Splines, Splines, Wonderful Splines

Let me just say this: My tech artist is wonderful. Our game is exploration based, which means lots of environments. So what did he do? He created what we call the Spline Tool.

The tool he made is amazing. You create a spline with two nodes. You can change the model around each node individually, and have a default model for when you create new nodes. Now you just make new nodes, move them around, stretch them out and stuff, and the walls of the environment are automatically made based on what model you have each node being. It's a fantastic way to make various tubes and hallways, and you can even fatten things up into rooms. With just a few clicks, we can make entire playspaces.

Now, we still have to populate these play spaces, but our art style lends itself to rapidly generating new assets, and can of course reuse stuff.

It's really just phenomenal. In a single morning, I was able to make a passage to a room with enemies that you had to cross on a bridge made of bone, leading to a vertical tunnel you had to platform up using bone spurs as platforms, ending in a giant room. It was just for a test, but it was amazing. We'll be able to have branching paths as well shortly, if it's not already in the tool and I just haven't seen it yet.