Project 1 | Our Small Existence – Alternate Realities

[Update] Tuesday, Feb 18, 2020

I added a flag and played around with the materials and the normal map to make it look old

I then added a lander model that I found on NASA’s website

Added an Earth. I first built the one on the left using a map of the Earth and a normal map of the Earth’s surface. However, struggling to add an atmosphere to the Earth, I found that there is an Earth asset on the Unity Store that looks a thousand time better.

I then tried to create a Dissolve Shader to apply to the Earth to make it look like disintegrating. However, I ran into this problem with the ShaderRender package. I tried looking it up online and found out I had to change the shader of all the game object to LightWeightRenderPipeline. However, when I did that, some of the materials got reset and messed up the whole scene.

I then tried to use the particle system to create explosions on the Earth’s surface instead. Even though I did not accomplish the disintegrating Earth that I set out, this is still a good alternative or my scene, provided the limited amount of time I have learned Unity so far.

[Update] Sunday, Feb 16, 2020

I started by creating a new Skybox with very a thin atmosphere and small, far away sun. This replicates the sky from the moon surface

I then toyed with the Terrain Tool and its different paint brush options to make a rough sketch of the moon surface.
While the process was fun in and on itself, it was nearly impossible to create realistic-looking craters or impact sites on the moon with the brushes alone

I then stumbled upon a *tutorial* *detailing a tool that let me create terrains using heightmaps*

Even though it was realistic-looking, the terrain was a bit feature-less in my opinion, which prompted me to use the brushes to add some mountains and ridges that would serve to guide the viewers

This faces the mountain, which will be the “backdrop” of the environment

Wednesday, Feb 12, 2020

I want to be alone; on the moon, with nobody else; maybe with an abandoned rover that lost contact with Earth a couple of years ago; maybe with a forgotten flag that was erected a century ago to mark the long-gone existence of another human being here. The chill sensation that gushes through my body as I look around the serene and desolate vastland of the moon. The sun millions of miles away look so small, barely shining the dimly gray surface of the moon. There is almost no atmosphere, the sky is a black patch of ink, dotted with lone stars light-years away. I want to immerse in that environment, I want to feel small, to feel lonely, to feel empty.

Looking up, the Earth is exploding into bits, or rather disintegrating, so slowly as if it was shot in slow-motion. What would it feel like to see our home not only from such an enormous distance but also when it is doomed? What would it feel like being the last man to survive? I want to seek answers to those questions.

*My drawing probably doesn’t do justice to the image I have in my mind*

Some ideas as to how this can be translated into a Unity experience:

I should probably toy around with the skybox to recreate the sun: small, distant, weak. Also, the atmosphere is almost non-existent. The lighting should be parallel, but there shouldn’t be light scatter (which makes the sky blue here on Earth), the sky should be black

As discussed in class, I should also toy with the terrain tool to recreate the craters-filled surface of the moon. Maybe to create some mountains as well?
I want the Earth to be slowly disintegrating, in a slow-motion manner. I don’t want to animate the explosion itself, because then I would somehow have to focus viewer’s attention to the Earth and watch the explosion process. I want the viewer to feel free to look around, and if they look up, they will see the Earth’s bits already slowly floating away from one another

Image result for disintegrating planet — *It would look kind of similar to this*

Image result for earth disintegrate — *Or this*

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