Until Dawn

[AJ Jefferies]

I worked on the key art for the upcoming PS4 title 'Until Dawn' earlier this year. The game is a horror title where the players are pitted against some horrible murderers but also, time - hence the concept of the spooky hourglass.

Technical stuff - nothing too exciting, the background was created and supplied by the client and the cabin model is the cabin model from the game itself which I had to adapt and texture. Snow was created by pulling verts on a simple plane in max, then taking it all the Zbrush to make it look a bit more natural and the material had some SSS to it, which I think helped a lot.

Skull was also sculpted in Zbrush and the pouring 'snow' was actually pouring salt that my colleague photographed against a black background and I comped in. Timings were really tight on this as it had to be ready for E3, so I had 5 days to turn it all around.

[glorybound]

Creepy and good! It must have been a fun project to work on.

[Morne]

Alex, outstanding work as always!

[Mokiki]

Love it.

Planned on buying the game anyways because it seems like a great game for having a bunch of people over with popcorn and pizza. :P
AJ do you know if the art you provided will be featured on the box cover? If so I'll skip on the digital version

[AJ Jefferies]

AJ do you know if the art you provided will be featured on the box cover? If so I'll skip on the digital version

Yep! There are a few different versions, one of which doesn't have the skull timer on it.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/05/...-a-bit-creepy/

[Mokiki]

So physical copy it is!

[Ahmed Sharif]

Was the skull a single hollow piece or do you have other layered geometry in it? I'm particularly amazed by the teeth and how they look embedded within the glass, are they separate geometry or purely sculpted?

[AJ Jefferies]

The skull is just one mesh with everything sculpted, it's adapted from a study I did a few years ago so it is pretty complete all around. It's actually not hollow however as I got much nicer reflections/refractions from the solid version and the client preferred it. Plus it's all fairly abstract so it didn't look too strange or obviously wrong.

[Ahmed Sharif]

Oh dear, I'm an idiot. It makes sense now that I've googled skulls. I mistook the reflections on the surface above the actual teeth as solid objects seen through the glass refraction.

[Syclone1]

Great job! Your work always impresses me, keep posting

[Neilg]

Yep! There are a few different versions, one of which doesn't have the skull timer on it.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/05/...-a-bit-creepy/

Thats probably the first time i've ever seen cover art for a game which is universally (or even at all) liked by 'gamers' online. that is quite an achievement!

[AJ Jefferies]

Thats probably the first time i've ever seen cover art for a game which is universally (or even at all) liked by 'gamers' online. that is quite an achievement!

Honestly, no-one is more shocked than me! I first saw it had been made public on Reddit and thought "here we go..." but the top comments were all people saying they liked it. Obviously the client's idea has a lot to so with it's success, so I can't truly take credit for all the positive feedback but it's nice none the less!

[Mokiki]

It definetly stands out among all the other box arts we usually have. Japan seems to have more fun with box art but US/EU can get pretty generic. So this one is a breath of fresh air. This reminds me of the whole discussion about no female characters on box art because they sell less.

Nonetheless again great Job AJ

[AJ Jefferies]

Thanks Oliver!

I worked on a lot of box art my previous studio and some of the backlash from the gaming community was insane. I agree though, Japan always seem to have the best packaging, then Europe and finally the US.

[Mokiki]

Okay now you made me curious . Any example of what you worked on? I promise no backlash from me