You Look Smashing: The Procedural Art Direction of We Happy Few

[Music] Everybody, uh, my name is Whitney Clayton and I'm the art director at Compulsion Games. And, um, my talk is about how we created the art direction for We Happy Few and how we realized this art direction uh, with our procedural generation technology. Uh, oh, sorry. Okay. Um, so We Happy Few is a first-p person roglike survival game. Uh, it's set in 1960s dystopian England, and it's about, um, this society, uh, the Society of Wellington Wells, and they're addicted to this drug called joy. And they take this drug in order to forget this terrible thing they did during World War II, but also to be happy all the time. So, you play a downer, so somebody who has willingly gone off of your joy. Um, and as a downer, you're a threat to the society. So your objective is to survive long enough to escape but also to understand kind of your role in the society and how it got to where it is.

Um we happy few happens to be procedural. So for us this means that each time you play the game the road layout is different, the streets are different and where kind of the gameplay locations are all different. Um but before I get into that I'll just give you a little background about myself. Um, before I was an art director, I was a concept artist. And before I was concept artist, I was studying painting in university. So, I like art and I don't like math. And when the studio head asked me um how I felt about doing a procedural game, I was like, "Sounds great." Um, because I had no idea what he was talking about. Um, and uh, the whole thing has been way more challenging than I could have imagined. But we've come a long way and it's been really exciting and interesting process. Um so creating a rich and expressive art direction is challenging enough. Uh we have our own artistic rules to consider. So um design, composition, lighting, um

all of that. Um but with a procedural system, everything is 100 times harder. And that is because it puts constraints on the artist's tools. So one of our biggest constraints is environmental composition. So here you'll see um a bunch of buildings lined up, but there's this big random gap in between the buildings. And if this was a handcrafted area, we definitely wouldn't leave this gap there. But this was a problem with the system, and we had to live with this visually for a long time, which was pretty painful considering that if we were building this by hand, we would just close this gap. Um it's also experimental, this technology. Um, so there it sometimes it feels like it has a mind of its own. So this was a bug that we had for a while where five buildings were showing up in a row. And again, this if we were handcrafting the space, we definitely wouldn't do this. Um, and it's not until we play test the heck out of this game that we uh find issues like this. Um, but this is where we are now.

Uh, so it's taken a long time to get here, both on the art and tech side. Um, but we've learned a lot. uh and it's really exciting to see it coming together. So in this talk I'm going to go over pre- pre-production. So how we kind of came up with the core themes uh for this game and how this led to our choice in setting uh pre-production. So how we took this setting and created our own unique world from this and production so how we realized this world with the procedural generation system. Uh so very early on in the project um there were a few key concepts we knew we wanted for the next game. Um these were kind of concepts that we would use to build kind of the building blocks of our foundation. So we knew we wanted to try to do a procedural game. Uh our first game is called Contrast and it was a handcrafted game and after about 2 and 1/2 years of production we had a game that was about 4 hours long and players

were just blowing through it. Um, so we knew we wanted to make a larger, richer environment um, with more that would encourage exploration. Uh, but we had the same size indie team. Um, we also had some very strong tech minds on the team. So we thought that if we could pull off procedural generation, uh, it would be worth the risk. Uh, we knew we also wanted to try to do a survival game. It seemed to work well with the concept of procedural generation because you you die a lot. Um but also um we just have a fondness for survival games. Uh an interesting we thought an interesting take on a survival game could be urban survival. So if you're surviving in a city rather than in a wilderness setting. Um and this would lend itself to kind of unique threats and challenges. So if you're surviving in a urban environment, your biggest threat would be the society itself. Um, so we thought it was really interesting this idea that you are kind of this sane

outsider in this obscure world where you have to learn the rules of this world in order to um blend in and conform to this society. Oops, sorry. Uh, we also like the idea of um Oh, we also like the idea of uh sorry, my timer stopped working. So, um of doing a dystopian alternate history. So, um uh we love the idea of doing a a dystopian. So, where one event changes the course of history and creates kind of a parallel history. um with its own unique rules. Um doing a dystopia seemed exciting because it would lend itself uh for us to be creative and kind of create this fantasy world. Um but we also like the idea of working from history. Uh I personally like this a lot because um I

