Client Projects

Ancient Tides

The underwater exploration game where you dive into the ocean to find all the ancient fish species. Created for 3Museos.

Main View

Project Overview

Ancient Tides is an underwater educational game developed for 3Museos, a museum in Mexico. The game invites players to explore the mysteries of the deep sea, uncovering species of ancient fish once thought to be extinct — until a seismic shift opened a hidden underwater world. By diving into this submerged realm, players can ride, read, and discover the living fossils that have resurfaced through this geological wonder.

Designed to blend education and exploration, Ancient Tides aims to inspire curiosity about marine life, evolution, and the power of natural history through interactive discovery.

Tools Used

Blender Substance Painter Photoshop Unity PureRef Github HacknPlan

Project Overview

Ancient Tides is an educational game created for Tres Museos, a museum in Mexico. The project was designed to showcase the museum’s collection of ancient fish fossils in an interactive and engaging way. Visitors can explore the underwater world in-game and then locate the same fossils in the museum itself, creating a unique connection between digital discovery and real-world exhibits.

Since the game was intended for audiences of all ages, it was developed without any form of violence or mature content, ensuring a family-friendly experience that’s both informative and immersive.

Team Size: 5 People

Timespan: 1 Day a week for 4 months.

Client: 3Museos

Creation Process

In the end, our team created an open-world underwater exploration game where players can scan, ride, and observe various species of fish while enjoying the tranquil ocean scenery. The visual direction was heavily inspired by the art style of Abzû, emphasizing a calm and immersive underwater atmosphere.

With a small team of just five people working one day a week, we had to carefully scope down the project and rely on free assets where possible. My primary responsibility was designing and creating the unique fish species — the core focus of the game. Each fish features a low-poly model, basic textures, and an internal skeleton rigged to follow natural movement patterns.

The only fully hand-animated creature is the Tortuga Marina, a sea turtle that required a custom animation approach since its motion differed from the other fish. I studied reference footage of ancient turtles to accurately capture its distinctive swimming style.

To streamline production, the rest of the fish use a custom shader developed by one of my teammates, allowing them to animate dynamically without traditional keyframe animation.

My Part

As the only 3D artist in the group, I was responsible for creating all the unique 3D assets, including every creature in the game. Each model required an internal skeleton to showcase what the bones would look like if they were real. Since the game features see-through models, these skeletal structures also needed to be clearly visible in-game.

To work within Abzû’s visual style, I began with extensive research — playing the game and studying developer talks to understand their artistic approach. From this, I created a detailed style guide and a style walkthrough, since the Abzû style doesn’t follow the traditional model-first, texture-later workflow. Instead, the textures are designed to flow with the shape of the model, meaning the texturing process must be considered early in the modeling stage.

Game Gallery

Pastel Titan Texture Breakdown
Pastel Titan Wireframe
Pastel Titan Texture Breakdown
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