The Desert Sessions, PT. 6

All the organic stuff in my environment is done! I replaced the expensive plant meshes I once had that had each individual leaf as a mesh, and replaced them with transparent plane geometry that takes each plant from 1,000 polys to about 10. HUGE difference, needless to say. So now, I don't have to skimp on the amount of shrubbery the level has. The planes cross each other in just the right fashion to make the grass believable from virtually any angle.

I also added some bushes in, which are not as abundant as the previously mentioned plants. They serve as a sort of "accent" mesh to add visual variety. Same idea as the other plants in construction, just a different plant image used.

Another big change is all the rocks that I added in. I modeled them out in maya, detailed them in zbrush, and painted them in photoshop. It was tricky getting the colors for them to match in with the environment just right, but a neutral gray with a touch of earth tone works just right. I tried more chromatic orange colors like I observed in many reference pics, but they ended up sticking out like a sore thumb. The poly count of each rock is roughly 600-700 polys, which I'm happy with, given how their silhouettes look.

The last thing I did was fill in the open background area past the point where the player can go. Trees, rocks, grass, it's all there. The magic in it is that they are all flat image planes. Since they are far away, there's no need for them to be complex models, so I faked it by taking a screen cap of the actual 3D models, erasing the surrounding backgrounds in Photoshop, and including an alpha in the TGA. It looks convincing, and it made virtually no mark on my poly count. It's nice to see my map really finally feel like it's part of something bigger, like it's never ending.

So, now that the natural stuff is done, save some unique trees that are static meshes, I can move on to finishing some remaining models. After that, it's time to visit the material editor and make some of my objects look a bit shinier. And after that, I finally tackle the plane and shack.

More to come....