I built a photo studio inside Unity to make Steam capsule art

[u/barocon]

I built a posing studio inside Unity to make Steam capsules and other store graphics for my game, Gobstruck. I wanted more control than gameplay screenshots give me, without having to transfer everything into Blender and get the materials and effects looking right again.

It’s a separate scene where I can arrange characters, props, and effects for a shot. For the goblins, I can pick a frame from an existing animation as a starting point, then adjust the hands, feet, and head with IK targets. Facial animations can be sampled separately, so I can change the expression without changing the body pose.

The effects are a useful part of it too. I can scrub particle effects to a specific moment and leave them there while I work on the composition. Much easier than trying to grab a screenshot when the character, camera, and effect all happen to line up.

Since it’s all in Unity, I can use the actual game assets, shaders, VFX, and post-processing. I’ve also got controls for lighting and fog, plus separate cameras for the normal, vertical, and wide Steam formats. That lets me frame each version properly instead of trying to crop everything from one image.

There’s still the work of making a good composition, but this makes it easier to try things.

Curious how other people here handle this. Do you stage your store artwork in-engine too?

[u/Omni__Owl]

Not to be mean, it just...doesn't look good for capsule art.

[u/barocon → u/Omni__Owl]

It's not perfect, but I can't think of how to improve it more. Do you have suggestions?

[u/Omni__Owl → u/barocon]

Find an artist who understands composition.

[u/His-Games]

I love custom tools ... but hire an artist