like building off of um material from history. I think it gives us kind of a lot of interesting material to work off from. Um, but we didn't want to do a sort of bleak authoritarian uh dystopian one where people are wearing like worksuits and marching around. Um, because this has been done before. Um, I also didn't want to necessarily be in a world where it's very bleak and depressing. So, we thought it would be much more interesting to do something more like Brave New World. Um, maybe it's a it's a dec a society that's kind of done this to themselves. Um, it's kind of ambiguous whether it's a dystopia or a utopia. And Brave New World is like much more stylish than uh 1984. Um, this is what inspired the idea that maybe this society is kind of repressed by its own happiness. Um, which kind of led to the the idea of the mask. So the mask is

kind of our one of our most iconic elements for the game. Um this was the first concept I did for the game. Um I was really trying to get this feeling of um somebody who's repressed by their own happiness um or maybe conforming to a world where happiness is very valuable. Um, so I was designing the mask to be kind of like to look like the person's face, but it pushes the corners of their mouth up into a smile. And I was trying to get this kind of contrast between the look in this person's eyes and the smile on their face and kind of give them this sense of kind of obliviousness or like running on autopilot. Um, but it turns out that this actually existed. So, um, in Budapest after World War I, there were these people and they called themselves the Society of Smiles. And, um, they made these super terrifying masks to try to motivate each other to be happy. And

I have no idea what they were thinking cuz these are horrifying. Um, and I think they're way less convincing than our masks. But, so it happened in real life, but we didn't know that. Um so after deciding on these early concepts um I knew we needed to kind of pull core themes that we could use to inspire what our setting would be. Um doing this is important because it creates a really clear foundation and something that we can always go back and look at um and refer to. So these core themes were uh conformity. So this is a place where everyone um cares about fitting in and adhering to social rules. uh paranoia and suspicion. Uh we wanted the player to be the only kind of sane outsider in this suspiciously perfect place. Uh and to give you a sense of um paranoia when you're playing that you will be caught as that outsider and a

feeling of suspicion from the people around you that maybe you don't blend into this world or you're not part of this world. Uh happiness. So this is a place that values happiness above everything else. and denial. So, this their uh obsession with happiness um is causing their society to crumble apart and they're kind of in denial of the fact that this is um because of their own their own choices that they've made. They're kind of being willfully oblivious of the fact that this is a collapsing society. So, all of this led to Britain in the 60s. Um, uh, this, uh, seemed to fit all these settings pretty well. Uh, it's a very kind of fun and iconic setting. Um, and I'll just tell you a little bit about how we came to this conclusion. So, uh, when I was thinking about a place that kind of values appearance in society, I was reminded of

this show that I grew up watching called Keeping of Appearances. I don't know if anyone has seen this show. Um, but it's about a woman and her name is Highinth Bucket, but she tells everyone it's bouquet and she's from a lower working-class family. Um, but she lives in this upper middle class neighborhood and she's determined to prove to her neighbors that she's part of the upper middle class. So, it's all about rules and etiquette and appearance in society. So, this was actually the first inspiration for the setting. So, people are like, "Oh, were you inspired by Bioshock?" It was actually this show. Um, and then I was reminded of uh Hot Fuzz. Um, so we knew we wanted uh you to be this kind of sane outsider in this suspiciously perfect place and that's pretty much exactly what this um movie is about. So, it's about this cop and he goes to this very quaint, perfect English town and people are disappearing and uh he starts to wonder what's going on and then they become suspicious of

him figuring it out. And this idea of kind of a a village or a small English town that's perfect, but it has like a deep secret. Um, this is a pretty common theme in British media. So, the prisoner is another example, and that's something we've pulled from a lot. There's also an episode of The Avengers that touches on this subject. So, Britain seems like a good choice. Um, so now we have to pick a decade. And, uh, if we're going to choose a decade that symbolizes happiness, uh, the 60s is an obvious choice. So, Winston Churchill had died and he had marked the end of this kind of war torn area that was ruled by the upper class. And Harold Wilson became uh, prime minister and he was all about change and reform and progress. Um, and so there were a lot of great kind of social reforms that happened at this time, but the kind of Austin powers swinging 60s that we think of was really only in a small part of London called Carnneby Street. Um, so England wanted to kind of

