Hey!
I’ve always loved retro consoles, like the PS1, N64, the Game Boy, etc. There’s something I’ve always enjoyed and admired about what artists could achieve with the limitations they had.
So I thought… hey, why not create some projects and share that love with the community? I’d like to use this as a chance to sharpen my Blender/Unity skills, and hopefully offer something of value back to the community (by sharing my process and results).
Basically, I want to create artwork that reminds of you of old retro games - something that you can look at and think “hey, this reminds of a game I enjoyed when I was younger!”
If I can provoke nostalgia or your curiosity about how you can use Blender, Photoshop, and Unity to create this old-school look in your own projects, then I will have achieved my goal.
THE PROJECT
I thought I’d start with something simple. I love the game “Heavy Rain”, so I decided to recreate its title screen which consists of a ground plane, origami swan, and some rain and mist effects. Here’s what I’ve done so far, and I’ve also included a YouTube video of my project along with a screenshot of the PS4 title screen so you have a comparison:
In order (top to bottom):
- My title screen, as seen within Unity.
- The original title screen from the PS4 version of Heavy Rain.
- A screenshot of how I blocked out the scene in Blender.
- How the scene looks in Unity (after adding visual effects like rain and mist).
My YouTube video shows you how my title screen looks and sounds. I limited the frame rate since older games ran at a lower rate.
The scene itself was fully modelled, UV unwrapped, and textured in Blender. I blocked out the scene and exported it all into Unity. All effects (rain and mist) was added later in Unity.
FEEDBACK
I would love for anyone to give an honest reaction about the work I’ve posted here. What is your gut reaction when you look at this? For example: does anything look distractingly wrong, may it be colour, lighting, composition, the effects, etc. and can you explain how it could possibly be improved?
Any criticism or advise (good or bad) is welcome; I’ll then think about what everyone has said, make changes if anyone has brought up good points, and then post the final art work afterwards in the Finished Projects section (and my social media accounts).
GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY
The post for my finished project will include a link so you can download:
- The Final image and animation.
- All Blender files and assets (such as models, textures, and scenes, etc).
- All Unity files and assets (Unity project files, the final stand-alone build, etc).
I’ll also include:
- A more detailed explanation of the project and a description of my process, complete with screenshots.
WHERE TO FIND ME
You can follow my progress on a few social media accounts. They’re all called RetroLuminance; since my account is relatively new, I can only post two links. However, the main accounts are:
My BlenderArtists account
The YouTube account, linked earlier.
https://twitter.com/RretroLuminance
Thanks for taking a look!
I have a few other projects to show once this one is done!