Went to the gas station today, ran into some stupid dumbasses that were buying cotton candy. I was buying some beef jerky for about 3.99. I said beef jerky is better than cotton candy and they said no way and so I shoved him into a pile of canned beans and there was a mess everywhere and I declared victory and rushed home to tell everybody about it. The cashier was wearing a blue shirt.
Then I got home and I was still stressed out so I started taking my clothes off and putting them back on again and I hopped in the shower rinsed myself off got out, got right back in again, got out, turned around, stuck my foot out, hopped back in the shower on one leg, washed myself off, put my leg down, and I felt a lot better.
So today we are creating structures. I am focusing my attention on integrating circular shapes, arcs, and curves into my designs. I share the same fascination with the shapes they produce as ancient architects did and the challenge of working with them is delightful. Modern architecture is often designed from a commercial standpoint meaning that they are looking to achieve a goal in a specific budget. Given that these building materials are virtual and that I am currently an unpaid employee then whatever I want to create costs me nothing more than the electricity to keep my computer on. I am now teaching myself a virtual craft that is completely parallels in many ways the real crafts I am depicting. Masonry, Woodworking, Architectural Design, Engineering, even creating designs for fabrics as I have a cloth simulator available to me.
Taking a step back, I am realizing that in order to create a serious piece of architecture I will need to build an entire new skillset that I do not have. I can imagine a lot of things and come up with some interesting ideas very easily about a broad range of things but I am not familiar with architecture. I have done lots of sketching but never of houses and buildings. When I query my brain and ask for some ideas on medieval architecture, or from within my 3D modeling software when I look at the blank gray canvas I see nothing. In my mind I can populate the area with trees, grass, rocks, and bushes at least vaguely but buildings are not a developed area in my mind. I have two choices for the game environment. I can treat it strictly as a game environment that is designed only to be played in. This is to say that adding tables, chairs, cabinets, or more generally just objects that do not impact that game play in any way are not included. Only the bare essentials. Extra detail objects can be seen purely as a cosmetic thing or it could be seen strictly as a means of making the environment feel really real and plausible to remove some of the mental barriers between you and the virtual environment. I have a lot to consider and think about and I feel the need to when it comes to buildings actually be able to sketch out and plan what I am doing. There is a real world correlation here, designing and constructing buildings takes planning and preparation much the same way virtually as it does in real life. However I feel like placing plants and making natural environments is much easier for me to do and so I will revert back into plant mode until I make improvements in my understanding of architecture as far as how it has been done and how I would do it differently. The component of my imagined balcony that I created in my last post and my wall segments do look very nice but actually using them to make a coherent structural environment that fits the level of detail that I am looking for is very difficult without having accumulated the correct experience.
Anyways, continuing onwards. We have a structure atop a few platforms, connected to a central courtyard. Of course you can't tell its a courtyard yet because it's represented only by a simple cube.
An iteration, finer detail on the structural components of the platforms.
Upon further inspection I realize this looks like utter trash and so I delete it and move in a new direction. Back to trees! I will return to architectural components very soon again but I think it would be easier to do the architecture with the context of the environment already laid out. And being that my skill of trees is much better than my skill of architecture I will create the trees and grass as the context versus creating the structures first and placing the plants after.
I am creating a few trees, with a new perspective. Trees always grow in a context. If a tree grows near other trees, it will change its shape during growth to accommodate the availability of light. So it will bend towards the light to escape the shade of another larger tree. This is an extremely important aspect of tree growth to capture if you want things to be convincing. Another aspect that I had not yet incorporated was the idea that older trees and younger trees will grow near each other and I need to be able to capture the entire spectrum of plant sizes all the way from old trees, to young trees, to large bushes, to tiny shrubs, and blades of grass. I am building a small architectural context here so I can form my trees in an environment that would be similar to where they would be placed to give me a better idea of the look I am moving towards. I suppose the balance of context of architecture and nature is something that I could incrementally add on both sides instead of being strict about one coming before the other.
Okay, now I just need to fill out some trees. I have a set of rocks, and sets of grass that I purchased as prefabricated assets. So trees and sets of plants are all that need to be made to complete my natural environment.
Here is a picture of the tree I am working on first and how it's coming along. I have not made a tree in a week or two so I am a little rusty. I am noticing that I tend to use a generic balanced branching shape when trees are very distinct from each other in the way they branch and I will need to capture the essentials of how a tree branches specifically in order to attain a look that is not generic across all my work. And so in this tree I am using a branching shape that is much longer with the branches going more parallel to the parent branch. The reference tree that I am using also has a lot of single branches that grow from the trunk and lower branches. This is a characteristic of younger trees, their canopy is in a different shape and is much more dense. These smaller branches will wither and die as the tree gets older and they become useless.
