Scene Prototyping [ example ]

What is blocking?

In painting, design and theatre, blocking lays out main elements to get an idea of what the final will look out. It’s thinking abstractly and loosely, and not worrying about a finished result to share. When working with color and interaction, it’s especially helpful to test out which colors to use for the foreground that your players will see and interact with. For review from lesson (link), contrast between the foreground and background is key.

[ reference glossary below instead?]

foreground: assets on the same depth as the player (enemies, obstacles, ground planes, snacks to pick up, etc)

background: environment beyond the player (an abstract rainbow cloud pattern, a mountain landscape, a set of distant planets, etc)

contrast: amount of difference (black and white are high contrast, whereas light grey and baby blue are low contrast)

[ mock-up with these considered ]

Contrast doesn’t only refer to properties of color. Size, detail level, [other elements in prototyping without color] matter.

Remember, too, that level design depends on path-finding and clarity, so while an epic cluttered landscape might look stunning, if the player is bumping into piles of trash then the effect might be frustrating.