Behind the Scenes with: The Turtle-

There will be a number of creepy critters featured in the upcoming horror game Reptile Zoo: The Sinister Mutation, that we are now developing. Today I'd like to introduce you to one of the residents of Reptile Zoo; The Turtle! And we will go behind the scenes with him to see various stages of his creation.

I didn't do any concept art for him, as originally I was going to just have him be a normal alligator snapping turtle, but as I was doing the initial modeling for him I decided to make him a bit more interesting. The first image (A) shows the basic, primitive snapping turtle shape that I'm beginning with. When modeling something like this, it's usually best to start with basic forms and add specific details as you go. By the second image (B), we can see that he has a lot more detail and his overall shape is closer to his final form.

"This isn't even my final form!" -The Turtle

In the period of creation between these first 2 images, I decided to try to make him more unique and menacing looking. The two most disturbing looking types of turtles that I know of are the alligator snapping turtle, and the mata mata, a South American flat headed turtle. Both of these species are fairly prehistoric looking and are fresh water ambush predators who stand still for long periods of time. Basically I decided to create a mutant hybrid of these two distinctive types of reptile. I'm not sure if this mutated turtle is an adolescent, but we can probably assume that he would be a skilled and fearsome martial artist. Though in all likelihood he would snap up and consume any rodent mentor that would get too close to him; because he's a bad ass like that.

In the next image (C), we can see that he now has even greater detail as well as a basic colored texture on him (the texture has to be created in a separate 2D art program and then applied to the 3D model). He's now beginning to look thoroughly creepy. Now, in image D, he has been placed into his tank within the game environment (specifically the reptile house portion of the game) and he also has a bump map applied to him, which makes him look even more textured than before. However the whole scene still looks a bit flat, partially because I still need to do some things with the environment but also because he needs proper lighting.

Finally, in the last image (E) we find the turtle close up and at what will be the player's eye level, in his murky water filled tank, dimly lit and ready to shock and terrify anyone who should pass by him. I still need to do some things with the scene, including improve the lighting and the shadows even more, but this will give you some idea of what's going on with one of our creatures and what goes into creating them.

Although we can assume that the turtle is thoroughly dangerous and menacing, in this game he is behind glass and therefore not much of a threat to the player. His particular role is to serve as sort of a "set piece", establishing the scene and letting the player know what type of place this is (the type of place that would house a disturbing mutated turtle that looks like it could rip your face off!). One of the cool things about referencing real animals when designing a creature like this is that no matter how weird or frightening what you design might be, chances are that nature has already beaten you by coming up with something even worse. Needless to say, I consulted a lot of reference photos when designing the turtle.

But even though the turtle himself may not do much, I can assure you that there are other, even more terrifying critters in the game that will do whatever they can to hunt you down and devour you. When the game is complete, I hope that you will come visit The Turtle along with the rest of the dark menagerie of Reptile Zoo. They'll be waiting for you!

- False Prophet