Whatever Floats Your Boat!

More asset production!

I want my level to have viewing points through which the player can see their ultimate destination. I feel this adds to the curiosity of a level and keeps the players momentum up when they might start to bore of the level. I have built two types of windows for my level, I intend for them to be textured like stone and be of a lighter colour to the walls so the pop a little bit. One window will be empty, the other I think will have stained glass or something similar to add some alternative colour and pattern.

I’ve now built the two stream sides that are seen in the Hestercombe gardens:

As you can see, this is a lovely way to blend the hard line of the small stream in with the floor BSP. It will break up any monotonous floor tiling I have down but also will add character to the level. I plan to add plants to the little holes, and texture the edging with similar looking stone to the picture.

Another way to add viewing potins for the character to see areas in the game are bricks with a hole pattern in them. This will also add light through to any area that I want walled, but lit with my dominant light. I used this pattern as it’s quite common in the gardens on the south coast. I did ponder about doing these bricks with an alpha, but decided against. The tri count is not too overwhelming on these and I plant to only use them sparingly. It adds a good solid feel too when they are a solid asset.

I plan to use this new walkway asset to surround and create a ‘bridge’ over my water area. This will be alpha’d with a grating texture in the centre, as I love the grating I found in one of the kitchen gardens I visited and am determined to incorporate it somewhere in my level, so this is my chance!

 

Boat!

Here are some references I used to build the boat for my pond:

And here is the final product:

And finally, I decided to separate the level off with a hedge and gate so the player has to work their way around another obstacle. This I wanted to be made from a hedge that is quite colourful as I’d like to incorporate some colour again. I found it quite tricky to work out how to create a hedge that isn’t too boxy, but still a box hedge (if that even makes a tiny bit of sense?) I decided to add a curve to my hedge to mirror the walls, and to make it alpah’d with another alpha shell inside, so as you move around the asset you will see the internal alpha planes creating light patches like branches. I’ll have to see how effective that is when I start texturing. Shown also is the gate I am using to fill the gap the curve in the hedge will create. I plan to make this quite ornate with an aplha so it will contrast well to all the blocky walls and square hedges.