Experience Art Concept

A cohesive art concept can make an Experience more immersive and memorable.

What is a Mood Board?

A mood board is a way to shape your thoughts and share your vision with others. It makes it easy for you to identify what you like or don't like when making design choices to arrive at a fine-tuned vision for your project.

WORLDBUILDING

Choosing a worldbuilding approach will help define your focus and streamline your search terms and AI prompts when building a mood board.

Examples by The Sandbox

The Sandbox designed three distinct factions of people with a world-first worldbuilding approach. The examples below compare each faction's planning mood boards and resulting loading screen game art.

Heroes

Heroes Faction

Heroes Faction by The Sandbox Game

Scientists

Scientists Faction

Scientists Faction by The Sandbox Game

Oracles

Oracles Faction

Oracles Faction by The Sandbox Game

Creating a Mood Board

Useful Tools to Create a Mood Board

• Milanote

• Pinterest

• Google Slides

• Canva

Useful Sources for Images

• ArtStation

• Pinterest

• Google image search

• AI generation

  • Canva

  • Craiyon

  • Walling

Art Style

The Sandbox has a simplified voxelised art style, but there can be a lot of variation within it!

When choosing your Experience's art style, consider:

Palette

Plan cohesive colour use and mood with careful Colour Choice & Strategy. Use Light behaviour in Game Maker to create mood without "repainting" assets.

Texture

Create the illusion of material types, depth, and surface details such as shine, damage, etc. See Textures & Materials Prioritise texture quality for assets players interact with the most visually or physically.

3D Complexity: Cumulative Effects Using simple art (left) allows for more game assets and logic than complex art (right).

Prioritise for Performance

• Prioritise logic: fewer assets, simpler art

• Prioritise art: more assets, simpler logic

Balance Variety

Add complexity in noticeable areas, use simplicity as filler. Example: Node Efficiency

Animation

VoxEdit templates include pre-made animations and customisable models.

Below: Repurpose models for new uses

"Unlock" a template to modify nodes for unique assets that reuse some animations.

Prioritise animation for assets players will interact with the most visually or physically.

Visual Hierarchy

Prioritize visual elements generally to begin deciding what kinds of assets your project needs most.

Example:

Space

• Environmental (none)

• Vehicles (high)

• Structures (medium)

Farm

• Environmental (high)

• Interactive props (high)

• Buildings (medium)

Underwater

• Environmental (high)

• Creatures (high)

• Structures (medium)

Commonly Used Visual Elements

A list of common visual elements, their general purpose, and examples are included below.

🏞️ Environmental Offer wide angle views or basic quest scenery

Trees, stumps, bushes, flowers, vines, etc.

🗼 Landmarks Draw players to gameplay areas thematically

Towers, ruins, formations, centerpieces

🏗️ Structures Offer access, interaction, and shape

Modular pipes, rails, doors, windows, etc.

🚓 Vehicles Define non-player character movement

Cars, trucks, trains, boats, spaceships, etc.

🏠 Buildings Define societal elements (home, work, fun)

Homes/apartments, office buildings, shops, sheds, barns, restaurants, etc.

🪑Furniture Balance detail and space (visual, physical)

Tables/desks, chairs, cabinets, appliances, decor, rugs, lights, curtains, etc.

🧍Characters Engage and direct players, balance space

Quest NPCs, filler NPCs, quest enemies

🐉 Creatures Engage players emotionally, balance space

Animals, monsters, quest enemies, etc.

⚔️ Equipment Immerse players and reward them

Weapons, shields, armour, clothing, tools, etc.

🔨 Interactive Props Engage players more naturally with objects

• Collectable (wood, fruit, coins, etc.)

• Destructable (crates, barriers, etc.)

• Interactive (buttons, platforms, etc.)

Ambience, Camera & Visual Effects

Prioritize the importance of settings to create a completely custom 🟦 Look & Feel for your Experience:

• weather

• music & sound effects

• camera

• visual effects

Examples:

If the sky is too saturated with bold colour, players may not notice assets in your Experience as well.

Music with lyrics may distract players who are trying to solve puzzles.

Visual effects add a lot of polish to an Experience, but may be distracting if used too much.

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Additional Resource

Some information here can be viewed in the following Expert Creator Workshop:

Expert Workshop: Creating an Art Design Document