Unit 70 L01

Today we will be looking at the considerations needed for doing 3d environment covering technical ludic and narrative and aesthetic considerations.

Technical

The technical challenges you will have to consider are lighting, terrain, render distance restrictions.

First lets talk about render distance the two biggest factors that effect this are engine limitations and level of detail. first is alot simpler most engines have some kind of max render distance dependent on the engine and other factors but most people will never come close to hitting these limits. the second is level of detail or density of detail. the more detail you have on screen i.e higher poly models higher res textures eat of computing power and depending on the platform and hardware your developing for you may need to compromise render distances and use lower detail assets or build a smaller environment with a reduced render distance or lastly use more extreme level of detail effects to get better performance but this may add problems such as popin problems.

Ludic

The main things to consider here are is your environment interesting to explore and helps gameplay. such as making sure the player cant get stuck and is not too empty and boring to traverses. also you need to consider how interactive your scene is and make sure its not too comber sum for players and to not go over the top on things like physics objects as they can heavily inpact performance as well as cause bugs like players getting stuck in objects etc.

Narrartive,Aesthetic

You will consider how your environment fits in with the narrative and art direction of the project its for. for example it would look out of place to have a realistic looking environment in a mario brothers game. it would both seem out of place in the world aestheticly as well as narratively. you need to remain consistent to make your environment look jarring obviously some times you want this but most of the time no.