Blogs - ErYnIs

Hi everyone!

Today I´m going to explain to you some little tricks in order to do your scene more attractive. People tend to model the props in two ways: The first is drawing or making the 3D symmetrical and straight, but that´s not a good idea because reality isn´t perfect. The other way is making them hyper-singular and organic, but it doesn´t work either because when we repeat some singular shapes 100 times the pattern becomes repetitive. We have to do the irregularity in a balanced way.

Here are two examples. This one is the ramp on Isla Aventura circuit. The second ramp has much more movement and fits better in the island´s style.

In case of the Castelul Bunâ Moarte's village, we have two options for doing the fence. Which one do you prefer?

But putting the spice to the environment isn't about just dropping the models into the environment . When placing them on the scene we have to put them in an organic way. As we can see on this example, first, we place the palms on the scene, then we change
their rotations, and finally, we variate their scale. I strongly recommend you to do these modifications count, as noteworthy as possible. Otherways, they will be useless.

Finally, I bring you the example of the crows in the Hanging Tree because it displays so clearly the importance of providing a balanced irregularity. In the first frame all the crows are synchronized, it´s really funny but it isn´t our actual intention. We need to make random movements (you know, in a balanced way) to obtain a realistic result (see second example).

This picture shows are all crows' trajectories...there used to be a tree behind all those flight paths!

I hope you had enjoyed it. See you!

Hi everyone! Today I`m going to explain to you another way to take the player into the game environment. When we are looking for references to make a new place of the game or thinking what we are going to need in order to do it, it is a good idea to think about “clichés”.

People tend to know what kind of objects are supposed to be in certain places, and this is good because it makes easy for us to build believable environments, even fantasy places. By the other way we can´t abuse of them, because repetition of these patterns over and over again can make them lose all meaning.

Today I bring you three examples of how we use clichés in Formula Wincars places. How many common elements can you find on them?

Angel Park is the usual square that we would find on Madrid, London or even Manhattan.

We find trees and plants, a lake, benchs and lampposts, grass, stone pavement and a beautiful sunset.

Pirates area in Isla Aventura.

There are a sunken ship, an anchor, cannons and cannon balls, boxes and barrels, a treasure, swords and of course GROG!

Finally the cemetery of our new circuit. This is under construction, have you any advice?

Right now there are coffins, headstones, crosses, stone walls, niches, mausoleums, dark trees and angel statues.

I hope that you had enjoyed it. See you!

Hi everyone! I´m Elena and I´m going to explain you another way to optimice resources when building a scene.

Previously, I told you that we need to do some simple decoration sets. We’ll create a complex environment by mixing these. Here goes some examples from Adventure Island:

Mask and lance: We used these as objects in the small village and for cabin decoration too

Liana: They do the decoration of bridges, the jungle and a makeshift door for the hut.

Skulls: They are the decorative objects of the small towns, doors’ frames and they even appear in a wall.

Plants: Starting from the leaves of the palm trees and from one of the flowers, we obtained two kinds of bushes.

The stick and the board: Finally, our favourite set. This is the demonstration that simple objects are the one which provide the most variety; from a simple stick and a board, we obtained a campfire, a fence, hanging bridges, footbridges and a ramp.

I hope you had ejoyed it. See you soon!

Which is the best way to create a realistic environment for the player? Since a city is a common place for everyone, it's a big challenge to do a complex and believable place with just a few elements.

We are going to give you some advices to keep in mind. On first place, do some simple decoration sets. We will obtain a complex, varied and harmonius environment through mixing them. On second place but not less important; If you can’t see it, it doesn´t exist. This is what we are going to explain today.

Actually, a videogame scene is a mix of meshes placed in the middle of the space. In this scene, we are going to combine a lot of sensitive elements to generate a specific experience in the player. Therefore, we have to manage its perception every moment. The player perception can be clasified in three levels:

Little scale:

As they´re the closest to the player, we talk about the high detailed models. They lie in the urban furniture in Angel Park City.

First of all, to optimize resources in the game, we have to keep in mind the level of detail system (LOD). It modifies the polygons´s density depending on the proximity with the camera. We have to create 3 models of each element, going through the highest to the less level of detail without losing the general form of the object.

Another trick when it comes to optimize the resources, consists in deleting all the model´s faces which aren’t seen. For example, since the fence is always going to be on vertical position, we will delete all the model´s faces under the floor. It seems like there are only 2 polygons, but when we have to place 500 fences on the scene, we are talking about 1000 polygons less to process.

Middle scale:

This level includes the buildings and all the elements that give to the player the feeling of being in a defined space. That is, they are all the elements that give height and depth to the scene.

In our case, since Formula Wincars is formed by delimited circuits, we focused on what the player sees from within the car.

A good advice to optimize the buildings’ models, is to divide the faces of the object into different elements. It allows us to desactivate the parts that aren´t seen from the player´s perspective.

Big scale:

This is the farthest view from the camera, but we have to take it into account too if we don’t want the players to believe that they are staying in the middle of nowhere.

There are the big skyscrapers in Angel Park City. Talking about modeling, there are simple planes or cubes that define the city´s skyline.

In last place, try to be careful with the open-angle streets near to the skyline. You will always have to introduce different elements in order to break the horizon.

I hope you had ejoyed it. See you soon!