Outline and toon shader by me, Realtime in Unreal Engine
Model by Laura Peltomaki
Outline and toon shader in realtime environment (Unreal Engine), set dressing and lighting by me
One of the largest challenges I faced during my time at Vela Games was within the last 8 months. Unfortunately Vela was forced to make 75 percent of the team redundant which meant the art team went from 16 of some of the best in the industry, down to just me. This was compounded by the fact that Vela, after a significant shift in game direction, still had big aspirations and was continuing the process of attempting to land a publishing deal that would help us ship this game.
We had received some feedback that our game looked similar to League of Legends, so with the new more narrative focused, roguelike ARPG, gameplay direction, I saw this as an opportunity to do something a little different with the style and set ourselves apart a bit more from League. This had to be something we could do as a post process because we didn't have the time or manpower (remember it's just me now) to go over every asset we had made to adjust the style. So after a deep dive into many tutorials I landed on a outlined toon shader post process that has the added benefit of allowing us to use assets that were a bit more rough around the edges while adding more visual cohesion to the game.