  




Location: Preston, UK

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