Sometimes Even The Author Gets Lost In His Own Story... - Summary

So it has been a very, very, VERY long time since I last posted. So long in fact that I have now actually completed this project!

I last left of with my ZBrush model FINALLY being UV Mapped. Funny thing is, I actually have changed this UV Map since then but that will be discussed in a little while. I am going to discuss many of the features and difficulties that I had with this project in this post followed by a post with the final images.

Things Worth Mentioning

Water

Really wanted to get a nice looking pond on the go and after numerous attempts and lots and lots of searching, I found this extremely good tutorial on YouTube. I found this very effective as I had 0 issues with it and understood fully what was going on. It was very well explained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPmRV1Z9ikY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRnKO1z4WZs

This gives a really nice rippling in the water (which you do not really get the full effect of from the final images - but oh well!)

Skybox

When it comes to these projects, I really want to try make them all my own work, or at least adapted from tutorials etc, so when it came to the surrounding and having a lightbox, I wanted to research and learn to do it for myself. (Increasing my skills and knowledge).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSRsQpRfDlk

This involved me Creating a special type of image that would then be implemented into a skybox.

Surrounding Foliage

One of the main reasons for me not blogging towards the end of this project was due to it crashing lots, which took up lots of time, and therefore I would ignore the blog in order to try and attempt to find out what was going on.
One of the main problems (I think) was having semi-high poly surrounding foliage which the computer just could not handle in terms of video card/memory. So I had to go about making low-poly foliage which I have touched upon before. It was not ideal but it is exactly the type of thing I am interested in how studios etc overcome.

And Finally....Grass

Grass was the main culprit for performance issues I soon discovered. Again, this is another thing I would like to know how games studios tackle. I have a rough idea of LOD's etc but looking at some games I'm just like - what?! But in the end it all came together nicely and looks really good. eerie with the fog (in order to help hide the surrounding area and vines that are magically hanging from the sky...

Personal Notes

So, it has been a stressfull few weeks - not knowing if I would be able to complete my project but thankfully I managed to find a way - will detail further conclusion in the next and final chapter of this project!