It Begins!

So, this is it. The official start for the final major project - Riverside settlement for me. Now I was hoping to get a few more whiteboxes done over the Christmas period but in the feedback sessions I was asked to try and enhance my rooftop and vehicle project. It taken the entire time to get them completed so didn't have the chance to continue. But I am back now and eager to continue.

My previous white boxes were done during the 'ok I know what my idea is but not really whats happening layout wise' period and I think i still am at that stage. I have a better understanding of what I want and by my 4th one it was starting to shape up.. but I still wasn't happy with how it was going.

To reiterate what i want;
A little road outside the village to start as the introduction to the level, trees towards the back of the village with gaps which allows the player to ride past and think 'Oh! whats down there then!' then a turning into the village starting with the main houses to the center full of various market stalls which the occupiers are hoping to sell.

From my research from West-stow I will not just be doing 1 of the houses but all variations if possible with the different thatching methods, but also I want to update them slightly to get out of the solid Anglo-Saxon tone and going more through the ages. There was also a workshop building at west-stow where the Blacksmiths do their work, and with that various props can be positioned around that area.

The entire village is on a sloping hill down to the river but also it will not be a regular hill but one with various forms.
A few sparse houses will be closer to the riverside with 1 small field (probably ploughed) with various agricultural tools scattered (base on the research I taken from that Art-In-Action venue) enclosed by rickety fencing.

Then the actual riverside which will have a small boathouse and a bit of a pier with various equipment used for fishing, eeling and other boating activities.

Along side all these will be a few natural props being trees, plants, animallife, produce on the market stalls and a night/day cycle looking at the different lighting styles.


Listing it like that puts it into perspective and hopefully ill be able to start another whitebox with these elements in mind and get a good layout going.




To be honest, even though I have pretty much just started this Im actually quite frustrated by my progress, I seem to be getting into that rut like with my last whitebox.
After consideration i think my issue at the moment is that as my village is quite terrain based and although I do know how to do some terrain modelling in 3dsmax I find that I don't have a lot of control over what I want. This is only the previs stage really and i appreciate that the models for the whiteboxing should be basic but I think I need to find a better way of doing it to solidify my idea.



I found a way to paint the terrain with pressure sensitivity in 3dsmax where I can change the brush size and all like in Photoshop for selecting polygons, the image above shows the greater control than what I was doing earlier.
What I did earlier was just tick soft selection and adjust the brush size, below that is a button for paint, revert and blur and in the rollout there is a "use pressure sensitivity" which makes it easier to select vertices. Below is a test result.

It would have to be done in sections though as the height is translated into 6 colours, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue this isn't really enough for what I want. even though the control is better now, it isn't THAT good to be able to choose the colour and paint as its all dealt with pressure.