Porting their PC game to other platforms proved to be more challenging than just using a cross-plattorm game engine.
Rad Rodgers is a 4th wall-breaking, 3D action side-scroller in the vein of the classic side-scrollers from the early-mid 90’s.
As the game was primarily developed with the PC release in mind and as Slipgate Studios didn’t have prior experience with console development and the necessary optimizations, the studio quickly realized that something drastic had to be done to cut down on the performance impact the studio had from asset
usage.
The main issue was therefore clear to the developers of Rad Rodgers; the team needed to heavily optimize the visuals of the game, without impacting the carefully designed visual style and presentation.
Enabling game developers to build richer entertainment experiences while achieving massive time and cost-savings.
¶ Porting from PC to console
Initially, Slipgate Studios had artists manually optimize meshes in 3D modeling packages. While effective, this proved to take more time than the studio had available.
The studio's initial reaction when looking at the examples on the InstaLOD website was that it had to be too good to be true. However, after evaluating the technology the developers found InstaLOD to deliver on all its promises.
¶ Processing assets in bulk
What would have taken a handful of artists several weeks of tedious work to go through and optimize, InstaLOD just pulled off in a matter of a few minutes. All without negatively impacting the beautifully stylized visuals of the game. During production, Slipgate Studios used InstaLOD to process thousands of meshes used in Rad Rodgers.
The optimizations were so faithful to the input meshes that the studio chose to use the optimized versions as the standard mesh for nearly all assets in the console versions. The performance gained quite a lift as data size for nearly all assets halved without much visual impact.
¶ A real timesaver
The amount of time the studio saved when leveraging InstaLOD compared to having to optimize all assets manually is massive. What would have taken several months was done in mere days with InstaLOD.
¶ About Slipgate Studios
Slipgate Studios is an independent game studio located in Aalborg, Denmark.
A lot of the talent at Slipgate Studios builds on experience when working at game studios such as Interceptor Entertainment where the team previously helped develop classic PC games such as Rise of the Triad 2013, Bombshell and similar.
¶ Contact
Jacob Østergaard
Game Designer
First published: 8th Aug 2018