project this idea that that's what England was about, but really most of England was stuck in the ' 50s. Um however because of this kind of commercialization of pop culture such as the Beatles um there was this social shift in values where people all of a sudden started caring about image and fashion and hedonism more than they had before. Um, and then modernism, which is kind of the key aesthetic movement of the 50s and 60s. And we like the idea that our society is kind of rejecting their history and rejecting their environment for this kind of delusional idea of um their utopia. And that's very similar to the modernist movement, which was kind of a rejection of history and um the environment for this fantastical um vision of the future. And this um was inspired by technological progress and affected everything from design and fashion. Um but one of the most obvious examples is brutalist architecture. So you had kind of um

architects plowing down historic town centers and building these giant um space age buildings right surrounded by old tutor buildings. uh and they weren't designed to help people or to be comfortable but under this kind of fantasy that um houses are machines for living in. So this very kind of delusional idea of what the future should be that's very disconnected from reality. So this seemed to fit the dystopia that we wanted to explore. Um so 60s in England seems like a good choice. Uh at this point we all start brainstorming. So um our narrative narrative director goes off and crafts this very elaborate backstory of what our world's going to be. Uh the designers start thinking of mechanics. Um the uh programmers start working on the generation system and I started concepting. Uh, so this was the first concept I did for the game and or for

based off of these the first kind of environmental concept and I was really trying to get this feeling of an oldworld England with this positive regime of happiness blatantly kind of layered on top of it. So um they have these old crumbly tutor buildings which left these kind of nice canvases where people could have painted colors on them. They painted the roads. Um they have kind of modern sleek elements like the tube televisions lying in front of them. Um creating this really nice contrast. Uh and then you have like the traditional English things like the bunting and the awnings. And then I wanted the sky to be kind of this sickly off-putting green um to kind of make it feel a bit uneasy. Uh and then our tech director um and I were also were doing a lot of research on kind of road planning and layout and um how the generation system should try

to mimic like a real kind of village or city. We knew we wanted a couple different types of environments in this world. So, um, we researched like London and how that's laid out and, um, British villages, which really have no logic or patterns or anything. Um, so we kind of have these building blocks. Now we, um, or sorry um, so now we need to kind of establish the building blocks as to what makes our own world unique from England in the 60s. Uh so one of the things that in our art direction we always think about is this idea of retrofuturism. So I talked a lot about modernism. Um but because this is a dystopia and it's a fantasy, modernism uh isn't really enough. So I think of retrofuturism as kind of an extension of that. So, we liked this idea that the society is running out of resources, but they've spent their money on this kind

of expensive, fancy, useless gadgets that are very much a fantasy. Um, so I did a lot of research on old um kind of retrofuturistic designs and they very much are based on a fantasy even in their designs. So, they have like no visible parts um sleek curves and plastic. Uh so, this was a lot of fun to research. And this is an example of one of our pieces of retro technology. Uh it's called the compliment machine and its only purpose is really to compliment people and to make them feel good about themselves. So again um kind of simple shapes, clean plastic, black seams. Um it's very kind of sophisticated but totally useless. Um another important thing that we always think about with the art direction is style. So what I mean by style is like lighting, shapes, color, composition, design, and how that affects the kind of meaning of the environment and the type of environment that you're in. So we have kind of two

main worlds that maybe you guys know from either playing the game or seeing trailers. We have the Garden District and the village. And the Garden District is kind of this historic area that has been neglected since the war and it's totally bombed out. Um, and this is where people who've had a bad reaction to the drug get ostracized. So, it's this very kind of uh depressing area full of people who are not stable and it's um war torn, but it also represents real history. So, it's kind of the honest area. So, it was important to me that while this area is kind of sad um and tragic, it's also kind of um beautiful and welcoming and organic. And then on the other side you have the modern area that the people of Wellington Wells live in. This is like a location from um that area in a bridge. And it's um very happy and stylish, but it's very kind of cold and disconnected and almost kind of off-putting

