Not knowing what to do? Just follow the highlight

In a puzzle game is important to communicate with the player. So, the player will know what things in your surrounding you can interact with or even what to do. For Newt, we decide to communicate with the player using highlighting objects.

When brainstorming the idea to include object highlighting, there are a few things we had to consider and plan. What color should the highlight be? Will the highlight be activated automatically, or will the player activate them? Which character will have which color?

In the initial creation of the material for the highlight we created different material which each one will have different colors displaying. This will be applied to different objects with the corresponding color. For this first version we use a material that will be displaying two colors simulation that is blinking. Using a timer so they light up and then change to the other color. Now, in this way using different materials for each color is not very efficient since the process is the same. Sine we were using one material to display two colors only for one object.

After analyzing an effective way to implement the highlight we decide that create only one material that this material will be able to display different colors. This material, instead of only have two color is adaptable to include as many colors as we want. One difference from the first idea of highlight is that his will display only one color and will turn on and off. In this way we can still simulating the blink.

For the creating of the material, we want that this color be an outline so does not cover the object by a solid color. For one good reason is to not cover the texture or color of the object. Since we do not want the color of the highlight to cover the object, we decide to have an outline as a highlight. Also, we need the outline be visible for the player in any direction that is facing the object. Using the Post Process volume this will help to display the color on the object.

But this is not the end of the highlight. Now the implementation on each object and when or to who this highlight will be trigger. This will be an important aspect of the game and need to be very well implement it. This will help the player to know with what or when to interact with objects in the game. So, if you are lost, just follow the highlight.

Rodger Lugo Cruz

Gameplay Engineer