<![CDATA[MORRISON WITCHERY - Game Dev Blog]]>

<![CDATA[MORRISON WITCHERY - Game Dev Blog]]>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:18:30 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Lights, Camera, Beards!]]>Thu, 21 Apr 2016 21:05:40 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/lights-camera-beardsNow we step into the strange land of live-action performances for 3D game play. I know it doesn't seem intuitive to dive back into 2D for character performances. It started as a weird limitation imposed upon us by a client and ended up making a lot of sense for a "camera-on-rails" style game play.

So now it's lights, camera, beards! That's right a big scruffy beard. I actually get in the mix on this one and play a pair of brothers. It took me about three months to grow out this bush and I'm glad to be done with it.

We've attempted to be as authentic to the era as possible. For this western we've targeted the 1860's or so. This included researching bottle types and shapes, using guns that matched (I honestly never knew there was a ram rod revolver) and creating costumes from scratch when needed. We've certainly paid our visits to the antique shops around. Hey, when you're living in the land of western keepsakes (i.e.-Colorado) it's not that hard.

So it's several shoots on the green screen for Jed, Lucky, Casey and others. These performances will be composited and then assembled in a kind of state machine for interaction in 3D. It's a lot like how motion capture performances would be handled only we're using video instead of animation data.

Probably the most enjoyable part is plotting the many ways that a character can die and the prat falls to make it believable. We try to make the deaths seem as responsive as possible by playing out different death sequences triggered by where a character is shot. But be careful that you don't shoot too early or you'll be hanged for murder. To the left you can see a test composite.

Another favorite feature is the opportunity to escape hanging by shooting the hangman's rope before you die. Accidentally or intentionally murder anyone in the game and you'll go to a hanging cut scene. You only get a few moments after the rope yanks taut to save yourself with a skilled, or lucky shot. But make it count because if you nip the rope without cutting it clean, you'll still get to visit Boot Hill.

And just in case you missed our almost complete trailer for the game, here it is in all of its western glory.

]]><![CDATA[Heating Up]]>Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:29:29 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/heating-upI'm having so much fun working with Vitaly to get our saloon built out. Recently, I paid to get some photography time at the Clear Creek History Park in Golden (just down the street). It's this great collection of western cabins that are kept up and are stocked with great western era relics. So I got to drop in a cold snowy day and photoscan several of their furnaces and wood cook stove. I would have like to stay longer and scan a bunch of the available props but I got what I came for.

I processed out the RAW images and threw them into Agisoft Photoscan. Aligned the photos, generated point clouds and then meshed it. I built a rough texture and sent it all over to Vitaly with a handful of the original images. Then he repaired the high poly version and built a low poly version. Baked it all, created LOD's et cetera. And here is the beautiful small furnace asset. This is why I love photoscanned assets and Vitaly's work. :)

We played around with where it will go in the saloon and settled on a central location where it's heating would be most useful (instead of the corner location shown in the images below).

Table & Chairs

But let's be really clear here. Although there are quite a bit of scanned assets involved in this production, Vitaly's artwork is the real star. Here he generously shares his workflow with us via these two "making of" videos. Here he is developing the chairs and tables that will populate our saloon.

He'll create multiple levels of detail for each and also created two versions of this chair.

Piano

Ah, those quintessential western details like the upright piano. Vitaly has done a masterful job of giving all our assets "history" with aging details like the worn and broken keys and the missing cover with it's left over hinge and raw wood joints. There echoes of age all over this piano and it helps us all believe it really lives somewhere in the west and possibly took a bumpy journey to get here.

We are really looking forward to standing in this environment in VR and just drinking in the details. Heck we are really looking forward to interacting with and unfolding story in this environment too! Until, then we'll keep stuffing it with rich details of both beauty and age.

]]><![CDATA[Lights In The Darkness]]>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:53:37 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/lights-in-the-darknessVitaly did a bang up job creating these western oil lamps for our saloon environment. I really wanted something that felt familiar to the genre but didn't look like everything we've seen before.

While we're at it, here's some additional details Vitaly did on that metal around the wick.

Finally those fantastic glass details and the beautiful flame animation and some dust motes. Now, our saloon is getting its mood lighting and atmosphere. It's looking great!

We get a great pan reflector for the lamps that mount on the wooden beams. This will keep them from setting fire to the beams and providing better lighting.

I was able to get a hold of an old looking spittoon and scan it up a bit. It is a rather shiny subject so I didn't get the best of geometry on the funnel. But Vitaly was still able to make sense of it and put together a solid asset.

Time to add some bullet holes to remind us that this is a wild western town.

Now this is looking like our western saloon should look. Ready for performances and bottles to be inserted and for the players to shoot everything up. Bring on the costumes and western jargon.

]]><![CDATA[Fuel for the Fire]]>Fri, 15 Jan 2016 23:05:13 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/fuel-for-the-fireThe interior of the saloon is coming along beautifully. There are lots of wood surfaces and Vitaly's work it just beautiful. The style of the saloon is a bit rustic; not quite as fancy as saloons in those upscale western towns, but still trying.

Here is a quick series of images showing our process from a 3D scan of a subject to game asset.

Here I scanned a great looking western styled, wooden pillar out at Red Rocks Park.

I captured a series of 144 RAW images of the beam. Then processed out the scan in Agisoft Photoscan and then through ZBrush. Until I had a beautiful western styled wooden beam asset.

Vitaly took over from there and converted the scan into a PBR asset for the Unity game engine.
He also reshaped it's height to fit his needs for the interior space.

And here is that earlier view with the pillars added and color adjusted.
This will give a little bit of a lodge feel to the scene.

]]><![CDATA[Boarding Up & Windows]]>Thu, 17 Dec 2015 23:45:11 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/boarding-up-windowsThe exterior of the Saloon is complete! Woohoo! Here are some WIP images showing the building up of the boardwalk outside the building.

And here is the beautiful PBR texturing and geometry build of the exterior windows!

And here is the beautifully completed exterior of the Saloon!!! Pretty excited about this one! Vitaly is such a fantastic artist!!! Really looking forward to getting this whole game together! Now, on to the interior.

]]><![CDATA[Saloon Building]]>Fri, 27 Nov 2015 17:23:03 GMThttps://www.morrisonwitchery.com/game-dev-blog/saloon-buildingOur next game is a Western Saloon bar shoot game. This game is interesting because it is going to be a cross over game. We are developing this for a video wall shooting system but we also intend to deliver this game as a VR 360 game for a system we are trying to develop. At any rate, the fantastic Saloon work by Vitaly is very fun and the coding work already completed by Sven is already awesome! I can't wait to get this one put together. It's going to look great!

Exterior Geometry Build

We'll also be using textures from my Old Well scan. Here is an in development texture without geometry. It is so rewarding to get to put my 3D scans into Vitaly's hands!

The interior bar and cabinet are already completed and have begun the coding process by Sven.

And here is a taste of the interior design work in store.

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