Black Prophecy's unique art style blends realism with the unreal

The Black Prophecy creators at Reakktor Media have begun a series of developer diaries, showcasing the game and their individual contributions to making this sci-fi MMO a reality. The first Black Prophecy developer diary is written by Nick Ebenhoch, the game's Art Director, and gives us a peek into the game environment. Nick explains how they wanted to create an environment that has elements of realism in an unreal environment. Nick says, "This was realized by the use of strong colors that you usually don't see in a space environment."

The colors used in a given setting are used to create a mood. "Sectors with ice elements are kept bluish, while 'Pan's Junkyard', a huge space cemetery, is kept a brownish color tone to let the sector appear dirty and rusty," Nick says. "Our goal was to create a distinctive atmosphere for each sector, from nearly romantic right up to dark and threatening."

Reakktor is giving players a strong impression of scale in these environments, with some orbital views that can fill three full screens. Nick adds, "It was also very important to us to create living worlds. Planets are rotating, cloud movements show up, the surfaces of the oceans are reflecting the incoming light, thunderbolts streak over the continents, lava bubbles out of volcanoes, mountain massifs pass by and cities change from the day into the night cycle."

Nick has more to say on the material composition of asteroid belts, animated backgrounds, and how light and shadow are used to add even more depth to the look of Black Prophecy. You can find the first Black Prophecy developer diary over on the game's official site, accompanied by several new screenshots that exemplify the environments Reakktor has created.