Where the Snow Settles
VFX Artist/Generalist
Developer: Myriad Games Studio
Publisher: Myriad Games Studio
Platforms: PC (Steam and Itch.io), XBox One, XBox Series S|X
Release: July 2021
A 3D narrative adventure game developed by Tasmanian-based Myriad Games Studio, coming soon to Steam and XBox One.
Where the Snow Settles has been an incredibly rewarding and challenging game to be involved in.
After joining Myriad Games Studio in mid 2018, my main responsibilities on the project have been:
Create shaders and particle effects that bring the world to life and fit within the art style of the game
Ensure that materials and effects can be customised easily by other team members where necessary
Develop 3D models, from environmental assets like trees and rocks, to buildings and player characters
Research, incorporate and develop tools to assist with development of the game, including documenting their usage for other team members and future reference
Software used
Unity
Amplify Shader Editor
Blender
Microsoft Visual Studio
Adobe Photoshop
Procreate
Project examples
Spirit World
Our game contains levels that take place in an ethereal Spirit World, where emissive materials and selective lighting help convey an otherworldly atmosphere. Particle systems, shaders and 3D models were all developed for these environments under the guidance of our Creative Director.
Trees
All trees in the game are given dynamic movement through their shaders which use GPU instancing. To avoid adding animations to the tree models, a combination of UV and vertex colour data from the meshes is used by the vertex shader to generate overall swaying movements as well as smaller rippling movement among the leaves. This approach allows easy adjustment of elements such as wind strength and world wind direction. Each tree can be rotated and scaled and still sway correctly with all other trees in the environment.
Scripted sequence VFX
Various points in the story call for unique visual effects sequences, such as this example here where interacting with one of the Spirit Stones has unexpected consequences. Elements such as adjusting material values over time, fading in and out different visual elements such as the ribbon effects on the ground, adjusting lighting values and the shockwave effect combine to create unique story boarded effects sequences.
Deep snow
To help make the environment feel dynamic and responsive to player actions, elements like deep snow were used that the player can carve a path through as they walk. A simple subdivided plane is used for the snow mesh which, using a tool created by our Lead Programmer is snapped to an even height from the terrain. We can then easily adjust the edges using Polybrush to give a gradient at the start and end of these patches.
Once the player comes into contact with the snow, their position is drawn to a render texture, which the snow shader uses as information on where to tessellate and push downward the vertices at that position.