Observe the above tree branch, and below.
What's wrong with this branch? It is uniformly spreading out and filling space evenly. Tree branches almost never fill space evenly and their structural shape is not sphere like. It is more similar to a bolt of lightning. It is interesting how tree branches and bolts of lightning are very similar.
The branch above is more accurate, however, it is not that close to appearing realistic and proportional to what a real tree might behave like.
I have been making some important observations about tree branches. It's important to see tree branches as an abstract entity in your mind. The idea of a tree branch in your mind would encompass all details or features that are universal to tree branches in general. When studying a specific species of tree we are taking the abstract ideas we have learned and also taking into consideration the specific properties or attributes of a given tree type. An idea of an abstract concept for tree branching which would help you understand creating trees in general is that tree branches tend to be mostly straight the larger they are and will tend to be more curly or gnarly near the ends of the branches where the branches are thinner.. This concept is not referring to a feature of one specific type of tree but trees in general and generalizations and abstractions are extremely important to understanding anything because that's how the brain tends to process information.
Another way of explaining this feature described is that tree branches tend to move away from the tree in a path that does not turn or veer, but it still will periodically split. Smaller twigs and branches grow in a much greater degree of rotation and do not inherit their parent branches rotation as much. The degree of the branch direction following its parent branch direction is proportional to the distance to the trunk from the given branch. So the further away from the trunk a branch is, the smaller it is, and the less likely it is to want to follow its parents rotation more closely, and the more rotational variance it will have.
Now I have the main structural branches of the tree laid out. Since I am modeling a younger tree a lot of the empty space will be filled with branches that are growing from the trunk that do not split and as the tree grows older they would wither and fall off. Continuing from this point it's important to make sure that I am able to create several distinct branches that share characteristics with each other and seem to be consistent with the tree's personality.
Small adjustments can make huge differences. Subtle changes in the shape of the tree and incorporating small permutations of shape and random little details can make a huge difference. The smaller the size of the details you are using means exponentially more visual resolution. What this means is that small bends in twigs at the ends of branches are equally as important as the proportion or shape of the main structural branches. If you want to create something amazing, you have to pay attention to fine details and take your time. There is no way around it.
Here I will demonstrate a very simple instance of balancing a tree branch. The branch in the blue circle is not balanced. Relatively speaking, because of its position on the branch the branch should be much shorter and the area in the circle should be more densely populated with other branches. It's too long, it's bald, and it'
s the wrong shape.
Here is an improved version. I think anyone would agree that this next iteration is "better". It's still not perfectly balanced though, so I will continue to improve it. It's important to instead of trying to hurry up and finish this branch to treat this branch as a very special and important prototype and realize that even if I spend tons of time on this branch it will improve the quality of my future work and the next branches I create will be much faster. What I am explaining here is an abstract concept that is very general and applies to a large amount of things in various contexts. Slowing down and improving detail and understanding what you are doing is superior to moving quickly and not absorbing your own work. Big Picture and Long Term is more important than just getting the job done. Abstract Generalizations are so important because they provide concepts that are reusable over a wide variety of situations. Lots of ideas from life in general apply to what I am doing here.
It's very easy to dismiss something we don't understand as trivial, not interesting, or not useful. For instance, let us consider statistics and probability. Most people would think that statistics and probability is not interesting because they imagine an accountant sitting in an office doing paperwork and using statistics to compute business expenses and profit margins. When viewing statistics and probability not in a context of application we can begin to see the real beauty in it. In an abstract sense it is only a collection of concepts that help us understand certain functions relating to numbers and how they relate to each other and what we can tell by collections of numbers which would help us see the big picture. A novice might not see the immediate use in this topic if it doesn't apply directly to some task at hand they are trying to solve. A master of abstractions can see the beauty and usefulness in something like this even if they aren't sure how they could possibly apply it at the given moment. The master would recognize its essential usefulness and study it in the context of seeking pure understanding and not to finish a specific task. Pure math versus applied math. Take for example the classical high schooler view of algebra. A kid would ask, "how am I ever going to use this in my day to day life?" Where as a transcendent master that can see into the future would simply smile and feel the joy of knowing.
Tune in next time for more magic tricks and explanations of higher dimensional wisdom.
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