Concerning Building Blocks, and Credit Due

The navigable parts of levels in Damnation were built primarily out of what we called “building blocks,” which were architectural pieces that could be snapped together to create large structures. A good example would be a square wall piece snapped next to a similar wall with a window in it, next to a broken jagged wall, and modules of archways with vaulted ceilings placed around them. There were many building blocks in each “set,” particularly since we had several broken versions of each original whole piece.

In each of the “sets” shown below, I modeled and textured what we called the “keystone assets.” These were the first assets built in a set, usually consisting of the wall, window, door, floor/ceiling, one roof type, a handful of broken variants of those keystones, and sometimes other pieces. Then our excellent outsource art team, Liquid Development, used those as visual reference, and sometimes direct texture source, for creating all the other building blocks in the world. They also created most of the non-navigable, decorative assets, like statues, plants, and wall hangings. The level designers used all of these, together with my keystone assets, to build the environments shown.

Because this was such a collaborative effort, it’s very hard to identify what in each shot was created by my own hand, and what was the work of other people. I will try to summarize it with each shot.

Arrowtree Set

In this set of brick and crumbling stone, I created the base walls, vaulted ceiling (with built-in pillars), floors, open windows, shuttered windows, doors, roof, and a few broken versions of things.

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Old West Set

My keystone assets for this wooden set included walls, windows, doors, a roof/ceiling, floors, railings, and a few broken variants.

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Spanish Set

This set is related to the Arrowtree set shown above. They shared a great deal of the same geometry, with much of the difference being texture changes. I built the base walls, vaulted ceiling (with built-in pillars), floors, open windows, doors, roof, and a few broken versions of things.

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Tribal Set

The keystones for this set included walls, window, door, floor/ceiling, railing, corner column, wooden jousts, ladders, stairs, and some broken versions.

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Factory Set

Keystones for this set of brick and metal included walls, windows, doors, scaffolding, complex pipe networks, buttresses, large blocks of lit windows, and a rectangular engine with dials and pipes that can be used like a wall.

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All art from Damnation is Copyright 2004-2009 Blue Omega Entertainment.