World Building

From microscopic worlds to entire universes, ancient history to the far future, earth-like to fantastical alien worlds, the setting in which a story takes place in is as important as the characters who are described. In this course, students will learn about creating real and fictional worlds for games and film using environment design concepts and techniques, considering aspects as diverse as geology, geography, plant and animal life forms, history, culture and religion. Students will learn about how to visually design a world which ties into narrative or gameplay design, and which fits and compliments different styles of narrative and non-narrative media. Students will need to understand the technical limitations of the projects they are working on, and how the environments they build can meet those restrictions, but also help hide the limitations from the audience. Students will learn how lighting and set dressing can be used to great advantage in increasing the immersiveness of worlds.