um with how kind of shiny and artificial it is. Uh here's another example from the Garden District. This is a um hermit house and again it's very dilapitated and wonky. Um this guy believes he's a secret agent living in this treehouse. Um but it's also organic and it's cozy and because it's England and there's rain all the time, there's flowers everywhere. Uh and this is from the maybe you guys have seen this from the intro. This is uh the office. Um and this kind of symbolizes the epitome of society and bureaucracy. So very stylish but very clean and slick and artificial and cold. Uh this also applies to character design. So on one side you see a waist drill. So this is somebody who had a bad reaction to joy and has been kicked out of the village and um you know she's mentally unhinged but

you kind of feel for her. She's a real person. Uh and then the other side is a wellie. So somebody who wears the masks and takes the drugs and she's very vacant and frightening. So style also applies to lighting. So in the game you can take joy which is the drug that everyone takes and you can see the world for how they see it. Uh so it was really important to push the contrast between the world off of joy and onjoy. So off of Joy, it's England, it's uh cloudy and rainy and overcast, but then on Joy, it's clear and bright and sunny. And the idea is that when you can when you take joy, you blend into the society a bit more um because you feel like how everyone else feels, but you can also kind of empathize with why the society is addicted to this drug. Um so another thing that we always think about is environmental storytelling. So, this is storytelling through the world and not through dialogue. Um, it's been a bit tricky to

figure out what reads. Um, we're trying to tell the story of our own specific world. Uh, we want to be clear but not too handholdy and not too on the nose. So, this is an example of a statue in the game. It's the statue of happiness clearly selling the idea that that's what this place cares about over everything. Um, back to brutalism. So um we do use brutalism in the game but mostly for these kind of checkpoint bridges between areas. So I talked about brutalism being this rejection of history um for uh the future and in our game it literally separates the historic area from the modern world. So it's very symbolic and it prevents people from crossing between those two areas. So the area that's been refurbished um is mostly still full of old architecture, but they use new modern elements and they layer that on top. So we do a lot with signage um kind of

motivational signage to spell out the regime. So we have these kind of plexiglass posters everywhere to kind of keep people perked up. Uh, and then we have Uncle Jack and um he's kind of the local celebrity of Wellington Wells and he was inspired by in um BBC news anchors. So, uh before like 1964 there was really only one channel and that was the BBC and he's the only channel of Wellington Wells and he's an entertainer, a news anchor. Um and his primary goal is to keep everyone motivated, keep them moving on. Um, but if you listen closely to what he talks about, you can learn a lot about the history. And he was a real actor that we filmed on a set. Um, and that was really, really exciting and really interesting. And we were a little worried about how that would blend into the world. Um, but because we kind of put all these effects and film grains on him and make it black and white. Um, and because we're using Unreal and um, we

can get really high fidelity, it actually doesn't clash as much as we thought it might doing this kind of mixed media thing. So, this has been really really fun working with an actor. Um, so now we have our world of Wellington Wells and we have to realize this uh, with our procedural generation technology. Um so the first thing we had to think about was um what we wanted to make procedural and what we didn't want to make procedural. So we had to be really critical of this um because it doesn't benefit everything if everything is procedural. So the things that we decided to uh make procedural oops sorry oops so the things we decided to make procedural were like the road layouts the houses um where the houses fall on the streets um the island shape the island size um the decals the props on the sides of

buildings Um, all of this was done with the intention that if we can pull this off, it will encourage exploration and make the world feel different every time you play it. Um, and then there were things we chose to not make procedural. So, interiors to buildings, well, the buildings themselves, um, parks, plazas, um, the lighting, props, uh, none of this seemed to, um, be beneficial to be procedural. Um, by doing this it would give full control to the artists and designers and we wouldn't have to be working around this system. Uh, we actually did try to make interiors procedural. Um, but it was just like too much of a headache for everybody and it wasn't giving us any kind of visual benefit and the designers were going nuts with that. Uh, so this is an example of our street which is procedural. Um so how this works is that the artists build

