Kafrene Look Development

Bitreactor - Senior Environment Artist, (2023)

I briefly spent time at Bitreactor studio before being laid off for (un)known reasons. I did, however think that it was interesting to see the main holotable that I had made very early on in preproduction (with virtually no changes from what I could tell when I saw the release trailer.)

Kafrene was one of the first things I was tasked with in early preproduction. It was a space that ended up serving to be a test bed for many functions within the game. It was ultimately only used for early internal demo's & systems testing. The first area to tackle was a space for a holotable where characters would interact with a diegetic UI. So, starting from a blank level I modeled a temporary proxy table so designers and engineers had something to work with for testing their own systems. From there I started blocking in areas outwardly to frame a space for UI and eventual animations to give the space a lived in ambiance. I've always felt one of my strengths in environments are neutral, straight angle shots - so having the freedom to build this way was a plus.

After blocking out enough for other departments to work with, I began the look development based on found reference and started with a basic wall asset, to nail down scale, proportions, materials, textures, lighting and just trying to get a general vibe for the tone of the game. When I was somewhat happy with the prototyping it was very rinse & repeat on further building out assets, materials, textures, lighting & working with downstream teams including animation, cinematics, UI, design, lighting, technical, etc. While I was there, I felt I left a lasting impression with bringing the final shipped game's darker tone to light early on in preproduction.

*The below shots, are not official images from Bitreactor, but old screenshots I found and felt was an accurate portrayal of my process of blocking in scenes through to a more finished state during preproduction. Unfortunately I lost many of the final polished images due to a hardware failure, so the below images are all I was able to salvage from an unaffected folder. They are mostly raw high res screenshots directly out of Unreal where I was responsible for most, if not all, of the scene from blockout, composition, modeling, materials, and first pass lighting as well as developing in-engine pipelines/workflows. As these are unofficial and the game already released, these are displayed under my discretion to show my general workflow.