Office Den Level Design: Finishing Touches
As the final article in the Office Den Level design set, I will go over the post-processing and optimization, and a little bonus part on lighting particle systems. Since I’ve previously discussed the processes used in this article, this will be written as a level design diary rather than a tutorial.
Objective: Sharing my thought process behind optimizing my scene and adding post-processing effects to bring it all together.
Table of Contents
· Optimization
· Post-Processing
· Lighting the Fireplace
· The Result
You can catch up with the full Office Den article set here:
Optimization
To optimize the visuals in my scene I began by adding anti-aliasing so that any jagged edges would smooth over. This can be added via the Main Camera’s Rending tab. The option varies, my project I am using Fast Approximate Anti-aliasing(FXAA) which is an effective selection for me at the moment.
Before Anti-aliasing
After Anti-aliasing
The next addition to optimizing my project was the use of occlusion culling which greatly improves performance by being intelligently selectable with render priority.
Post-Processing
After running a check on the level performance, it’s time to go over visual optimization. To achieve the best possible result, I tasked the Global Volume with post-processing overrides to enhance the warm color palettes and the overall cozy ambiance I was going for.
- Vignette: The Vignette override adds a dark border around the scene.
By using the vignette override, you can draw attention to the center of your scene or image. This draw effect is caused by darkening the edges and therefore creating a lighting contrast with the center. In games, light is usually used to guide players to points of interest, making this an effective technique to consider when planning out level pathing and aesthetics.
- Film Grain: Although more of an aesthetic choice than one with technical importance, film grain has become one of the most used post-processing effects in the gaming industry. This gives a classic sort of top-film quality feels to your game. I wasn’t very generous with my appliance of it, but it still added flavor to my scene.
- Lift, Gamma, Gain: This override is one of my favorite post-processing effects to play around with. I highly suggest always having a check-in with this override before finalizing your projects. This three-way color grading tool allows you to control the dark tones, mid tones, and highlights(in that order from left to right), to really enhance the color theme of your scene and/or correct tones and lighting.
Lighting the Fireplace
The final piece I worked on was the fireplace, I was under the impression that this would be a lengthier process but as it turns out, I simply needed to enable lighting for my particle system from Filebase.
After enabling that, I need to make a point light prefab so that whenever the particles spawn, they have an innate light source to them.
The Result
