Testing environments

The only real way to test is to throw the maps back into playtests and performance benchmarking as soon as possible. After the art team cycles on maps for a while, they go right back into the fire, so to speak. Usually, because we do have special case blueprints or shader features for a given lookset, these have to be shored up first. This doesn’t mean they are cut, they are just assessed to find any costly instructions that could be reduced.

The art and tech teams have a very prescribed checklist installed into the pipeline to ensure high fps. We do optimizations for content at large, trying hard to not reduce or cut features for console only, as we want the product to look consistently great across all platforms.

This optimization pipeline consists of reducing geometry in scenes via traditional LOD’s, which we do through an Unreal integration of Simplygon. We look at draw calls as well, which is dictated in-part by how many materials are being called to a specific asset. If an asset has a lot of material IDs, and the asset is used several thousand times, it’s a good candidate for consolidating those IDs as much as possible. Unreal does a great job of eating through triangles, but draw call reduction is something that developers need to understand and be aware of.

Beyond consolidating triangles and material IDs, we simplify collision as much as possible. Foreground elements, especially assets that are used a lot, have as few collision hulls as possible in order to ensure that physics checks aren’t weighing down the CPU. Background elements have collision turned off entirely, as players can’t get to them anyway.

When we build maps with reuse, and an understanding of draw call limits, straight up cutting assets is rare, if not unheard of. Good planning means that we get to see the vision through with confidence that the end users will experience it as intended.

Skyboxes

Skies in Lawbreakers are a mix of 3D assets and 2D elements. Generally, we have a good idea at the outset what the primary vistas will contain. Many of our maps are coastal, so we have a set, main ‘composition’ to work with.

We lay in the 3D elements first, as these tend to be more malleable; it’s far easier to scale or rotate a mesh than it is to change an entire matte painting. Once we’re happy with the overall composition, our skybox artist, Nick Peterson, runs with the art direction from there. Nick adds an insane amount of detail; trails in the skies, satellites, light pollution, and so on, to the point that you can stop and look at the skybox and really understand the story behind the setting you’re in (assuming you don’t get gibbed first).

Details are great, but Nick also manages the big picture time of day in a number of iterative passes. Additive cloud meshes and sky textures that he assembles in game are built to work harmoniously with the lighting and existing 3D elements. The shaders that control clouds, for example have several emissive and texture settings so that we can have very fine control over levels and colors, allowing them to meld with the rest of the skies correctly. His cloud creation techniques are extensive enough to require an entire article in and of itself; suffice to say, he is very thorough, and has an excellent pipeline installed for achieving amazing results. Nick and Jonathan work to ensure that lighting and skies are consistent with the overall direction for how a map should ‘feel’, and those iterations go on as long as is necessary.

Once the sky textures are created, additive elements tuned, and lighting set, we work to soften the results. Post and fog are helpful in tying the background to the foreground, but we look at the elements as a whole and try to find what catches the eye as too extreme. Much of this final polish is opened up to feedback from the other artists on the team, so we can quickly identify issues from multiple points of view. The skybox results speak for themselves, and a big test is how well they hold up over time. After literally years of playing Lawbreakers, I still find myself staring at some of the skies that the team was able to pull off.