What Ales you?

“What’s Ales You?” is a first-person fantasy bar tending simulator in which you have to make drinks while talking to a cast of colorful characters and help them with their problems.

This game started as a class project with myself and three other teammates but was continued outside of the classroom. I mainly worked as an environmental artist, creating 3D models for much of the bar itself and the various glasses and bottles that the player interacts with. I also worked on early concept art for some of the characters, as well as helping design and develop the mechanics and game feel.

This game was my first experience using a 3D pipeline in a group setting and taught me a lot about how to quickly iterate within that framework.

Models and Texturing

Between its cast of characters, extensive drink collection, and classic fantasy tavern trappings, What Ales You? needed a large amount of 3D assets. While we had one other person on the team with experience in 3D modeling, assigning the creation of all art to them was far too much, especially since they were also our sole writer. I only had minor experience with 3D modeling programs at the time, but was looking for new skills to learn and new areas to explore. I offered to take on more of the environmental and texturing pipeline, and so taught myself how to use Maya and Substance painter over the course of the project, as well as a small amount of Zbrush.

My teammate and I collaborated on many of the assets, such as the interior space of the bar. They did the base modeling for the building while I took the physical bar itself. I then used them as examples to learn more about the various parts of the texture pipeline, specifically UV mapping and developing a workflow through Substance Painter.

From there I worked to develop my own end to end pipeline, using the various bottles that we’d need to help fill out the drink mixing mechanics and add some variety to the environment. My first series of tests were generic bottles, more to be used as set dressing than as game objects themselves and focusing on building confidence with the modeling aspects of the workflow.

And from there I worked to combine the two halves of the pipeline and make more specific drinks and ingredients to be used by the player in-game.