Bright Lights Alley is a special project for shader and look dev exploration. I aimed for a cyberpunk style in the shaders, FX, and lighting, and focused on the cohesion of these three things that would be presentable for a real-time game level.

The main aspect of the scene is the holographic billboards. To create the feel of hologram movement, I used cheap/performant Panner nodes to adjust the emissive texture of the material, which then combines with flickering to get the shimmering light of a hologram. 

The art style of this shader drives the entire scene, for example: As the translucent rain slices past the lighting it contributes to the lifelike cyberpunk motion of the billboards, that also responds as splashes on the floor. It connects the classic vertical environment of futuristic cities from top to bottom in the same motion, same feel, through shaders and FX, even if the player doesn’t see anything actively moving positions.