plots and assets and um if it's a road tile they give this to the many things they give to the programmers which they implement or if it's kind of a plot or a um uh gameplay or narrative area that goes to the LDS before it's implemented. So the artists create all the assets and then it gets laid out in the system. And the way a really oversimplified way of describing how it works is that it lays out the road map and then it puts kind of the key narrative and gameplay locations that we know we need on that road map in the world and then it fills out the space in between and then it layers over that the decals and assets with our decorator. And um the programmers have created tools for the artists. So the artists can control the decorator and the dispersion of props. So we can go in and control things like how high up the signs are on the buildings, how frequently they show up, um where the

decals and puddles fall on the streets, uh how far away the mailboxes are from the road. So we do have control over those kind of elements. And then this is an example of a handcrafted space. So these are interiors from our village. Um we try to push composition and push all of our artistic tools in these spaces and also push narrative and design and everything we have control over. So here we were really trying to get across the strong kind of mid-century modern stylish interior. And we can kind of go crazy with lighting as well. Um, so now I'll just give you a really rough timeline for how we created the village area with the procedural system. So we started with the concept. So here's the concept that I showed you earlier. Um, this was based off of this area I had visited as a kid called the shambles in York. Um, it's full of these very old tutor buildings with lots of character and we thought that this would

be a very iconic British type of architecture to try to build. Uh and then we do layout research to figure out how these places should get laid out and what kind of road map this should be. Uh and then our tech director does crazy super magic that I cannot describe to you at all how that works because I'm on the art side and unfortunately he's not talking um here but it is very complicated and it works. So um so we uh so this was really really exciting. So we made these temporary buildings um that were very simple but we put them into the system and um our tech director was able to get curves in the street and it actually feels like an actual English village. Um so this was like what um was reassuring to the fact that we can actually make this world with this system. Um, so then we had to make um the real

buildings that we would use. So I went ahead and designed what we call filler buildings. So these are um facade buildings. They're just like blocks and we use these to bridge um between interactive gameplay and narrative buildings. So the point of these buildings is that they are kind of forgettable without being ugly because we don't want them to detract from where you need to go as a player. So, I made them very flat and um very muted. Um but I we put them in the world, we built them, and they were just like way too flat and ugly and killed any sense of composition in the space. And then we added our gloomy, overcast lighting, and it became this like really yucky, drab, flat place. Um but we got the decorator system working. So, you can see there is a tree in the middle of the street. Um but yeah, we had to do something about these buildings. Um they were just too boring and we also didn't

know which percentage of the world they would take up. So cuz we this was in the beginning of the project and we know how much how many design locations we would have in this world. Um but we kept them for a while and we added atmosphere to see if that would kind of fix it. Um but now it's feeling very sickly green. So, not only is there no composition, but it's very kind of sickly looking. Um, but we were able to get the decorator to um spawn these buntings going across the different buildings and kind of arrange the props in a way that makes sense. So, it's starting to feel a little bit better in that sense. Um, so we dialed back on the sickly green and made it a bit more clear and blue, but now it was really contrasting with the joy mechanic or sorry, it wasn't contrasting enough with the joy mechanic. So, um, when you take joy, you wouldn't really notice it because you're already in this blue sky. Um, but then we got a height variation. So, this was really cool. Having height variation really helped with the feeling of composition. Um, but then we were

getting issues where you have two buildings showing up next to each other. Um, and these kind of weird um, awkward uh, staggering of buildings that feels very unnatural. And this was the worst. these giant random gaps everywhere that are totally not in the real world. And this is for the very obvious reason that we have square buildings fitting into curved roads. So they would create these negative spaces that were very um unnatural. So we had to reook at how we did the filler buildings, which is great because it gave me an excuse to redesign them. Um so we created um what we call our filler system which is creating um different buildings of various widths that um with a high enough texture texture resolution they would deform um and kind of squish to fill the gaps. Um, so I went ahead and designed some new filler buildings. And here I was really

trying to push um the silhouette in the buildings and to see how interesting we could make them before they detract from the gameplay spaces. And then our environment artists went ahead and built them and gave them um we always tried to push for this kind of stylized realism. It's very much inspired by stopotion. So he gave it this really great kind of spindly quality. So they have way more character than they had before. Uh and then we put them in and um uh it works and this is really really great. So now it actually feels like a real English village and we don't have these weird unnatural gaps everywhere. Um we tried to tweak the lighting to be a little less sickly but it's still pretty gloomy. Um, and for some reason our decorators stopped working, so there's really nothing in the street anymore, but the fillers are working, and this was really great. Um, and so we tweaked the lighting to be a bit cooler, a little more purple. And here you can see that

