week four – thursday 8th august
task one: independent study
After the lecture on unity and having a short demo with some pre-built scenes in unity we were tasked with either modifying these scenes or creating our own from scratch to generate three different outputs.
flaming sphere
This output was a modification of a preexisting one, in which a coloured sphere (with a trail) emitted a popping sound and slowly rotated on its x axis, the tightness in which the ball rotated speed up the closer the player got to it.
I modified this scene by changing the material and size of both the sphere and the trail, selecting a ‘fireball’ material instead. I also replaced the popping audio with a scream mp3. I tried to find a longer scream so it was less broken, more intense, but could not. I also changed the axis and speed in which the sphere spun so that it could spin and make its way closer to the ground.
I modified the terrain and created a deserted rocky landscape that the fireball would move through. I tested out different materials for the terrain also, as I found the grey not very atmospheric. I was looking for a deep black in which the player could be disoriented, the only light source being the fireball. I choose a reflective coloured glass option that gave off a sense of a futuristic or ‘other’ world, however similarly with some of the glossier materials I experimented with, the glow of the sphere is somewhat lost.
if I were you I would turn your sound down a few notches before watching this
forest environment
I generated this output from the ‘Basics’ pack, which starts with a FPSCamera and directional lighting. From here I played around with what I could do within the terrain panel and what sort of scenes I could make. I figured out to use the paint trees option I had to go and find the tree game object for the painter to apply. From here I played with density, height and size of brush. Initially I hade set out to make a swamp like environment as I couldn’t figure out how to add leaves to the trees, they were simply dead-looking trees.
Once I workout how to add leaves to the game object I played around with size and generated colour. Going back to the spread of the trees I realised they were far too close together now with the addition of leaves that the players experience would be effected. I re-painted the trees more widely dispersed and then elevated parts of the terrain to create a hilly forest landscape. I also added features such as birds in audio and grass/dirt walking audio to the player, as well as increasing their ability to climb up inclines.
However, when I went to play the scene a bunch of errors came up, and even when I tried to clear them as I did in the lecture, it still wouldn’t let me play.
Cityscape
I found it easier in this program to generate landscape scenes in which a player could walk through, rather than manipulating objects. If I were to further my skills with Unity perhaps I could add a manipulated game object to interact with these scenes.
In this output I focused on materiality and lighting to create atmosphere. I used simple cubes and duplication to create these few buildings, creating the windows using a glossy clear material that could reflect the yellow lighting. The buildings were initially a glossy black, however when I went to play with e lighting more, it became too bright, so that material was changed to a more dull rusty brown. The footpath was made glossier than a cement footpath would be normally as I thought it created a nice atmosphere where the streetlights reflect off of it, appearing perhaps as if it has just rained. Maybe in my developments I could make it rain in this scene..
I also intended on duplicating and creating more buildings to create a proper city scape.
One aspect of this output that I am proud of the way it turned out was the variation in hues and spread that were manipulated in the directional light (moon) and the point light (street lamps).
Coding for Creative Practice 