Getting paint splatters to feel just right in our game has been a challenge. There are some amazing tools for animating fluids in movies, but they can take hours to render a single frame. Since our game is aiming for 60 frames a second, realistic fluid simulation is pretty much impossible. So we do the next best thing: we cheat.

The trick in games is knowing what you can fake that isn’t going to betoo obvious for players. For example, we’re not currently animating the splats at all. When a paintball collides with a wall we just immediately draw the splatter on top of it. Of course in the real world, if you were to look at a splat in slow motion you’d see the paint gradually spreading out. Surprisingly, even without animations the splats look pretty good. But we were curious about how much better it’d look if we made the splattering more realistic.

So we decided to go out and shoot some reference footage of us throwing paint at a wall. As game developers we tend to solve most of our problems with computers (or denial) so it’s easy to overlook times where it’s easier to just go out in the real world and do something rather than simulating it. In this case reality had the advantages of being incredibly beautiful (super realistic) as well as faster, cheaper, and more fun than the traditional digital route.

After securing a location that we could get messy and hanging multiple tarps we were ready to set to work. We tried a few different paint dispersal techniques — throwing it out of the can, filling water balloons with it, and throwing a plastic ball filled with paint. We opted not to use a paintball gun because the splats made by paintballs aren’t as large and juicy as we hoped to get. This was our loading setup:

Having never actually thrown real paint before, we learned a handful of things. First, while a turkey baster is a good way to fill a water balloon with paint, after a while the paint will start to thicken up inside the baster’s bulb and neck. Next time we’ll bring a backup baster. Second, getting latex paint on a latex balloon makes it incredibly slippery. Slippery enough that it is difficult to throw accurately as it tends to slip and wobble out of the thrower’s fingertips at the point of release.

Third, it takes a lot of paint (6-8 fluid ounces—3 or 4 baster-loads) to get a really juicy splat. Any less than that and the balloon may bounce instead of bursting.

Fourth, the plastic ball method was a surprise success. We found a clear ball (labeled as a “candy ball”) for 99¢ at a party supply store. Its two hemispheres screw together and when thrown hard enough, they burst apart on impact. Unlike a balloon, this creates something closer to a “directed splash” than a burst. The only downside is that it uses a lot of paint.

Fifth and finally, splashing paint around leads to a lot of collateral splats, spots, drips, and spatters. The actual distance appears to be proportional to the size of the tarp you lay down — the farthest splatters will always go a few inches past the edge of your tarp. Don’t try this at home. Unless you’re about to move.

And here’s the video we shot (you can also download it as an mov):

If you like gooey, splattery messes, you should check out sculptor Anish Kapoor’s piece, Shooting into the Corner in which he’s setup an air cannon packed with red wax that fires into a corner every 20 minutes.

The end result is a terrific splat. Any wax not immediately melted and splattered on the wall crumbles and tumbles into a lovely pile on the floor. The past few months, this process has started to create quite a mess. Kapoor calls this piece Shooting into the Corner, and it’s part of his art exhibit at the Royal Academy of Art in London. If you live in London, you have until December 11th to see it for yourself.

You can also see a live webcam of his installation here, or read more about it at Londonist or BDonline.

Here’s a shot of our ridiculously comfortable new couch.

Also pictured (from left to right): our newish art director Flavien, our new lead programmer Nathan, and our new producer Max.

We’re pretty much done hiring so all we have to do now is make the game. More on that shortly.

Game publishing deals are nice. Unfortunately they usually prevent you from saying anything about the deal (or even acknowledging its existence) until the publisher gives permission. Not that any such deal exists for The Unfinished Swan. I’m just saying.

In any event there’s nothing to stop me from talking about some of the reference art I’ve been looking at for the game.

The first piece is an amazing black and white animation of crows and trees spreading across the screen not unlike paint oozing down a wall. When I stumbled across it the first time it was cut into a really cheesy Persian music video. Turns out it’s an ID spot for MTV’s HD channel (thanks to Rich Bologna for setting me straight). It did seem awfully polished for a cheesy Persian music video, but what can I say, I want to believe.

Moving along, we have some sort of glowing swing created by BCXSY:

And it’s a little on the nose, but I love the softness of this black and white photo of a swan by Flying Fin on flickr:

And lastly, this curious beast. It’s a map of global airline routes that manages to make dense information feel soft and beautiful:

We exist! Not much more to report beyond that yet. Hopefully we’ll have more news shortly.