Just wanted to give the next update on the game. I have all the controls done for being able to change the time of year and time of day in the game. This will allow me to test the seasonal changes on the aspen tree and get that working. As far as coding goes, I’ll be working on adding temperature changes next, so that I’ll be able to add correct wind to the game because apparently, in the research I’ve done, the wind’s strength is caused by how fast the temperature and air pressure changes.
I also finished modeling the leaves and putting them on the aspen branch that I’m using to bake onto the final meshes used for the tree’s branches, and then finished putting those baked meshes onto the tree as well. I don’t have it in the engine yet, but you can see how that looks in Blender’s viewport at the bottom.
There is a certain look of some aspen branches that, when you look at them from the side, it almost looks painterly and similar to how it looks when you dab a large paintbrush onto the canvas with the bristles going perpendicular or straight into the canvas, giving it this interesting feel. I tried to recreate that with the branch and the final meshes that are on the tree, and I think in the end it worked out fairly well. They both seem to have a bit of that painterly feel in certain areas.
The tree as it is now turned out to be about 8,000 triangles, and will be about 7,500 after I do a few more things, which is rather high, but I wanted to have a version of aspen that looked very full for the areas next to meadows and things where there is more sunlight, so this will be the highest poly version. The other trees will be either a lot shorter and full or as tall, but only have leaves at the top.
I guess that’s it. I’m going to wait and update the game build in the next update when the tree is inside the game, so right now it’s still the same version as before.
View from a lower angle:
