Easter Blues
NOTICE:
There are unpublished posts in this blog because they haven't got pretty pictures in them yet (like this lovely example), please bare with me on this, they should be up in the next two weeks, and you all get to enjoy a lovely influx of rambly blog posts. Horray.
Not sad blues, but it's Easter break and there's a lot of blue in our level. So it felt like an appropriate title.
Although I am a little blue because we've made the decision to cut out the final two clearings completely. It was sort of already a definite consideration, however recently we all decided to take a bitter gulp of reality and realise that we would be much better off focusing purely on the two clearings we already have.
I'm really sad about this because I was looking forward to the caves, but I'd rather do something small and well, than something large and unfinished.
So onto the week. It's been fairly chilled. I decided to take more of a break this week since it is the holidays, and I haven't taken a proper break since this project started. I know I'll have to work hard full time once I get a job in Industry, however my fear for this project has had me working late into evenings and into my weekends at times, which hasn't been great for my health. I can manage long hours, and If I'm enthusiastic about something I'll put all my time into it, but when I feel like the only person whose putting my all into a project, which has happened before, it can be a lot harder to keep up the motivation.
Anyway more of a break doesn't mean no work. So whilst I haven't met all my goals for the week, I'm feeling quite pleased with what I have achieved.
Before I get onto the main thing I did this week though, a more minor thing was simply identifying any fixes I need to make to my existing work.
Mostly this was things like noticing seams to be hidden better, and roughness that could be improved. But one major fix I do want to make is to my Pansy, which just isn't good enough at the moment. Wild pansy's have more leaves, the leaves are more jagged, and they grow out from one another. Plus the colour is pretty bland, and I just think an overly realistic albedo and roughness on flowers doesn't look that good. So this is an asset I will be re-doing once I find the time to do so.
I also made a minor fix to the directional light, as it was making the scene look too much like autumn.
But the main thing I did this week. Was make the waterfall!!!!!!!
This was a very painful, very long process, but I got it in the end.
I must have made about four different sets of alphas and textures before I ended up with a set-up that worked. Mostly this boiled down to me trying to do things in a too complicated way, and then when I simplified it, everything worked much, much better. Typical.
Here is the first mesh for the waterfall:
And here is the Alpha I ended up using to get that streaky falling water effect:
Then this is the very basic alpha I used to blur out the edges:
I may or may not end up doing some more textures to blend together to create a foamier water effect in the visible parts of the material, however it isn't that necessary since the player won't ever get that close to it to see the details, and the whole waterfall has a faint emissive glow to it that will blur out any finer details too.
This all seems simple to me now, but working it out was really difficult. However when I get frustrated with something I like to remember that the more confused you are about something, the better you understand it and thus will remember it, once you've worked it out. Since you're brain spent more time processing it.
Just a nice little thought for anyone who may feel disheartened by not getting something straight away. Especially if you feel like it should be easy to get!
Anyway, here is the final product in engine (with place-holder particles for now):
And here is the material for it:
I also made this alpha for the water-splash particle I'm going to work on next week:
So whilst I haven't actually gotten all my tasks done this week, I don't mind too much, because I'm going back to Uni for the final week of Easter on Monday, and I'll be able to get a LOT more work done there. Mostly because my internet at home is about as fast as a snail.
So here's the part we've all been waiting for.
My Action Plan:
Make my own water normal to replace the place-holder one
Finish my water splash particle effect for the waterfall
Make the final two meshes for the waterfall and place them in engine
Clean up the second clearing
Finish my donkey fountain
Work out how to end the level
Unwrap and texture mushrooms
Make those lilies.
Make that moth
So it's a lot, but I'm confident that I can get most of that done next week. Hopefully all of it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Wish me luck (or just cheer me on, because who needs luck right?)
