File 04's backgrounds have now been modeled!

Here's what I worked on since the last devlog:

• Backgrounds for File 04

To celebrate this milestone, I'm happy to reveal the first official image from File 04:

I actually finished these backgrounds a bit ahead of what I estimated — one of the first times I've overestimated how long something will take! Like I explained last time, I first blocked out all of the backgrounds very roughly — basic cubes, and just some simple walls for buildings. This gave me a starting point for all seven backgrounds. Then I did a detail pass where I added textures, lighting, modeled props and got them to look a bit better. Then I did a "mystery props" pass where I modeled and placed all the specific evidence that was needed for the mystery. Finally, a "dummies" pass where I created and placed all the suspect/victim dummies. By that point, all seven backgrounds were finished.

This is in contrast to my approach with the first two Files — completing entire backgrounds one at a time. I believe this made the process go faster, mostly due to psychological reasons — if you only need to complete 20% of a task, suddenly it seems easier. By breaking up the seven backgrounds into "20% tasks", it lowered the psychological barrier for each background.

But there's another reason this worked, which is that File 04 does not have "one big background" — such as the Grouse Mountain Entrance from File 01, the Ubihard Main Office from File 02, or the Museum from File 03. Those big backgrounds were often bottlenecks because it was hard to see the progress being made on them, due to how much more work they required to finish. So in the future, I will take that into consideration and treat those large backgrounds more like separate rooms, or find a way to make them separate rooms.

Now there's just one bunch of assets left for me to finish: the music. So that's what I'll be tackling next!

Until next time!

— LockedOn.