Mapping a Forest

Mapping a Forest was an interesting experience. there were some choices that i had to make regarding accuracy and time. i knew i would have to create a large amount of bot paths within the forest, to constitute a stealth challenge. Having shortcuts in the forest was something else i needed.

once again the forest is made out of terrain and static meshes, no building within the level. the trees in this mans forest are made of static meshes, and there are a lot of them. i had a choice between creating a lot of trees to form a real forest, or creating a deco layer where the trees would form the decoration, and creating blocking volumes to make them solid. i chose the former because Static meshes would not impact performance due to occlusion, and would look far more "real". lighting and composition make this level out to be night time, so causing cricket noises gives it an air of life.

Time however, makes fool of us all, creating a forest using static meshes takes time, time placing them, time makingsure there is space between them forming a path, and no space between the ones forming a solid wall. Placing rocks is far simpler than placing trees. Rocks are solid, compact, and have a definitive shape, trees on the other hand have leaves. leaves make placement of trees difficult, as they block the view of where the body of the tree is. in the end i decided that duplicating a series of "tree tunnels" and repositioning the trees manually after placement would be the best way to populate the forest.