Mossgrave / Dev log

Dev log 3

Finding the look

We wanted Mossgrave to feel like an MMO you might have played in 2004, seen through a fog that makes everything a little more mysterious. That turned into a short list of rules we now apply to every asset.

Every model starts as a box and gets shaped: tapered, pointed, bevelled. No cylinders, no spheres. Nothing is lit in real time. All the light is painted into the model once, lighter on top and darker underneath, so the world keeps its colour at any hour. The sky is always black, and each region has its own coloured fog that thickens with distance but never fully hides the hills.

Gravekeeper Mossbeard was our test subject. He went from flat colour to softly painted light without gaining a single extra triangle.

Mossbeard before and after his light was painted in. 579 triangles either way.Mossbeard before and after his light was painted in. 579 triangles either way.
Mossbeard before and after his light was painted in. 579 triangles either way.
At work in his graveyard.
At work in his graveyard.

Then we pushed the same rules into bigger scenes: the graveyard at night, and the Dragon Crag at dusk with the Ashmaw Drake in front of its volcano.

The graveyard at night. The lanterns keep burning when everything else goes blue.
The graveyard at night. The lanterns keep burning when everything else goes blue.
The Ashmaw Drake, under 700 triangles, and the Crag behind it.The Ashmaw Drake, under 700 triangles, and the Crag behind it.
The Ashmaw Drake, under 700 triangles, and the Crag behind it.

All of it now lives in one art bible: every colour, triangle budget, fog value and time-of-day key on one page, so the hundredth asset matches the first.