02 Jul Momonga Monday: The Making Of Panda’s Challenge

Howdy folks! Recently we have covered the history of Panda, your mentor. He is a funny old chap with a bamboo stick and a herb pouch. He saved Momo from the owl raid and healed him – something any panda herbalist would do.

This week I am taking you on a tour into Panda’s Sanctuary, the place where you get your training in the game. It is a lush, dream-like environment, up high in the clouds.

You probably remember the concept art for this level from a couple of weeks ago:

Now that the level is done, have a look at this image:

It is a screenshot taken from the actual game, but from a custom point of view. Not bad for an iPhone game, right?

This area is the first of three stages for this level. The concept art showed the third stage, so the concept art and 3D art are slightly different.

Here is the same area with wireframes, taken from a different angle. We try to keep the triangle count low, as this is bad for performance. It is a balancing act between making the scene look good, and making the scene run smoothly.

And when we dive a bit deeper, here is the environment without textures:

If you did not see any difference, that is correct. Apart from some minor details and lightmaps, we do not use any textures at all. Most mobile devices don’t handle texture memory well, and with all the loading times and slowdowns we figured we would give vertex colors a shot. So all the colors you see in the scene above are painted right onto the vertex points of the models. The lightmap handles the shadows, and it looks pretty sharp.

Here’s a closeup of Panda, including wireframes. The green lines are the collision models. These are used to detect if something hit Panda or his stick.

What do you think? Did you like the concept art better or the final result? Let us know in the comments!

Cheers,
-Derk