Saturday 11 January 2014

Woodland Research

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It was Saturday, and I drove for over 30 minutes to get away from the PC. Found myself in a woodland somewhere with extensive walking trails. Set off at about 1:30PM and came back in the dark around 5PM. The sign said 45 minutes. Now I think about it, I think it must have the trail was 4.5 hours...


After various protests from different limbs throughout the marathon trek, I finally managed to get back to the car and get home to write this little blog.

As you know, I seldom 'switch off' and my mind constantly looks at life through the interpretation matrix of figuring out how to convert it to something I can turn into software.  I was totally struck how many little terrain and landscape details popped out at me, crying out to be digitized and made real in the virtual world.

I took lots of photos and made a few videos for the sound effects and animation effects required to reproduce the splendor of the natural world. Of course I won't have any time to do anything with them, what with game logic, AI and performance issues to deal with, but if I still have my camera phone many moons from now, I might be able to do something with the content.

The good news is that I walked 10 miles, 20,000 steps and I'm feeling buzzed. Time for food and late night FPS gaming action!

7 comments:

  1. Nice Photo, Nice see you out and about in the Fresh Air and at least getting some exercise if not rest.Still I am sure its good for the soul and to help you sleep well after the evening of food and game action.

    Have a good day tomorrow.

    :-)

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  2. Lee sounds like it was a Great time. I am looking forward to the day when we can import those photos into Reload. Then using a magic wand much like you would in a paint program select rocks terrain and Reload will duplicate to your game.

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  3. yes, this world have incredible details.
    also much important are the color/nuances combinations for a game.

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  4. Where is that Lee? We should have a team walk to this Welsh location. The walk up Snowdon should be planned too for this Easter (if you're up to it mate).

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  5. It was the site of an old Welsh Gold Mine, the name unpronounceable in Wiganese. Currently getting fit for my ski trip so I should be able to tackle Snowdon if I keep it up. P.S. The previous tenants took over £6 million gold out the ground back in the 1940's. I looked but could not see any accidently dropped nuggets :(

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  6. That will teach you not to wear your glasses lol! 45 mins is a wee bit less than 4.5 hours! I like your Scott of the Antarctic hat as well!
    On a more Reloaded note, I've been playing about seeing how much grass a level can take and remain playable. It would seem it is a lot! I was thinking if you could add in several types, it would help pretty up scenes nicely and still keep speed fairly decent. A grass distance bar would also be nice! Also, possibly, and I am unsure if this is possible with the terrain, perhaps for distance stuff, you could change the terrains texture to match grass pasted down on it. You won't notice the difference from afar and it would make a scene look more seamless. Obviously as you get closer it would add the actual grass and revert the terrain to the original floor texture. If you could implement something like this, suddenly our scenes would look much more scenic and hopefully run just as well!
    Just an idea, I know you are busy with enough at the moment, but maybe food for thought in the future?

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