Serena


Brief

We were invited to join a collective of leading indie adventure game developers -- including Senscape, CBE Software, Infamous Quests, and Guys from Andromeda -- to help create the first-person horror adventure, Serena.

Process

Our role was to create various 3D art assets for the game. We modeled, UV mapped, and textured more than a dozen objects that were used in the final game.

Result

Serena was released for Windows, Linux, and OS X. True PC Gaming called it “a piece of adventure gaming history”. IndieGames.com described it as “one of the few actually touching horror games I have ever played”. Serena has more than 40,000 downloads on Steam.

  • Image
  • Image Plates:  For these, we built a simple kit: Three plate models (small, medium, large) and a trio of sample textures. The UV setup allowed all 3 models to use the same texture template for quick and easy experiments in the scene.
  • Image Wine bottle:  In addition to supplying UV texture templates, we designed placeholder "Chateau Serena" labels just for fun. The team liked them, and this model went into the game as-is. There's even a dedicated zoom to allow curious players to read the text.
  • Image Small flower vase:  As with the other models, we supplied both a UV template and sample textures. In this case, a bit of grunge was added to the flower texture for the final version that appears in the game.
  • Image Pill bottle:  We weren't sure if this was going to be a hero object in the game. Just to be safe, we took the extra step to make the bottle semi-transparent, then created pills and ran a quick dynamics simulation to properly set them in the container.
  • Image Wine glasses:  Everything in Serena is pre-rendered. Although the final renderings for the game would be done elsewhere, we presented them as realistically as possible for proofing/approvals.