Using Speed Tree and Creating Assets

One thing that we felt that the game was missing was foliage. It was something that wasn't man made. Looking at the research that was done in the process to designing the environment, one that was present in the images was the use of trees and bushes. This helps breath extra life into the environment and make it less bland. There several things that we needed when it came to the foliage. We decided that to help emphasis that Miami feel, we needed to create Palm trees that will sit in the shopping center. We also needed to create some bushes and fern which will be scattered around the mall.

Creating and Adjusting in Speed Tree.

I was finding Speed Tree a magnificent program to use, with all the extra detail into controlling the outcome of what the tree was going to look like. Im very lucky because Speed Tree has many different templates which people can use, with the palm tree being one of them. This was great as it helped introduced me to the program slowly. The program also gives us a height perspective, where we can see what the player would look like compared to the trees.

Using the tools within Speed Tree.

There were many detail;s within the program that I could adjust, this was perfect for constructing the right tree for our game. Here I could could control how tall the tree was, how many iterations of the tree there was, how much detail was going into the tree and how many leaves there were. I also could change the bend in the tree, which was something that could make a tree unique.

The program also has an option where the user can generate a collider for it to use in Unity. This was fantastic as it could save game designers time when putting the models in. Speed Tree also generates physics with a wind generator. this gives us a sample of what it will do in Unity.

Creating a Bush in Speed Tree.

After the trees were in game, we were all really happy with the results.I was then told that we needed some bushes that would sit it in the pots scattered around the environment. I was struggle in my attempt to make a bush, there weer no tutorials or templates for me to work with, so I had to use what I learnt from the palm tree. I ended up getting a template of a Birch tree, reducing the size or the bark in the middle to minimal and reducing the detail of the leave so it would run nicely in the game. In the end,. I was rather happy with the result that I got, as using a new program is always difficult, but I feel with the time I had, I really did learn a lot.

Creating Dead Grass within Speed Tree.

Another thing which I fought would add to the extra detail of our environment was the inclusion of grass scattered around the environment. This would sit mostly at the bottom of the palm tree to help the environment feel slightly more realistic. Again there was a grass template that Speed Tree had, however, it did look rather different to the end result. With adjustments that I had made, I managed to grab a clump of dead grass which suited the rest of the foliage.

The Trees in game.

The Trees amongst the Ferns.

The Trees amongst Grass.

The Bushes in the pot.

I have rather enjoyed using this program and in the future, I would love to proceed with the program and see the experiments that I could create with it.