Block 4 building progress

We've been super busy modeling, UV mapping and texturing out these buildings. We recently found that Unity3d Pro supports something called Sun Shafts. These are another layer of reality that really helps flesh things out in our quest for immersion. Emin found Google's 3D warehouse and now we're looking at how to reformat some of those files so they will play nice in Unity.

This is built out from USGS terrain data. It allows something that we couldn't really enjoy with Second Life - vast spaces. Now, we can entertain adding in more material about the surrounding area for exploration and a broader scope.

Here is a closer shot of the village from the hilltop. The white boxes represent shells of houses we're modeling. The sun placement is consistent with the skybox textures. We're also looking at an environmental engine that will allow to have day to night cycles, varrying cloud cover, etc. Right now, we have a very static sky.

Block 4 - building 2 screen shot from behind. An old rusty tractor will go by this building eventually. Emin found one or two on Google's 3D warehouse. We just need to solve that translation problem! Note the sun shafts casting into the scene.

This is a detail of how the mud brick walls will begin to melt. I'm told a lot of these buildings will decay in a similar way into nothing more than a mound of dirt.

Same building but more from the side. Here you start to see the rock wall. Note how the shadows are casting. Another feature that comes with Unity3d's Pro license. The trees are admittedly a bit sparse in the background. Easy fix.

More detail of the Rock Wall. Robyn informs me that this is usually referred to as the cactus wall. I guess we'll be modeling a cactus to put in its rightful place. lol.

Building 7 shot.

You can really see the sun shafts being rendered here. This is the front side of Building 4. I realize these are arbitrary numbers but its how we're referring to them. This was our first building to be modeled in Maya. Lots of stumbling and testing on this one but it yielded the experience to get a reliable workflow and learn much about the nuances of the Photoshop/Maya/Unity3d relationship.

Little details like the roof piping and even the barely discernable support wires will help make this a successful endeavor.

That's all for now. We're focusing on modeling at this point. A lot of scripting trial and error has already been conducted. Thus, after we get things built out we can start looking at how the SIM will be focused into something that serves an educational purpose in a way that taps all of Unity's robust offerings.