Hey everyone!
As you can see from the screenshot this week, we have been playing with the style we want our mountains to follow.
We decided early on that sandstone was going to feature prominently for our art style and the fabric of our more grandiose buildings - considering we really enjoyed the references we found of sandstone buildings. Naturally, having sandstone feature heavily in the map would be logical which led us to find the relevant references for sandstone mountains and rock formations.
There are so many different types of sandstone that this also provides us with some flexibility with different formations on different maps when world building which will be useful for identification and variety. However, our first drive was to combine gorgeous jungle landscapes with the exposed sandstone, which led us to Zhangjiajie National Park (the one that also inspired the environments of Avatar). Consequently, we are thinking of creating formations inspired by the one below.
This works for the game jungle style we are aiming for and we have been making the puzzle pieces to start world building with this goal in mind. The triplanar shaders we have worked on help bring together some of the clusters we have been making, and things like the wind and water shaders help bring the worlds to life really quickly. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?
We are excited about how it is going to look in the end and how it will add charm to the currently featureless mountain ridges we have been working with.
Now that walking on rocks will also be a major part of movement, we have also reworked the movement, and resolved a known issue of ‘bunny hopping’ up slopes which are too steep for the player, allowing them to climb where we didn’t want them to. This will prove really helpful with defining paths through the mountains and being able to hide secrets for the players to find. Considering how much we have enjoyed exploring the map up until now, we hope this will really build on that.
Until next week!