Greetings and salutations!
For this week's screenshots, the sunlit place above level two proper, in contemporary Tenereth:
The week just past saw a return to level-construction:
Sunday, December 23. 2018
The City in Sunlight
Summary: In which a sunlit part of the level is built; cladding turns out to be shinier than expected; the level is named; the level's state of completion is indicated; a Christmas holiday is mentioned, along with its intended effects on blog-posting; and a holiday well-wish is given.
Greetings and salutations!
For this week's screenshots, the sunlit place above level two proper, in contemporary Tenereth:
The week just past saw a return to level-construction:
Greetings and salutations!
For this week's screenshots, the sunlit place above level two proper, in contemporary Tenereth:
The week just past saw a return to level-construction:
Almost all of level two takes place in the dark, in the under-city beneath Tenereth. Almost all, but not quite all: the part of the under-city visited here is accessed from a building within living, daylit Tenereth, and that building provides the entrance and exit to the level.
For quite some time this area has been prototypical: functional to a basic degree, but not pretty. In the week just past, then, I set about attending to that.
The building itself was simple enough: The floor-hole that allows access into the level proper called for some detailing, and the UVs of that hole were a little tricky, but for the most part things went smoothly, I think.
The view beyond the exit-doorway was a little more challenging, but not greatly so, as I recall. Through the open doorway we see the little buildings of this area across a quiet, broad-cobbled street; behind all that is a blue sky, with a few wispy clouds.
There were a few challenges: elements that didn't look right, or that weren't quite as I'd hoped. Some of these I managed to fix; some still aren't quite as I'd like, I fear.
Along the way, I discovered something odd: my "stone cladding" material, used quite widely in the under-city, had been using the normal-map intended for ceramics. Since A Door to the Mists stores "shininess" information in its normal-maps, and since ceramics are intended to be somewhat shiny, surfaces using this "cladding" ended up rather shinier than expected! I had presumably missed this somewhat in the under-city, under the "player-light", but in the light of the "sun" it was quite apparent.
On the other hand, I had been using that "ceramic" normal-map for some time, and liked the texture of it. Furthermore, the actual "cladding" normal-map turned out to be somewhat small. So, instead of using that "cladding" normal map, I exported a less-shiny version of the "ceramic" normal-map to replace it, and a using that in the level.
This area is not quite finished yet--at the least there are a few things that I still intend to do. But I do think that it's pretty close to done!
On a minor writing note, I now have a name for level two: "A Light in the Dark".
And as is often the case, a number of minor changes, fixes, and suchlike were done in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here.
Overall, I think that the level is getting there; that it is, at last, drawing near to completion! ^_^
Christmas falls during the coming week, and I intend to take the week off (which is the reason for this entry being posted early). As a result, there will (presumably) be no blog post for that week; instead, I intend that the next entry be posted on either Monday the seventh or Tuesday the eighth of January.
To all of you who read this blog, if you observe or celebrate anything during this time of year (or have just recently), I hope that it's wonderful (or was so, in the parenthetical case). If not, then I hope that the period is nevertheless a happy one for you. Furthermore, I hope that the year ahead is one of great happiness for you!
That's all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
For quite some time this area has been prototypical: functional to a basic degree, but not pretty. In the week just past, then, I set about attending to that.
The building itself was simple enough: The floor-hole that allows access into the level proper called for some detailing, and the UVs of that hole were a little tricky, but for the most part things went smoothly, I think.
The view beyond the exit-doorway was a little more challenging, but not greatly so, as I recall. Through the open doorway we see the little buildings of this area across a quiet, broad-cobbled street; behind all that is a blue sky, with a few wispy clouds.
There were a few challenges: elements that didn't look right, or that weren't quite as I'd hoped. Some of these I managed to fix; some still aren't quite as I'd like, I fear.
Along the way, I discovered something odd: my "stone cladding" material, used quite widely in the under-city, had been using the normal-map intended for ceramics. Since A Door to the Mists stores "shininess" information in its normal-maps, and since ceramics are intended to be somewhat shiny, surfaces using this "cladding" ended up rather shinier than expected! I had presumably missed this somewhat in the under-city, under the "player-light", but in the light of the "sun" it was quite apparent.
On the other hand, I had been using that "ceramic" normal-map for some time, and liked the texture of it. Furthermore, the actual "cladding" normal-map turned out to be somewhat small. So, instead of using that "cladding" normal map, I exported a less-shiny version of the "ceramic" normal-map to replace it, and a using that in the level.
This area is not quite finished yet--at the least there are a few things that I still intend to do. But I do think that it's pretty close to done!
On a minor writing note, I now have a name for level two: "A Light in the Dark".
And as is often the case, a number of minor changes, fixes, and suchlike were done in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here.
Overall, I think that the level is getting there; that it is, at last, drawing near to completion! ^_^
Christmas falls during the coming week, and I intend to take the week off (which is the reason for this entry being posted early). As a result, there will (presumably) be no blog post for that week; instead, I intend that the next entry be posted on either Monday the seventh or Tuesday the eighth of January.
To all of you who read this blog, if you observe or celebrate anything during this time of year (or have just recently), I hope that it's wonderful (or was so, in the parenthetical case). If not, then I hope that the period is nevertheless a happy one for you. Furthermore, I hope that the year ahead is one of great happiness for you!
That's all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
