During Week 1, I experimented heavily in Unity. I spent a good amount of time exploring the interface and terrain editor, to create interesting topology in the environment. I then examined Unity's impressive selection of assets in its Asset Store, and downloaded a number of textures and environmental assets (as listed below). I found it extremely easy to download assets such as the rocks; dragging them in simply "worked", nothing had to be changed about the materials or textures, I could just manipulate their size and place them in the room. I moved on to painting textures onto the terrain (the sand and dirt). Then, I played with the environmental lighting, imported a new skybox, and decided to lean into the somewhat emerging ominous nature of the scene I was creating by tweaking the lighting to be dark, and adding red point lights. I also played around with particle creators to create faint floating black spots in the distance of the scene. Finally, I experimented with movement and cameras and created a script to move the camera forward slowly over time to move cinematically through the strange environment.
Although I found parts of the Unity interface to be frustrating and unintuitive (accessing the documentation for functions is a lot harder than in GameMaker or Godot where two clicks on a function will bring you to the relevant docs page), overall it was a straightforward experience, and the Asset Store made finding and importing assets extremely easy.
Assets used:
By Natasha Vranic-Peters
Email Natasha Vranic-Peters
Published On: 16/03/2020