the fillers are not detracting from the gameplay spaces that you need to go to. So this was cool. We learned that um if you you can push silhouette and shape um but as long as you don't put lights on it or br u bold colors it won't detract from the gameplay spaces as long as there's enough glowy lights on those spaces. Um but then the height variation was causing all these bugs um which was bad because we were trying to get the build stable for early access. So, we had to dial back on this because we just couldn't have these issues in the build for our early access release. Uh, and then the curves in the streets were eating were creating this problem where filler buildings were eating other buildings. Um, so we also had to dial back on the curves. So, now we're kind of back to flat buildings on a grid, which is bad cuz that's what we we never wanted that. Um, so what did we do to

try to make this a little more interesting? um we put a lot of love and energy into the places that we could control. So our kind of custom plots like parks. Um so this is an example of a place that we have control over. Um so we push the lighting and the composition the story in these kind of areas. So in this uh park there's these um toys that you can go play on and if you play on them um you can kind of blend in temporarily if you have a mob on you. Um, and then we added vistas. So, I know these are quite simple vistas, but in England the vistas are very kind of low and rolling. Um, so this would help a lot with bringing composition to the space. Um, but we put them too close to the world and they totally like gobbled up the world. So, we I came into work one morning and played the build and the visas were just like engulfing the whole world. Um, which was really startling. Um, but we moved them back and they're

feeling good. Um, and we tweaked the lighting to be a little more purple, which was nice because it still felt like overcast and didn't detract from joy, but wasn't completely miserable to play in. Um, we added coasts. We did a lot of research on kind of English coasts and what those look like. And we added foliage, and now it's finally kind of coming together. and the artists are putting lots of love into gameplay spaces and really kind of going nuts in them, which is great. But then we get this bug where decals are um props are blocking gameplay spaces, so you can't actually access them. So this is an example of another kind of unpredictable bug that would show up and unless we play test the crap out of this game, we don't we just miss this stuff. Um, but we created a rule to prevent this from happening. So now this doesn't happen so much. Um, and then to add composition, um, we just had to think a lot about how

we could kind of block the line of sight. So we put these big arches in that go over the streets. Um, and that really really helped kind of fill out the street. And um the more kind of the props we added and the more things we used to block the line of sight, the more kind of rich and dynamic the world felt. Um so this is where we are now. So it feels it's feeling good. The architecture is working. Um the streets feel alive. Um but we don't have uh height variation. We don't have curves. Um so what is the next step? Um well to bring back height variation and curves. Um but we also want to create um specific sections of areas. So in order to create more variation in the world instead of everything being very homogeneous we would like to try to have um specific commercial streets um residential streets and in order to do that we need to create rules. So this is an example of a concept I would do to

give to our programmers um to be like can we can we create these different areas and can we use these types of rules to kind of um dictate what these areas will be like. So if we have uh commercial streets maybe the buildings are all three to four stories tall and they have dense alleyways behind them. If we have residential streets, maybe the buildings are all one to two story high and they're always um there's always like a garden behind them separated by a path and another garden. So, we kind of have to reverse engineer the way a village looks and create a bunch of rules. Um but we're working on this and this is the plan and I think this will really help give a sense of um realism and variation to the world. Uh and then on a macro level um we would like to um create variation with how the entire world is designed. So right now the world is just these kind of flat little crackers all separated by bridges. And

um we would love there to be different types of land formations in between these areas. Maybe the areas are separated by um uh pinch points instead of bridges. Maybe they're in valleys. Maybe they're kind of on top of mountains. And if we're able to um add this kind of variation to the world, then it will really feel like a different place each time you play. So, this is another thing we're working on. Um so, that's it. Thanks for coming. I hope you learned a lot. Does anyone have questions? I don't know how much time we have because my timer didn't work. Nobody. Okay. Thank you very much. [Applause]