https://youtu.be/TZxwEQjZe8k
Thank you to the folks who have requested a video update about trees! Anyone who has been following our progress knows that I love working on the 3D environment of WolfQuest, so it should it should come as no surprise that I also love trees. Here’s a joke: How do trees get online? They just log in!
But seriously, trees are a critical part of the environment, both ecologically of course as well as visually. Douglas-fir are the most common tree species in WolfQuest, because they’re the most common tree in Yellowstone’s Northern Range, which is the heart of wolf country in the park. But they’re not the most common tree in Yellowstone — that’d be the lodgepole pine, which is the dominant species throughout the rest of the park. But Douglas-fir likes the cool, moist, north-facing slopes of the Northern Range, so they predominate there.
Here’s a fun fact about Douglas-fir: the name is hyphenated, and that’s to indicate that it isn’t a true fir. It’s genus name is Pseudotsuga, which means ‘false hemlock” — it resembles a hemlock as well as a fir, but it’s a different genus entirely. Douglas-firs grow to about 30m or 100 ft tall, and can live for as long as 600 years in Yellowstone. Their thick, corky bark protects them from fire so, unlike lodgepole pines, they can survive moderately intense forest fires.
So Douglas-fir is an important tree species for the Northern Range, and for the game. We’ve partnered with Kerry Baldino, one of the best 3D nature artists around, to create some new Douglas-firs for WolfQuest (along with other vegetation like the fescue and sagebrush we showed a few months ago, see link below). We also sent our old WolfQuest senior producer Steve Allison-Bunnell out into the field (he lives in Montana) to take comprehensive photographs of Douglas-fir bark, branches, and needles. Kerry used those photos to create a basic model of the classic Douglas-fir form, and now he’s working variations to give make our forests more realistic. Today’s video shows the first batch of Kerry’s trees in a test scene, which also uses several other tools by amazing Unity developers: Enviro for the sky and lighting system, a new vegetation spawning tool called Vegetation System Pro, and tree shaders created by vegetation shader wizard Forst.
In future videos we will share more new trees cottonwood and lodgepole, along with the finished forest environment complete with understory vegetation. In the meantime, check out our past videos about making the terrain!
Render in the Grass (New grass and sagebrush)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBMV_q00yKQ
Cliff Notes (Creating cliffs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpUawoSEtaY
Texturing the Terrain (Creating realistic ground textures on the terrain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnW_ZO0GESM
Roughing Up the Terrain (Using new tools to create more detailed terrains)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_PIVvLP-wQ