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We currently work on our art with our two talented artists team, thus, and till the concept art and style frames will be ready we'll represent our art with the same references our artist work with - and will update as soon as the art will be done
Under Control is a VR narrative-based game, in which the user embodies an officer that his mind inserted into a new and improved hybrid body. while learning to control his new body, the officer (and the user) discover the surprising and suspicious circumstances that brought his mind into this new body.
Our Style
The visual style of the project is a reflection of our narrative and an expansion of our warning sign message. the entire physical environment of the project, the police station, Doctor John's laboratory, and the interrogation room, are all need to represent the idea of technology that tack over control.
The Overall Style
In the course of the project officer Grey Anderton and the user itself are both enter into a simulation, one in a new body and the other in a virtual reality headset - our style aspire to represent that situation. thus, we choose not to chase after a perfect mimicry of realism, and also not sticks to the classic Sci-Fi visual style. in many aspects of the project, Grey and the user are both also under a constant testing state, our style and our environment reflect that aspect with a sense of "constant watching" and an experiment-like atmosphere.
level of details and style references
test/experiment like environments, hand-painted textures
The visual part of our experience is assembled from two distinguished styles: one more mechanic, clean and sharp in his essence, and another very abstract one.
while the first style embodies the physical world, the police station, the laboratory, and the interrogation room, the second represents Grey's void of consciousness, and the need to represent partial memories, moments, feelings, and non-linearity.
physical visual style reference
clean and sharp lines
abstract visual style refernce
abstract environment
Overall Style
The Environment
Our project environment is all an indoor one, as the narrative takes place in the central police station. our overall main visual style is divided between John's laboratory, Tim's interrogation room, and the rest of the station. while most of the police station design builds mostly on clean straight lines, with white, grey, and blue color pallet, metallic and reflective surfaces and clear open spaces, the design of the laboratory and the interrogation room take a bit off from the main design guidelines to emphasis their unique character.
general color pallets reference
general police station reference
metallic and reflective surfaces
John's Laboratory
John's Laboratory is an extension of John's work and a manifestation of his personal attitude and stands about the technology he develops in his Hybrid Body Program. while the laboratory is part of the police station, it's mostly John's place. the design of the laboratory space is a big open neat space, with a high ceiling and a lot of equipment and testing stations. the lab design is an extreme take of the overall station design - white and reflective metal are the dominant colors and materials, and everything feels very cubical shaped.
john's laboratory's refernces
dominant white color, high ceiling
3D Laboratory Mocap
The laboratory features a cloning station, with a surgery area and two clone pods, a main work station - John's work station, a bio-chemistry station, with big library cabinets, and a special body calibration station, that is a small and claustrophobic place at the end of the lab. the laboratory calibration station plays a big part in the narrative, as the user (and Grey) is inserted inside to calibrates his new hybrid body, in a series of test John perform on him. that part of the experience used as an introductory stage of our special interaction system of the project.
laboratory spce illustrator plan
calibration station table reference
metallic table with hidden drawers
laboratory original concept art
by: Nuri Levi, Adla Bessler & Itai Levy
the interrogation room
The interrogation room plays an enormous part in the narrative experience, inside ti the grate turning point is come to happen, the place where the user (with Grey) see, for the first time the full story picture, and understands the whole course of the past events. for that, the main features of the room space are the heavy haze, the strong dark colors, and the harsh and reversed lithing, that comes mostly from the bottom part of the room.
As Tim's character, the interrogation room is something that belongs to the past, is no in common or daily use and it looks almost like somebody forgot to change it when the station was built or renovated. it located at the far end of the station and characters with the blue-gray colors, of metal elements and concrete walls. on the backroom wall, there's also a big whid black double-sided window.
interrogation room space
interrogation room space from "look and feel demo". designed based on the police station floor plans
interrogation room reference
an old small hazy structure, with blue dominant colors
interrogation room space
interrogation room illustrator plan
interrogation room refernce
small space, concrete walls, and floor lithing
ENVIRONMENT
ABSTRACT
Grey's conciseness void
Grey's conciseness void is an abstract place, a representation of his unconscious, his thoughts, his emotional stats, and his partial memories. the style and design of those elements of Grey are come to express by using abstract and half-complete characters and stages - just like his partial memory. we use dark background against contrasting colors, and use those colors to highlight the important or most dominant elements in those scenes. we also use more "realistic" reference elements in those scenes, like character's voices and specific character's objects or symbols. the more "realistic" elements use as the more clear parts of the memories, and as hits or puzzle pieces for the user to connect to understands the narrative story.
