Скачать или смотреть The Geometry of Alan Wake 2 – Environment Art Beneath the Surface

In this video, I explore the environment art and level construction of Alan Wake 2, focusing on the forested area around Cauldron Lake. As always, this is aimed at a general audience - I keep things approachable rather than diving too deep into the technical side.

Using a camera mod, I take a look under the hood at:

Level geometry and spatial layout.
Dense foliage systems and skinned vegetation.
LOD transitions, billboards, and backdrop construction.
Ray-traced lighting and shadow behaviour.
How scenes read with and without textures.

This is an environment artist’s walkthrough, looking at how Remedy balances visual density, performance, and atmosphere - rather than a story or gameplay analysis. The video also compares different approaches to world building, touching on asset placement, occlusion, and how modern engines handle highly detailed natural environments.

NOTE: Apologies for the occasional tearing and low quality when using Rehade:DepthDisplay in the video. I've had issues recording footage of Alan Wake 2, and not wholely overcome them it seems.

0:08 Intro To Todays Video
0:56 Channel Member Thanks
1:31 Lets Begin!
2:06 Gameplay Capture Woes
4:08 Very Resource Intensive Area
4:20 Skinned Mesh For Foliage
6:42 My Favourite In-Game Veg
8:48 Veg Shadow Pop-In
10:21 Viewing Without Textures
11:21 The Eye Needs Value, Not Colour To 'Read' 3D Space
12:39 'Kit Bash' Approach To Populating An Environment
14:44 Checking Out Rock Assets
15:06 Northlight Engine Geometry Culling
18:32 Looking At The 'Level' As A Whole
20:28 'Billboard' Trees
23:16 Looking At LOD Swaps
26:25 Night Time Forest
28:00 Checking Out Shadows
33:15 Looking At More Asset LOD Transitions
35:05 Closing Thoughts and Mental Meanders
36:26 Musings On Hobbit Friends
37:03 Closing Thoughts

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#AlanWake2 #Remedy #NorthlightEngine

Commentary and in-game audio.
Captured on PC using OBS: https://obsproject.com/
Edited with Davinci Resolve: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/p...
Geometry viewed with ReShade: https://reshade.me/
Camera Tool:  / otis_inf