Presidential Time Machine environment object

Overview

• Environment object model • 1559 triangles • Seven diffuse maps, three with alpha transparency maps

The Presidential Time Machine is a small art project, not produced for any game in particular. Compared to most of my other work, it uses a palette-based, strongly stylized design, which I feel was quite a useful exercise. The palette-based approach in particular produced what I feel are strong results, and I hope to expand upon this technique in the future.

The basic concept was inspired from a throwaway line in a television series called The Venture Bros, in which a character makes reference to "Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine". I found the idea amusing, it stuck with me, and eventually led to this little piece of work.

The goal was something of a Steampunk look, evocative of that somewhat naive, H.G. Wells/Jules Verne fanciful take on machinery. Of course, H.G. Wells had his own style of time machine, a more vehicular, seated sort of thing, but I didn't want to just copy that. Also, while Steampunk was a big inspiration, it also had to look at least a little presidential. Heavy on the steam, a bit less on the punk.

Below is a silly little advertisement-like piece, detailing the concept and design a bit.

I shot for a polycount and texture count roughly comparable to that of World of Warcraft. This meant that no special shaders or lighting techniques were assumed.

The Time Machine uses two 512x512 textures...

...and five smaller textures, all of them tiling, and a few of them with transparency alpha maps.