Table Of Contents:
Before I explain my process, I want to expand on my intentions for the environment, of which elements are covered and expanded on in the GDD. Some of these ideas will have manifested or developed as I went along.
The player will start in a bottomless ravine situated between the two empires, and I intend for my vertical slice to take place in this beginning area of the game. On the Japanese-inspired side (Azuma) will be a giant imposing mountain with royal hot springs, bathhouses and inns scattered up the side. At the edge of this bathhouse resort (onsen) will be fortifications where the border of the empire meets the ravine. The first land the player can access on this side will be an outcropping from the side of fort courtyard that hangs over the valley. The players first challenge will be navigating through guards to access the onsen grounds.
On the other side (Occiden) will be a giant European-castle inspired prison complex. This will be a towering structure that nearly matches the mountain in terms of presence. This is in direct and purposeful contrast with the Azuma side. While the Azuma side is built in small clusters to work with the landscape, the Occiden side is built with ignorance of the landscape, instead choosing the carve out mountains to build giant individual structures. This reflects the empires’ respective focuses on nature vs people. The first land accessible by the player on this side of the ravine will be underneath a giant partially-built stone bridge that leads out from an expansive wall.
Before beginning the meat of the project, I came across a video by Addypalooza on YouTube that took an in-depth look at the world of Sekiro: Shadow’s Die Twice and how the areas pieced together. To make this video, he used a software called DS Map Studio designed for the purposes of modding From Software games that allowed him explore the world using the free floating editor camera. Sekiro serves as a key inspiration for my project in many ways, but for this case, the oversized Japanese castles and temples amongst dramatic mountains suits my setting perfectly. So I wanted to have a really good look at how Sekiro goes about laying out the landscape and the level design around it. So I got my friend to download Sekiro on my computer (I only have the PS4 version), ripped the game files using another software called UXM, then loaded up the map on DS Map Studio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4uh_DVnmOs&t=872s
The side entrance of Ashina castle over a deep valley. This serves as an example of how the fortifications could go from the edge of a valley up steep cliffs, as well as how to create an imposing castle using this environmental layout.
Sunken Valley. This serves as an example of how I could utilise the interior or a ravine as an explorable area and how I can lay out elements within it.
Senpou Temple Mt. Congo. An example of how I can scatter temples and residences up a craggy imposing mountain.
Before eventually settling on simply using the landscape tool to grey box my landscape, I tried creating it out of boxes and then modelling it manually . While in retrospect, the time and effort to to create a landscape in this way wasn’t really viable with the scale I intended, I thought it theoretically would have allowed for a bit more control than using the Unreal landscape tool that can’t really do vertical surfaces like the cliffs of my valley. However, I eventually figured it wasn’t worth the time I was putting in and ended up just using the landscaping tool.