Nightmare Guardians Environments

The in-game environments for Nightmare Guardians were fully illustrated layered matte paintings. The gameplay had a static camera, so we were able to achieve a very fun and polished look without having to model and texture entire 3D scenes. By adding foreground layers we were able to do some simple camera movement with fake parallax to make the scene feel even more immersive. We used light probes scattered throughout the maps to "fake" lighting that matched the hand painted backgrounds. The end result was convincing and the 3D characters felt well integrated into the environments.

At the bottom of the page you'll also find some scenes that were painted to be used in the games UI. Again, they were designed to parallax and scroll side to side, so they were painted with multiple layers that could tile endlessly. The effect made scrolling through the games UI feel really fun.

These pieces were all painted by external artists and my direction was given by paintover and extensive written notes.