abstract void reference
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central focus area within black background void
combination of abstract environment style with realistic characters
abstract void reference
abstract characters distinguished from a monochromatic backgroun by dominant color
at those flashback scenes, we refer to the user (or Grey) as an observer of his old memories, re-experience them, but also stand and observe from a spectator position. to create that effect we chose to represent the user's avatar outlines only and to create a slow-motion feel, to treat the memory like a frame, picture, or pre-recorded material.
abstract player reference
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outlied avatar reference
CHARACTERS
The Characters
Grey Anderton
Grey Anderton is the main project character and also the user's character, his mind is inserted into a new bio-synthetic body that has various physical enhancements and modifications. the new body base is built in grey's image but integrated with hi-tech biotechnological technology.
Before Grey joined the Hybrid Body Program and inserted into the synthetic body he was already a highly decorated officer, so he has a strong build-up tactical body type and he is in an outsending physical shape.
grey's old body desing
designed and illustrated by Nuri Levi
The hybrid body itself looks exactly like Grey's original body but embedded with some minor mechanical parts and an electro-transmissive barcode-like tattoos. the mechanical parts and the electro-transmissive tattoos react when the body itself takes over control.
grey's old body 3D model reference
muscular body type, hand-painted texture style
The hybrid body itself looks exactly like Grey's original body but embedded with some minor mechanical parts and an electro-transmissive barcode-like tattoos. the mechanical parts and the electro-transmissive tattoos react when the body itself takes over control.
grey's hybrid body references
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electro-transmissive tattoos and minimal mechanic parts
In addition to skin-visible changes, Grey's body also equipped with fast-process software that expresses itself as a HUD UI on Grey's point of view (or the player's headset screen). when Grey's mind trance out into a flashback scene the HUD are affected and react in a malfunction visuality.
hybrid body's point of view
normal HUD display
player without control
fade to flashback
Doctor John Danowere
Doctor John Danowere, is the lead scientist of the Hybrid Body police program. he is about 50 years old and loves to work by himself, in his large spaced laboratory. John, as a professional, is always about his work, he walks around with his white lab coat, his scientist badge, and his data tablet.
john character reference
about 50 years old
labcoat
John can be quite egoistic and self-centered, he's sure that his scientific and moral ways are the only ways to execute the Hybrid Body Program, and he can also become egomaniacal at some sensitive points around different aspects of the program. John tries to affect those who surround him, to act according to his visions and beliefs. John actually succeeded to affect not only the police forces officers, but also the police station itself, its style, and design.
Tim Jason
The detainee Tim Jason, once was a highly decorated officer at the Hybrid Body program, but now a rebel and a protestor against it. Tim is smart and sharp, he has become a manipulator and tries to affect Anderton's mind. as a manipulator Tim's body language is very confident and relaxed, even when his hands are cuffed out.
Tim is a bit messy, his body has dirt marks from the struggle of his arrest. he's wearing rebel-like clothes, a heavy jacket, with a human symbol pin.
Tim character reference
detainee
messy from fighting
PROCESS
The Process
The visual design process goes all the way from backing down the script to the 3D models. we start by Imagine of the narrative world, the atmosphere, the enjoinment, the colors, and the characters. after we have everything written down in the script we proceed with gathering and collecting references, from all over the interweb.
after we have enough references and a solid base vision we try to brack everything into feels and looks - the environment space, the width of the room and the hallways, the heights of the ceilings. at this point, we test our environment in a 3D space and with the VR headset.
Simulatniesly we work with our two-people art team and provide theme our base visual vision, then, they create our concept art and style frames. at the end of this stage, we finish up with the 2D art of our project.
We take the 2D art and start 3D modeling it, and parallel we search the web, through numerous sources, 3D art that fits our wold visual design. every already-mad model we find helps us to save modeling time and resources, that we better need for our animation stages.
In the end, with a 3D asset stock we created, we arrange everything at his scene place (inside unity), and after everything is standing in ti's destined position we do additional lithing and texturing work - till the scene is ready to play.
As for now, we're in the middle of the process, you can find content updates of our work in progress in our Dev Log & Updates sections.
MINI GALLERY
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