The class on post-processing was pretty maddening. It’s very involved and while straight forward, takes a ton of steps and setup. I spent a lot of time trying to absorb the course but a lot of it went through or over my head. I learned some valuable things such as how to manipulate certain materials to get the look you want. And since today was all about the appearance of the game I played around with the post-process materials that I had at my disposal.
I remember taking a step away from post-processing previously because most of it is affecting the materials, lighting, shadow, etc. that is already apparent. For the overall aesthetic in the game what I truly need is matching models, textures, lighting, and whatever else. Post-processing can only help so much, and most of it doesn’t fit what I want to do. I played with a lot of the settings for quite awhile.
The course showed me this cool trick where you can apply the rendering on specific areas, such as the characters for example. So I went with a look that only outlines the characters so they pop from the background, and that leaves everything else blended into the environment. I think I’ll keep this look for now, it shows nice outlines on the cape and the other areas of the characters. Perhaps what I really need to do is upgrade the model I have for the player character.
I also quickly took a glance at light masks for the lantern so it has a specific shape to it’s luminescence. The outline also appears behind lights so that’s another cool effect that it has. Maybe this will stick around for awhile. I’m still trying to figure out what to tackle next. The level revamp is a huge thing because I essentially need to replace the whole thing because it’s held together by shapes that are meant to be placeholders for the actual 3D models. Other than that there’s countless things I still need to work on, such as cleaning up many of the animations, fixing the bugs, improving the sounds, optimizing the game, and much more. One step at a time.
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