Project Breakdown
Pantheon
Project in development
Below You Will Find a Breakdown of Select work on the game Pantheon. Specifically, we will look at my contributions relating to the following categories:
Design
Engineering
Shaders & Graphics
DESIGN
Design Pillars
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Design Pillars |
Telekinetic Sandbox
Whereas most games utilize push and pull mechanics for telekinetic abilities, Pantheon features a telekinetic system that lets players directly draw and modify the trajectory and positioning of objects. This approach allows for combat to take on sandbox-like qualities, where both objects and enemies can be thrown, manipulated, and weaponized against each other. The telekinetic system also simplifies input, offering greater precision and control during fights.
Power
Power is a fundamental pillar that serves as the bedrock of Pantheon’s design philosophy. Our goal is to emulate the raw and unbridled power of a cosmic deity. To achieve this we have designed the player as a combat platform that is surgical, forceful, and robust in its application. Through this platform we provide the player with an unparalleled sense of control and maneuverability on the battlefield; where they can employ an aggressive toolkit that allows for them to dictate the terms that combat is fought with and won by.
Intelligent Play
We designed our enemies with two main goals in mind: to counter and neutralize the player's strengths and to actively identify and exploit their vulnerabilities. This is accomplished through a strategic blend of individual and group behaviors that utilize coordination, suppression, and deception to keep the player off balance and on their toes during combat.
Engineering
Below you can find a showcase highlighting some of the main technical contributions I gave to the project.
Advanced AI Behaviors
Employs advanced concepts and systems like contextual decision making to design complex behaviors that counter the player threat in an adaptive, coordinated, and responsive manner. These systems are layered on top of our custom state machine, allowing for rapid modularity and extensive customization of both individual and group enemy AI behaviors.
Custom State Machine
At the heart of our advanced AI system is a custom state machine developed with simplicity and modularity in mind. This framework effectively addresses scalability and flexibility issues, offering a powerful, adaptable, and robust tool allowing us to minimize project complexity while significantly expanding its customizability. In short: it gives us the capacity to push the boundaries where previously deemed unfeasible.
Shaders and Graphics
While tech art is neither my specialty nor the field I hope to work in, I’d still like to highlight some of my work and the subsequent accomplishments that I am very proud of.
Custom Lighting
I used Pantheon as an opportunity to learn how to create and implement shaders. This led to the creation of my own custom lighting solution, a shader that blended banded / stepped lighting with traditional lambert lighting to create a uniquely stylized lighting model. This new lighting model would provide Pantheon with a solid base to build an art direction from, of which my personal work has been infamously lacking (got that designer prototype art aesthetic).
Graphics Programming
Of course, shader magic is only half of what I learned on the tech art side. Some effects, like the pixelation post-process were only achievable through diving deeper into graphics programming. This was achieved by leveraging Unity’s Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP). Here I learned things such as how one goes about creating and injecting render passes, extending and building new post process functionalities, and utilizing screen space shaders and render textures within the graphics pipeline.