Need For Speed Unbound
Senior UI Artist
The main area I focused on for the Need For Speed Unbound project was the HUD. Really directing the visuals and a lot of the flow of information at the start of the project. I worked on all in-world UI elements like the HUD, race gates, race directions, chevrons, POIs, etc.
Serving information in a glanceable way to ensure the player knows what is important during the fast pace of the game. Also, the be mindful about not absolutely blocking the game world with boxes, I would hate to feel my UI is getting in the way of the beautiful work our team beyond the UI craft did!
General HUD
The overall vibe for NFS Unbound’s HUD was quite straight-forward, until a player did something of significance - like, boosting, taking critical damage, achieving a score or multiplier, … . The idea of empowering and celebrating with the player was big goal for us and you’d see that with our annotations and colour change elements like for example on the speedometer when you’d achieve a full boost bar and in which the widget would change colour to let the player know it was ready to use.
Speedometer
The one of the most complex to conceptualise, iterate, and implement elements for a racing game. How can you give something quite conventional with such a legacy a breath of fresh air and also carry the projects vision? It had to also be affective in giving the feedback the player needs in key moments. It was a challenge but I feel we achieved our goals and brought something new to the franchise and racing games.
Race Event HUD
Need For Speed at its core is a car racing game, and the race event HUD is pretty basic in terms of knowing what it needs, taking cues from previous games and innovating on top with game design wants in mind.
Activities
Update on what we did on NFS Heat. I also worked on the new gate shapes, various arrow navigation, helped develop the chevron style, and all the HUD elements like side panel and central message and animations.
Takeover
Takeover is our main mode, hosted by A$AP Rocky, a really fun challenge. We wanted to convey so much for this in the scoring, multiplier, combo bonus and banking ideas we had. With annotation subversion to help breakthrough the noise ensuring the player understands without even really needing to comprehend specifics.
Chat Wheel
This was a fun element to work on, understanding what was needed from the different methods of input to the several states in selection. Expanding upon the existing style guide by keeping key elements consistent but introducing new way of using colour and a new pattern to make it stand out. Lots of iteration in offline previs to get the animation to feel right.
LinkUps
This event mode was part of a post-launch update and honestly one of my favourites to play in the game. Again another complex idea on paper, with the help from UX designers and myself we created something that made sense of such complex designs! We introduced new HUD elements and designs since launch, expanding upon the existing style guide to cater for the new ideas LinkUps brought. Being mindful of not alienating existing players.
✨BONUS✨ - Street Art
I was asked if Criterion Games could use some of my personal art pieces, in the world of Need For Speed Unbound, as wall murals. Huge honour, here are some (there are more) of my art pieces you can find as collectables around the world.