The “Three S’s” of virtual world design
Last month saw our 10 year anniversary; that’s a lot of years creating virtual worlds! Since we started we’ve designed our fair share of rooms. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, it’s not to ignore the “Three S’s” of virtual world design:
- Software: modelling a room in 3D software (we use Maya) simply takes longer than drawing a room into Flash or Illustrator, often 2 to 3 times longer! Compositing a room out of textures in photoshop falls somewhere between the two.
- Style: buildings are quicker to model and quicker to draw than organic shapes. The Real Life city shown below was far quicker to create because the shapes are geometric, where as the Cartoon Network island took far longer.
- Size: simply, the larger the room the greater the production time.
In nearly all cases a room needs 1 to 2 days of concept development, and between 0.25 and 2 days of integration into the world. But it’s the Three S’s that really determine how much work a room will take!
We’ve listed a six example rooms that illustrate the “Three S’s” at work.
Cartoon Network – 2 days concept development – 10 days production – 2 day integration – download
Real Life – 2 days concept development – 5 days production – 1 day integration – download
Real Madrid – 1 days concept development – 10 days production – 2 day integration – download
Cartoon Network – 3 days concept development – 20 days production – 2 day integration – download
Demo – 1 days concept development – 4 days production – 0.25 day integration – download
Thumbworld – 2 days concept development – 3 days production – 0.25 day integration – download
Matthew Warneford
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