Renderlicious!

 

Pots and Plants

 

I said I’d give you planters and here they are! I wanted to create a wide range of heights shaped and colours without moving too far from the colour scheme and getting too many assets with a similar purpose. I chose this stubby terracotta one because I could use the same texture sheet twice but remove the lid to create a planter. This gives the illusion of two separate assets with different purposes. I love the little handles on this one, and the pointy hat which reminds my of a Buddha head, this pot has a lot of character and is the right podgy shape to balance out the flurried leaves of a fern or hosta.

This is another one of those duel use pots, its height give variety and its shape is grand enough for it to be a central piece. Again, the tapered top looks good with a fern inside it. This particular pot was in Helligan gardens. I like the subtle pattern around the side and the fact the it is pretty without being pretentious. I also made up a pot without reference because I had a texture from a folly in Helligan gardens that I really wanted to use. I like the plain contrast this give against the strong characters of the other pots and the grey concrete is a good change from the terracotta without clashing with any colours in y level.

 

These are just progress pictures from populating my level. The vegetation is going in and I've lowered the fog height for that desired cold foggy morning feel. I still need to do some rearranging but I’m nearly there. I need to add a soil BSP to the area underneath my ground plants to make the planting look plausible. I also need to import my pots and use them to populate the entrance the the garden. I am creating planting areas the the right and left of the large open area and the ground texture needs decals to help break it up.

Progress Report

 

So I decided to make my overall level slightly smaller by taking away the double stream and making it one. I also swapped the pond over with the central piece as I think it adds a focus point to the main are rather than everything just being squished haphazardly in to the middle. Now I need to add extra BSP’s for the soil tile and the I can get on with populating it with the foliage.

As you can see, I’ve got most of my main wall structures and level plans sorted now. These can’t change now as it’s far too late in the game and I’m pretty happy with them anyway. I plan to remove the cover you see right in the left hand side foreground as it makes the area look too architectural and I want to fill that area with planters.

I still have yet to choose the tiling for the central area, I was originally going to do something really garish, but I feel like I might opt for a subtler approach instead. A type of grass perhaps, or a circular brick pattern perhaps. I need to build some planters and pots so I can legitimately add plants to the tiled floor areas. At the moment I can only put my foliage sitting precariously out of suggested brick cracks, I want to be able to layer them up in corners instead, ferns look awesome coming out of terracotta planters.

For the wild area I decided against having steps there as I like how it looks without. The steps suggested man made influence and I quite like the introduction to the garden being completely wild with a background of birdsong. Then nothing is hinted at, it could be any sort of environment at the top of that hill.. the steps gave too much away. I was also sick to death with trying to work out the collision mesh, but that’s irrelevant ;)

Dust and Birdsong

At this stage I want to add two things that I have been determined to do since deciding to create a garden level.

1) DUST.

Pollen, bugs, particles of dirt; all gardens have them. I want my dust to look lazy and subtle. I want them to float around mysteriously and catch the eye when you’re least expecting it. Ok, that sounds pretentious but I do think it will add a new dimension to my level. I used the tutorial to create my dust which seems to be the only one on the internet in existence. The tutorial is good but I had to get the material instructions off of a forum, and was surprised when it actually worked! I love the effect it gives. I would post a picture, but it’s only really effective in gameplay. You can see the guys results on the video though.

2) SOUND

There is no silent garden in existence, so I was certain I wanted to add some sort of background noise to my level. I have this thing about pigeon noises. When I was a kid there was a pigeon that used to nest in our chimney stack which was right above my bedroom. This pigeon used to sing all day in the summer and he was there for so long (or at least a pigeon was there, I have no idea how long they live for) that we named him Patrick. Now, whenever I hear a pigeon coocooing I am reminded of home and my childhood. I promise this story is relevant. Any way, I really wanted a garden soundtrack starring a pigeon because of how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel. After trawling the freebie websites I stumbled upon a US site and found exactly what I wanted.

Here is the track:

I am so dedicated to Patrick that I paid around £2.50 for the privilege and was forced to edit out German guy shouting and slamming doors that features at the start, around 1:45 if you’re curious.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

 

I’ve had a strop with my level and here is what I’ve decided. I’m not happy with it.

If you can’t read my writing (I apologise, I was writing it in a frustrated grump) then here’s a basic explanation; it’s too big, too repetitive and looks uncomfortable. I wanted my level to be a place of curiosity and adventure but instead it’s become too unmanageable and manmade. I have yet to place my planting down, but I can already tell the huge amount of floor space will make my plants look lame and petty. I need to make changes, so this is what I’ve come up with:

A more compact version of itself, with a smaller offshoot area and a lush greenery section at the end. It will be fuller and friendlier. No more vast empty spaces and rough looking repetitive textures. The tiling will be easier to hide in a smaller space, and I will regain the ‘secret garden’ feel by having twists and turns to get around the level. I have placed the wild start area at the top of the level so the lush green bottom will be a treat for the player when they get to it. It also mean when the reach the top of the hill there will be a framed doorway leading to the ferny area which should be visually appealing.

That’s what the wireframe looks like now, but I fear it still needs shrinking… Which is made clearer by the render below…

It’s still looking a bit too big. If I try to fill this space up with the planting I have it’s going to look far too repeated and I feel like I’ve lost the secret garden theme in the vastness of it. Watch this space.

