For the first project, I bounced around two ideas. The first was a beach environment abstracted such that when you moved around in a circle from your vantage point you would see a change in the beach as a result of human activity, a gradual transformation. The second idea was a mystical forest, inspired by the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps because I watched Harry Potter over the weekend, I leaned towards the latter.
Though I do have a bit of experience with Unity, I don’t feel very comfortable with lighting, fog, or aerial perspective. Since these are critical to creating mood and a sense of place, I hoped to specifically work on these aspects while making this project.
So far I’ve found some assets I really like from Fantasy Forest and I am experimenting with the color of the fog as I think that could make it more of an alternate reality by giving it a tinge of magic. I struggled a lot with making the trees have the scale that I wanted, but I realized that that had more to do with the perspective of the camera than the size of the trees themselves.
I’ve been messing around with the density of trees I put into the scene and the fog. The difficult thing about the fog is that it requires a precise density…too small and the fog will be barely there but even if you increase it just a bit, your scene will become consumed by fog.
I think the scene could do with a tad more fog, but this is about the tone I hope to convey. The blueish tint of the fog gives off an aura of mystery. I really hate the ground currently. Nothing I do looks natural! I’ve tried adding rocks and different textures to the ground, but it doesn’t help the trees fit into the ambience. I think I shall experiment with terrain to see if adding more levels makes the forest look better.
Actually, adding a different lightbox helped a bit. But definitely gave it a dark forest vibe.
Here I just increased the fog density by .01 and the difference is staggering.
Experimenting with a moonray directional light:
I had envisioned having a pond with mushrooms and magical fauna surrounding it. I wanted the mushrooms to glow, so I tried to add an emission to a new material but these made the mushrooms neon blue and far too bright. Thus, I adjusted the prefab by giving the shader a blueish color to give it a slight glow.
I think I will try to make a meditation forest now. I have a lot of trouble sleeping at night, so usually I end up listening to music to block out all the darting thoughts. But, my imagination usually tends to run wild all the same, so I wonder if having something visual to focus on would help me concentrate or sleep.
I think I shall keep my skybox and fog as is as I hope to still convey a nighttime ambience to remind myself of sleep. But, I now need elements that signal peace and tranquility to balance the darkness and barrenness of the trees. I did try putting leaves on many trees, but it didn’t support the aesthetic I was aiming for.
I experimented with a few things: waves, swaying flowers, mist, flying birds, and flying orbs of light. I wanted to keep my environment as uncluttered as possible, so I only chose my two favorites: the orbs and the waves.
With the orbs, I had to play around with the particle system to get the aesthetic I desired. Specifically, I played around the the color, the spread of the system, the size, speed, and direction of the individual particle, as well as the emission (glow).
