Village and Valley Level Work in Progress
polycounter lvl 17
Hello everybody. I wanted to show the current work in progress of a demo level of a village and surrounding valley using the Unity engine. I have been working on this with my dev collaborator Miguel Benitez for a few weeks now, and we coming close to completing the first stage. I am creating the assets while Miguel is doing all the Unity work. This first stage is the valley, which will be followed in stage 2 with a series of underground tunnels, sewers, and dungeon type environment. This can be accessed through a hidden tunnel in the valley.
Water and sky at the moment are just placeholders. Also, there is no lighting in the scene yet other then sun, so there are no shadows at all yet. Many of the village buildings used are from a model pack I had created about a year ago. The underground tunnels are also from another model pack I had created.
Overview of the valley:
Hill top view:
Some huts:
Village area
Farmland:
Buildings used:
Close up:
Some rocks and trees:
The underground tunnels and prop set:
Water and sky at the moment are just placeholders. Also, there is no lighting in the scene yet other then sun, so there are no shadows at all yet. Many of the village buildings used are from a model pack I had created about a year ago. The underground tunnels are also from another model pack I had created.
Overview of the valley:
Hill top view:
Some huts:
Village area
Farmland:
Buildings used:
Close up:
Some rocks and trees:
The underground tunnels and prop set:
Replies
http://www.ancientidolstudio.com/miguel/WebPlayer.html
Critiques welcome
The settlement currently doesn't make a whole lot of sense:
-badly defendable
-why such huge buildings? why do people need this and where did they get the resources?
-no place to work? is this a trade post? There's only enough farmland for maybe one family - what does the rest do?
-docks are in a hard-to-reach spot and miss things like machinery to handle cargo
-long walls near the crops make no sense (don't wall off crops because they're not closed, and effort could be better spent at fortifying the housing area)
Your buildings are simultaneously too simple and to chaotic. There's a lot of different materials (several types of rock, several wood types, some painted), but the shapes are very bland. And the way you're currently working you can't do a whole lot with the buildings to differentiate them. Here's an idea for a more flexible approach(3d buildings from Turboquid)for some more appropriately sized houses:
One thing of interest are the tusks that are spread through the village. As-is they don't make sense because there's no explanation for them - are they from a land or sea creature? do they signify anything? But you can build a nice philosophy around them, perhaps something similar to unuit traditions:
They belong to a large creature which this people see as representatives and gifts of their god(s) - as they are large powerful creatures and they provide the villagers with most of their needs. They place these tusks around the village (perhaps use them as construction materials -> the entrance to a new building would be a nice ceremonial use) to remind them of their gods' kindness, and to respect wildlife etc etc.
A couple of other crits...
OVERALL
-there's no medium flora. I see trees and mushrooms but no tall grass, bushes, ferns, etcetera
-in general you'll need a lot more props to liven up the place
-any wildlife? or other people?
TECHNICAL
-you'll want to ask if it's possible to use detail maps or some sort of blending to get rid of the pattern of the thatched roof of the topright building (other buildings too, but this one sticks out most)
-the rocks are a bit blobby, IMO
-integrate objects better, for instance the tusks are planted into the ground way to cleanly, and you've got some trees growing out of rocks.
Sorry if it's a lot of text and sounds very overwhelming - I'm not trying to be negative but instead try to help you. For a 2 man project this is a lot of work, I realize that - but I think if you approach everything modular (like the underground) you'll actually save time.
I was just thinking that the actual houses and buildings look a little too un-saturated. Very 'stoney'. Also the textures on the stones are quite blurry. I think it might be because of the lighting which seems to be very bright in some areas and dull in others, creating some almost black shadows.
Great scale though, I'm liking how this all came together.
I would add something under them though, because right now where the trees meet the ground is a very sharp and noticeable edge. Maybe add some dead branches or leaves around the base of the trees to break it up.
I really like your scenes!
One answer to a number of questions, is that the buildings are from a model set I had created in the past which is why they may seem chaotic in this scene. I will however be redoing some textures so that the materials are similar. The overall idea is a northern style port/fishing/trading town. Working families down by the water, with the more affluent merchants higher up. The cluster of open air buildings will be the trading area. The walled areas near the crops will be closedoff eventually as a livestock area once we got that in.
There are more props and flora coming. We wanted to test the level at this stage and then onto the next round of detail.