Developer- Just me =)

Storyline- This is mainly a test game but my idea is to try and emulate a pen and paper style game complete with dungeon master narration and 'choice and consequence'- Its to be a combat light , turn based style adventure RPG with a generic plotline just so I can test systems and figure out what works and what does not for my 'real game' down the road.

Right now Im mostly trying to make a few map scenes.




Hey guys, I'm not sure where to post this so I figure this is the best spot as it is a "work in progress" but is mostly just a place im testing things to learn how to do them and maybe get some advice.... I'm brand new to GG and pretty much game making (except for RPG Maker which ive played with) so crafting worlds in 3d is something brand new to me.

Ive watched a ton of tutorials and read things and continue to look things up every 5 minutes it seems lol.

So, my first real test is in making mountains that look realistic and yet fantastical at the same time- I have 'multi layered' them so that when you walk they kind of scroll at different rates- Anyhow, I havnt done any painting or really adding much to them except for the basics until I get the terrain how I want...Then I plan to really do the details.

So I started this last night as the basis for one of the scenes I will be using and Ive already ran into a bit of an issue- My waterfalls are not properly reflecting the light/ambiance or anything that I can figure out. In a well lit situation with a blue skybox they look pretty good- but...

As you can see from these screens, as I darken the scene , the waterfalls keep their exact brightness and it starts to look funny as things get darker- I swear ive tried every combination of sliders to get the effect I want to no avail so I decided to come here and see if anyone knows a trick or if I would actually have to retexture the waterfall itself (which isnt happening since im already trying to learn more than I want lol) or if Im just going to have to match the light with the waterfall as the easiest route (I wanted a sunset scene here but if theres no real way to fix this I will just make it daytime)- Note : the last picture is the approx light level I wanted to use

Anyhow, I'm not trying to jump the gun on 'work in progress' but figured since this is in fact a test game I am going to complete (it will be tiny though and just a place for me to test things I want to use when I make my real game) I figured I would post here- And if its okay this would be a great place for me to ask advice as I go along making this.

Also, any critique on my mountain shape? Mountains are harder than I thought they would be and these probably took me 8 hours but I'm still learning and already could probably cut that time by 1/3rd or better if I were to do this scene again.

you could worry less about the shape of the mountains if you added more entities to the mountains, perhaps some grass, trees, distant billboard trees, rocks, cliffs, and even buildings and pathways.

Yeah for sure, and I plan to do all that- I was just trying to go through a process of first creating the terrain, then placing the big items (like waterfalls, cave entrances and streams) then painting and finally adding all the touches like rocks, trees and other entities- The waterfall thing is just kind of holding me up because no matter what I do I cant make it blend with the lighting (I also know the positioning is off on it a bit too but no use getting it all perfect when it may not end up working lol)

For now Im just working on the mountain range that isnt shown in the screenshot (the screenshot is a small part but theres a winding mountain range most of the way around) but if theres a fix, I cant figure it out and im thinking that sadly I might have to totally change the scene if I want to use the waterfall- I played with setting it towards a daylight jungle-ish scene and I think itll look good but its not what I wanted- I figure if I dont have a solution by the time I have the other terrain areas set up ill just go that route so I can get right to the paining phase.

I still cannot believe how much work goes into making mountains but its going way faster now that im kind of figuring out tricks so its not too bad and tbh its kind of fun in a masochistic way =P

I have to say, I'm really enjoying 3d world building- Ive done a ton of world designing in tabletop games but being able to take that into 3d and see it as it starts to look 'real' is something ive never had the fortune of doing- I just wish I had the skill to make it match whats in my imagination.

keep practicing and you'll get there. I notice decorating as I go keeps me sure of how my level's going to look and I can keep a better eye on performance throughout. If I make a gigantic empty world, I'm never satisfied with how much i can decorate it to look realistic before it starts to slow to a crawl (below 60 fps average for me)

I might suggest using the waterfall in direct sunlight.

Hey Saint Phillip!



You'll get there over time.
You are already doing something very cool for a beginner here and I like your attitude towards making games.

Here are a few pointers:

That waterfall is (I believe) a decal and will thus not react to light. A better approach would be to use a shaded entity. M2Design has some really cool videos of this in this thread here: LINK

Terrain is best to be complimented with entities. That is how Skyrim pulls off most of its mountains. You can see a few examples from my work here.



-Wolf

Thanks wolf- Youre correct the waterfall I'm using is a decal. When I was building it I decided some waterfalls would look cool and after looking around I thought that was the only way you could make one, so I went to the store and got that waterfall (which I really like , except for the light issue)- I didnt know decals wouldnt be affected by lighting but actually , now that you said that it makes logical sense since most of them are fire and things that you would want to stand out and be independent of the lighting.

That shaded entity waterfall and stream is exactly what I want and from what I can see you could actually shape that however you needed as well- But it looks like that requires learning to create and texture entities (if im not mistaken) and then add the shader (?) which is something Im going to look into after I get the basics of making a game. Thats really what I'll probably need to do in the long run anyhow so I wont just be using stock/store bought things and can have some originality in my graphics but right now Im already a bit overwhelmed lol- But having fun nevertheless.

Youre game looks...Amazing. It doesnt look like it was made in game guru (not that im knocking gameguru) but looks like a studio created it. Thats really, really impressive.

Well, heres where I'm as of tonight- I still have alot to do but actually am finding that I need to downgrade a bit- I still have some painting that needs done, more trees and rocks to place and grass to add and then this scene should be pretty well finished- I'm just dealing with the glowing waterfall for now lol.

Should start adding in the first NPCs and basic storyline tomorrow and hopefully making a tiny game with this as the main map (theres a cave, some ruins to enter and a few misc areas that will change maps to small maps I havnt started yet)

-I started adding fog at places around the mountain and it looks great some sometimes randomly disappears so I took most of it away.