Dream Factory Development - 002

Creating a little town wasn't really on my list of things to do until further on into development but I found it really helped me plan out how most of the level was going to look further on and helping me get a sense of direction to how some of the buildings outside the playable area were going to look. a lot of these assets at the moment are from a single asset pack from the fab marketplace. The pack also came with a post process layer which I have played around with.

I have also tried to make the spawn cave to be a lot darker but have come across some troubles as the lighting I have set seems to keep everything inside the cave a certain level. I have tried creating a post process layer with a box only covering the cave and turning the exposure down whenever the player is inside the box. it did work okay but not as good as I wanted, it also made it very jarring when the player would step outside again as it would be a very sharp transition from the dark to the bright. I was thinking maybe I could play around with different post processes but didn't want to fill the level up with too many unnecessary layers which might comprise the FPS for the player. I have changed the cave a few different times to try and keep the god rays coming from outside into the spawn point whilst also keeping it as dark as I can.

I have also added a small cave entrance behind the spawn point which just consists of a plane with a black material with all of the properties turned down/off. hopefully I can make this look a lot better by finding a way to fade the material of the rocks around it from their original material to the new material I've made.

I'm also thinking of adding some rails going into this cave and maybe some mining materials scattered around the spawn point and the rest of the cave to give off a more abandoned mine feel, which will also fit perfectly into the lore of the game. I have also added some lampposts to the main playable area of the cave but need to spend more time on the materials and textures as originally they were more realistic and I've altered some of the textures in photoshop to give it more of a hand drawn feel but still need to mess around with them a bit more.

Regarding the rock formations of the cliffs/mountains I'm stuck on weather to keep them all the same or to have variations. I have created a small wall to support the hills above the small town but I'm not sure yet if to keep them smaller individual rocks or to have big rocks with not as much variation/detail in them.

I've also been having some problems with the waterfall transitioning into the small pond at the top of the mountain. I'm going to add a small river that runs from behind the playable area into the pond to make the environment a bit more realistic. I'm thinking about obstructing the river with some foliage so the player cant walk/swim up the river, although I still need to add a swimming mechanic. Not sure if I will make swimming be a part of the levels at all but will be a good touch to add to make the environment feel more realistic.