Weekly Update #6 -Enhancing Our Game Landscape: Adding Curves, Water, and Mountains

As promised, this week we have returned to the actual game bit and continued with some level design.

Begone Flatland, Hello Curves

The biggest takeaway from spending some time in Austria again was that my level was way too flat overall.
Obviously, there are some mountains and hills, e.g., the fortress around, but the flat part of the level was just unnaturally flat, while at home there are ups and downs everywhere, even in the valleys.

So the first things first, let’s add some superb little curves to our little valley.

Already making the landscape much more interesting, in my opinion. Especially once we have trees and other plants filling out the forest, it will paint a much more compelling picture than just a flat wall of trees.

Land of Streams

As you might have also noticed, I started to add proper water bodies using Unreal’s Water Plugin.
There are a few things I really like about the plugin. The biggest one is that you can quickly create nice-looking water without having to dive into shader foo. It also includes handy features like flow direction and velocities in rivers and waves on lakes.

Here are some examples of our fancy new water bodies.

Land of Mountains

So what’s even better than adding some curvy landscapes and rivers?… Exactly! Mountains! 😁🏔️
Anyone who knows me knows that I love my mountains, and I only really feel comfortable when surrounded by or climbing up those ancient bits of raised seabeds. (At least in the case of Salzburg, that is what most of our mountains are made of; hence, there are lots of fossil finds of sea creatures).

Because this game is basically my Ode to Austria, I decided it’s only right I include my favourite mountains, and here they are (It is normal to have favourite mountains, right? 😄).

Untersberg

My No.1 All-Star favorite is and always will be the Untersberg. Nestled between Austria and Germany and right next to Salzburg City, it is our ‘Hausberg’ (House Mountain), and you can see it basically from everywhere and at all times.
Not only is it an imposing landmark, but there are also countless myths and fables surrounding this beauty, from wild women stealing children to a whole dwarven empire—plenty to get the imagination going.

Hoher Staufen

Another just as omnipresent feature as the Untersberg is the Hoher Staufen.
While I really like its stunning look, climbing it was no easy feat and a bit traumatic to my fear of heights (I do see the irony of loving to hike up mountains while being scared of heights, but life is full of contradictions 😄)

Watzmann

Next up is the Watzmann, with its clearly recognizable double peaks giving it the impression of wearing two horns.

Of course, this gorgeous beauty also needed to be included.

These are the main ones, but I am sure I will end up adding more over time to build out the vistas in the game.

Progress GIFs

Here are some progress GIFs of our spunky lil’ level.

I probably should wrap it up here, see you again next week for some more news and progress updates! 👋🌈

I hope you all have a spoopy and fun week. We’ are probably going to celebrate here by making even more fun jack-o-lanterns for the game – all without having to thrust our hands into slimey pumpkin guts 😁.