Just wanted to show you some shots from another area I've been working on for
Wyrin's White Plue M0untain-module. Forests are really difficult to create in my opinion. I you take a look at a real forest there's tons of bio-mass everywhere and you can often only see a couple of meters ahead. This doesn't really work when playing because it makes it impossible to navigate and pours syrup all over your graphics card's processors. And that was what made up the rules for this area. It should feel as a huge forest valley with high hills around. Lots of leafy trees so it takes a while to search through for goodies and encounters but still be somewhat easy to navigate. So I made it a bit sparse and had to use fog and a short far plane to keep the performance acceptable. That works fine when running around focused on other stuff but when looking at the screen shots it seems a bit flat because of the details fading out about 20 meters away from the PC. I also had a slight walkmesh challenge with the stairs and platforms around the abandoned tree houses, but they were very fun to make and turned out pretty well I think.
When going through taking those shots today I realized that I should ask Wyrin to let me go over this area again when he has populated it with the interesting stuff. I saw lots of small issues with hovering trees and grass. It really needs more grass and boulder piles too. Some strange textures and coloring that made my skin itch. Then it should be a really okay experience when it comes to looks and feel.
Thanks for reading
/A
