Natalina Moore

3D Game Engine Workflow

For this task I was asked to design a 3D level in a game engine, I decided to use Unity to design this level, however I would first need to learn how to use unity. In this workflow I will document the process of making the level and learning the functions of Unity.

The first thing I did was to start playing around with moulding my level by using the terrain tools, after getting some grasp of the tools I decided I wanted to make a mountain/ volcano type of landscape, taking inspiration from the big mountains from skyrim,

As you can see it has quite a fantasy, sc-fi look to it. I decided that it would be on other planets and later I will add other mountains and rocks to it later on. After I created the initial base shape which was the outer ring of rocks by using the first terrain tool I looked at the other tools and decided that I liked the star shaped tool the most and used that to create the mountain/ rocks in the middles of the circle and the other rocks around. I then added a path up the mountain which took some time and I went back to using the first tool. Here is

the example of the tools I used, the one highlighted are the ones I used to create the rock

formation.

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After I worked on the smoothing the path to make one clear, clean and smooth path to walk up the mountain on I started painting the terrain, I did this by selecting terrain then the paint tool, at first I just added a new terrain which was in the assets to the paint tool which is what the outer rim of the rocks are painted with but then I decided that I wanted the it to have a lava or volcano look and I went on the unity store and looked around until I found a pack which works, I then painted the inside of the ring with the red lava rocks and the path is an orange lava path.

I also wanted my mountain to be on a another planet and have a space background so I went back on the Unity and store and downloaded a space skybox pack, to add the skybox to the level I went on edit then render settings and dragged the sky pack texture I wanted into the render settings.

Water

I next added water to my level, the code for the water in Unity is broken at the moment so I dragged the water from the Q drive with the correct code into Unity, then I selected the night time water and dragged it into my level and resized it to the size I wanted so it covered the whole level.

I also added more land behind the mountain with a little pond in the middle, I have started painting the terrain but I haven’t finished it yet, it was just to give the mountain more terrain and places for the character to

explore. I still need to smooth and add texture to the terrain, I’m thinking of

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creating new land mass for the character to explore. I also added rocks and hills in the make the terrain look more interesting

Skybox

Next I added a skybox to give the background some texture, to do this I found a night time skybox already in unity and I then went to edit, render settings and I dragged my skybox into the skybox material box and this put the skybox in my game. However the skybox wasn’t the right texture for the sky with the setting I was going for so I went on the unity asset store and found a spacey purple background to use instead and I put it into my game the way I just explained.

Terrain

I then began editing the terrain once again, I found a new rock texture which gave it quite a sandy look so I blended the sand on the beach with this rock texture, afterwards I smoothed the pond and the other rocks down a little so it was more of a gradually incline and more playable for the character to walk on.

Trees

I then added two trees, my landscape is very barren and sparse but I wanted to add some trees just to show I knew how to do It, I added the trees by clicking create and tree I then dragged it near the pond, lastly I needed to add collision to it so when the player walks into the tree and not through it. I did this my adding a component and then a capsule collider; I then changed the axis to 0 and then dragged the radius and height so the Collison capsule was in the tree

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boundaries and would only affect the tree so there wasn’t a force field not letting you go around the tree.

I tried making the water orange to look like lava but it just looks rather rusty and doesn’t look quite right as you can see in previous screenshots. I decided that I would go with a different look. I kept the water in the lake I had but just resized the water I had over the whole map to fit the lake and changed the colour so it wasn’t a rusty orange. Next I just added some water round the front of it to mask the edge and the end of the land was very visible, putting water there makes it appear like it goes on for longer.

As I have a space theme, I was looking through the particle effects in unity and found snow, you can’t really see it in this screenshot but I copy and pasted the particle effect snow for the whole surface area of the water in the lake so it’s snowing on the water as I thought it looked quite nice and as it’s another planet, ad normal weather conditions are not out the question.

I also found fire and sparks in the particle effect which I added into the land around the mountain so it looks like an active lava floor. I did this by clicking and dragging the particle effect I wanted and placing it where I wanted it to take effect, I tried to make the particle effect varied so it looked more realistic, I also found a mist effect which I only placed one of, if I had more time I would go back and fill he cavern with them to add to the volcano feel. I did add mist to the whole level by clicking mist on, but It made things hard to see and as I was still editing the level it made it quite difficult without zooming far in to see if there

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were any details that needed to be fixed, I meant to put the mist back into the level but forgot.

Water

I again changed the water again, I kept the pong area the same but I made a big water mass underneath the land, so the when you look of the edge you see water, this is the same thing I was trying to do with the last time I changed the water but it still didn’t look as I wanted it to, so by making the water this way it creates the effect I wanted

Assets

I was browsing the asset store for what I could add to my level to make it more interesting, and I found a spider which I thought would be perfect for a boss. The spider is at the top of the mountain you have to climb, although I did not have any time to code or look into how to animate any of the assets I still included them in the level.

I also added a horse to run in the rocky plains near the pond, I did try to animate the horse however it wasn’t sticking to the floor and was running in the air and in one spot, I didn’t know how to fix it so I decided to leave animation out.

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I also found these sand/ desert rocks, which I made bigger in size and positioned them together to make a landmass of rocks which fit into the rocky/ sandy floor. I would of liked to add more of them over the plains but I didn’t have enough them. All the rocks already came with a collider so I didn’t have to add one into them which means the player wont be able to walk through the rocks.

I also added these ruin stones in that I found in the asset store as I thought it could be quite a cool place to get a quest from. Also they reminded me of the ruinic stones in Skyrim and I quite liked them, I added them by dragging the stones in, there were two textures to pick from, a stoney texture or the sand stoney one seen in the screenshot.

I also added in little stones from the sandstone texture pack all over the plain to add more detail, they also have the collision collider already added so the player wont be able to walk through them. I did have an issue with them not being the right height, as they were floating of the ground so I had to go back and make sure all of them looked normal and not floating space rocks.

Terrain

The last thing I did in my level was to add a ravine from the lake just to make the level more interesting, I did this by setting the smooth tool to 45 and as this land mass is quite tall, the tool took land away and left a rift in

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between the lands to create the ravine. As the I had made the water very big it already had water in the ravine. And the very last thing I did was just to make sure everyone was smooth and textured properly.

Next time, if I had more time I would figure out the animation so the horse would be able to run around freely and the spider would be able to attack. I would of also liked to add another island to explore. Over all I am happy with this level.