Lonely As A Cloud

 

I took a trip to Bradgate to take my cloud panorama, I really wanted to get an over cast sky but I didn't want it to be a dull grey with no variety. In the end it was absolutely prefect weather for my atmosphere. I took loads of pictures of sky with plenty of cloud texture and colour change. Then it started to rain. I love that this sky pretty much encompasses all that is British weather.

Here is my flat cloud panorama, painstakingly glued together by yours truly:

Here it is squished in to a ball ready to put on my sky dome:

I used this tutorial to create my sky dome material and sun. It’s a good’un, highly recommended.

Freakish Funky Foliage

Colocasia and Gunnera are huge structural leafy plants that are common in warmer climes. In the gardens I visited on the south coast (Helligan in particular) had many of these ginormous structures, so I feel compelled to add them to mine. The big natural shapes will look great against the walls and will make the player feel dwarfed in comparison. I may not make them as large as these in the pictures, I used these references just for blog impact, it needed more POW factor.

 

I used alpha planes for the leaves and modelled the stalks using triangular tubes. These look pretty effective and will hopefully help populate the vast spaces of my garden!

Ferns I am adding because they are great for varying sizes of foliage without making lots of new assets. they create good ground coverage and the shape of their leaves allows for lots of variants when placed side by side if you simply rotate the axis a little. They also come in various shapes and colours, so I chose three. The Boston Fern, the Birds Nest Fern and the Ruffle Fern. I do love the names of these ferns, very funky.

 

 

The banana and bamboo plant I want to add for height. The banana plant has a great silhouette and its trunk is big enough to create a good contrast in the mid section of my planting areas. The yellow of the trunt looks great with all of the greens, too. The bamboo is for texture, height and substance. It will act as a bit of an unobtrusive filler to the area behind my planting that just look like merciless gaps. The Maurelli plant I am adding for mid height structure, and its striking red colour. It has the same leaves as the banana but sits much lower to the ground.

 

Learning The Leaf Boogie

Here’s the material for my plant textures to flow in the wind. Jamie Rodgers helped me with this material, as he has a lot of foliage in his level and seemed to have success with this one. It requires a wind actor to work and means I must use vertex painting on my plant meshes to allow UDK to know which areas to move. This is an example of one of my ferns with vertex painted leaves:

Red indicates where the material reacts with the wind actor.

A Day of Lily Flowers and Ivy

Here’s a list of my plant assets I intend to create. I’ll explain the reasoning behind my choices as I make them:

Bamboo

Banana plant

Colocasia

Ferns

Vine

Gunnera

Ivy

Lily and pads

Maurelli

Reeds

 

I’ve chosen to make ivy as it's a staple in any English garden really. It’s adaptable and easily placed in a level. It breaks up tiled walls and adds interest and movement to an otherwise dull area. Here is a render of my assets:

 

Also shown in the above picture is the grape vine seen in the post below next to the wall circle. All three of these assets are simply planes with alpha’s leaves on them. These can be adjusted in level to add variety to the Ivy/vine. I used a light green/yellow colour for the grape as a compliment to the ivy as they will often be placed together.

 

I chose to do a lily and some pads to make my water look pretty. The Hestercombe garden had a very very similar variety on their stream, and the white of the flower really looked beautiful against the dark leaves and water. To make the Lily pads I used a 2 tri plane and the lily it self I made two alpha shells so the flower had some depth to it.

I love how these look in level. I’ve added a material to them in UDK that makes them bob in the water (the material I’ll post next time once I have a screen shot of it)

I wanted a plant that is water based but had an element of height and structure to it. The reeds seemed a perfect choice for this and I love the seed heads so they were fun to model. I decided not to alpha these leaves as it too the same amount of tris as simply modelling them. I made two variants, one with a seed head, the other without. This means I can reposition them in clumps without them looking too copied.

Texture Galore!

Here are my previously explained/shown assets textured:

   

 

 

I loved texturing the brick circle, it was pretty fun and I’m happy with the way it turned out. I think I’ll use this colour texture on the base of my small pond wall, as it ties in well with the wall tile and is true to the reference in the garden. The floor/bridge texture came out out well. I’ve tile it horizontally so when modulated they should look seamless. I also capped the end of the asset in case I need to end it in the open and it only cost me a few tris (I also learnt my lesson trying to cut back on the archway tricount and ended up having to rearrange it a little in my level when it would have been fairly cheap and quick to just cap the ends of the asset! I’m so stingey with tris )

The gate came out well, I chose a curvy texture so it would make a change from the very structural walls and hedges. I also think the curls compliment the curve of the hedge too.

Shiny, shiny

 

Today I used the Hourences tutorial to make my water swimmable and the unreal water tutorial to make it shiny and ripple. I chose this because frankly it was the only one that worked. I tried using the Hourences tutorial a few times over, but there is something wrong in the material that just seems to not work. I also tried out a few others which either gave me nothing of what I wanted, or just became too complicated.

  

Anyway, I made it so that when the player enters the water, the colour changes into a blurry grey colour. I took a bit of time with this as it was quite tricky to find a colour that wasn't too dramatic. Above are just a few of my colour samples, the rest all looked like a very strange brown colour. I chose a subtle bluey grey (the image on the right)

 

In order for the reflections to look like actual reflections they needed something other than my whitebox texture the mirror so I placed some textured assets in and tiles my inner walls to test the reflection. I’m pretty damn pleased, though the reflection is a little too large. I’m not sure how to edit this, as the reflection plane has to be big to cover my stream, and when I tried to make a separate one for the stream the game became extremely laggy. I’ll see how it looks when everything around it is in, there is a chance it will be unnoticeable.