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Lectures
CALLUM TAI
Cinematic Designer
Scott Pilgrim Apartment Scene
This piece was completed to fulfil the brief for a solo 3DCG university module.
The scene is intended to be a small-scale hub level, that the player is able to spend time in between battles and missions.
Below are the final shots of the project, combined with the wireframes, as well as some edits to root the scene to the source material.
Platform: Windows PC
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Tools Used: Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Bitmap2Material, Photoshop, Maya
This scene is a recreation of the apartment inhabited by Scott Pilgrim and Wallace Wells in Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, with the intention of making it feel like a living space for the
characters if they were playable in a 3rd person RPG similar to Persona 5.
A report of the design process, including project references, is available here.
The apartment acts as a small, but focused, hub location, where the player can organise fights through the computer, rest from their previous fights using the bed and shower, prepare food that can assist them during their fights, or even in the social aspect, tidy their room to improve their resistances, or pass time by watching TV or playing mini-games on the games consoles available. As the game progresses, the player can upgrade their apartment through different purchases.
Spawn Point: The player spawns in the double bed in the room after each fight. They will look progressively less exhausted each time, and be faster to wake up, but the amount of visible damage will be greater.
Health Recovery: If the player wishes to focus on health recovery, they may spend it in their bed, which will help increase their health, alongside other benefits.
Special Recovery: The player may shower to spend their time on special recovery, allowing them to cast more special moves in their next fight.
Improve Stats: Using the kitchen allows the player to cook food that will help them during their fights. According to the difficulty of the dish, their time management and reflexes will be tested, with tasks needed to be completed within a time limit, and knowledge checks along the way.
Tidy Space: Tidying the room also works in a similar way to improving stats, but rather than increasing stats, tidying will allow the player to have resistances to mental attacks. If the player doesn’t regularly tidy, the mess will become more difficult to tidy, as it grows when neglected.
Leave to Purchase Upgrades: The player is able to leave the apartment and purchase new upgrades for the other activities. Whilst they are out there is a chance that they will encounter other characters and be given the option of improving their relationship outside of the standard social breaks within the game.
Mission Start: From the computer, the player can organise and schedule fights, including the seven main boss fights. They can, on the days where they haven’t organised a fight, organise social events. As time progresses, the main bosses will get more powerful, so a balance has to be struck between preparation, and not letting the boss get too powerful.