PS1 / Dreamcast Low-Poly

Photograph the world as a machine from 1998 would have drawn it, and let the fog do the composing.

The point is atmosphere, not nostalgia. Keep polygon counts low enough that the silhouette is jagged, let textures warp rather than fixing them, and leave the spaces empty. Do not reach for any real game, character or console; the era's grammar is the reference, not its IP. If it looks like a modern engine with a retro filter, the fog is not doing enough work.

Director's note

Leave with every frame on this list.

Shot list

1. 01Wide shot of a coastal or industrial space rendered in visible polygons, textures warping at the seams, the far edge dissolving into hazy grey fog, one orange marker in the middle distance
2. 02Medium shot of an original angular avatar silhouette standing alone in an empty plaza, vertex-lit, edges jagged, no face detail
3. 03Frontal composition of an abstract save screen or menu: angular panels on a banded midnight-blue gradient, bitmap microtype, no real game branding
4. 04Close shot of a single low-poly object, a collectible, vehicle or artefact, turning slowly under a cyan light with its texture stretching across the faces
5. 05Wide shot of an empty racetrack or plaza at night lit by a CRT glow, scanlines visible, colour bleeding at the edges

Vertex lighting: one or two coloured point lights, cyan and orange, with no soft shadows and no global illumination. Fog is the third light; it flattens everything beyond a set distance to grey. Finish with scanlines and slight chromatic separation as if through a CRT.

Light

Scout these before anything else.

Locations

1. 01A coastal road or pier that can dissolve into fog
2. 02An industrial yard or car park with repeating modules
3. 03An empty plaza, arena or racetrack at night
4. 04A rendered interior that reads as a menu or save room

Avatars are angular and flat-shaded: a jacket, a helmet, a visor, blocked out in two colours. Nothing textured finely enough to read as cloth.

Wardrobe