Gametable environments

Building a pipeline that scales means making early decisions that hold up when the pressure increases and timelines compress.

When we started production on RummyTime, I established a full 3D pipeline using Blender for modeling and layout, Substance for materials, and After Effects for final compositing. I documented every step of the process so that when we needed to scale to multiple brands, the team could focus on creative problems instead of reinventing technical workflows. The pipeline worked the same way for every brand we touched.

The file structure enforced clear stages of work, which meant anyone could jump into a project and understand where to find working files, where to place final renders, and where exports lived:

Our primary constraint came from the product side. We couldn't touch the UI layout, which meant the table, UI elements, and player positions were all fixed in place. We had to express atmosphere in whatever space remained around those constraints. This forced us to ask: what does atmosphere actually require? What's the minimum set of elements that communicate a complete environment to a player?

I started every brand at 100% detail density and then carved away until every remaining element carried maximum atmospheric weight. If a prop didn't communicate the theme immediately when a player looked at the table, I cut it. This constraint became productive because it forced us to make every element count rather than relying on visual density to create mood.

For RummyTime, we needed to create the feeling of a suave nightclub where elite players gathered. I used deep purples, velvet upholstery, and neon edge lighting to build a space that read as exclusive without pushing players away. The edge-lit neon created spatial depth in an otherwise dark environment, which solved the problem of making a top-down view feel like an actual room rather than a flat graphic.

RummyCulture needed to feel like an ornate game room built for champions. I used baroque moldings, warm wood finishes, and directional lighting that emphasized the richness of every material in the scene. The palette centered on warm golds and rich browns to communicate weight and legacy rather than surface flash.

RummyPrime needed to feel like a smoky cabaret jazz club, the kind of space that comes alive after midnight. I used art deco props, dark olive marble with black veining, and gold inlays positioned where light would catch them naturally. The lighting stayed moody with long shadows and selective highlights that drew attention to specific details without flooding the scene.

For Pocket52, we developed six thematic variants to test what players actually responded to when given choices. The default background used dark leather and brass accents to create a serious poker room where meaningful games happened. Beach shack used sunlit wood and casual props to suggest playing cards on vacation. Texas saloon used weathered planks and western details to evoke frontier gambling halls. Godfather used black leather and mafia-den luxury as a direct cinematic reference that players recognized immediately. Minimal stripped everything back to enable focus for players who wanted zero distraction. Rooftop suggested a penthouse or private manor through materiality and carefully chosen props that implied wealth without stating it directly. We also developed a cricket-themed variant tied to Rajasthan Royals for players who wanted that specific association.

On Pocket52, the team had absorbed the methodology well enough that I could delegate execution while providing direction and guidance rather than being hands-on at every stage. This allowed us to produce six environments in the time it had taken to produce one initially, while maintaining the quality bar and thematic coherence we'd established. The team was learning to think through atmospheric problems independently and ask the right questions about what each environment needed to achieve.

Throughout the work, we kept refining our understanding of what actually creates atmosphere in a constrained space. A single banker's lamp positioned correctly does more work than three generic decorations scattered around. A patterned rug grounds the composition and provides visual rhythm that helps players orient themselves in the space. Every prop had to justify its presence by doing specific work, or I removed it from the scene.

The material work in Substance gave us control over surface variation and wear patterns that made environments feel lived-in rather than like unused showrooms. Velvet isn't just a color choice, it's how light breaks across the textile structure and creates depth through micro-shadows. Wood grain needed directionality that felt natural rather than repeating in ways that revealed the texture as a digital tile. Marble needed veining that read as something geological that formed over time rather than something a computer generated in seconds.

The camera angle was locked at top-down across all backgrounds, which meant we couldn't use traditional cinematic techniques for creating spatial depth through perspective shifts or camera movement. Instead, I used perspective cues like receding floor patterns and layered furniture to suggest rooms that extended beyond what the frame could show. The lighting became our primary tool for creating atmosphere within this constraint, and learning to work within that limitation made the team sharper about what actually matters when you're designing environments that players will see from a fixed angle for hours at a time.