Honors 104.502 Lab 6 – Terrain
Lab
Today we’re going to make a terrain, replete with walking paths, vegetation, and teleporters!
Checkpoint 1
Person A is at the helm.
- Add a terrain game object.
- Import the Environment and Characters asset packages.
- Use the Raise/Lower Terrain tool to sculpt your landscape. Keep this general design principle in mind: start with the large, coarse features. Only after these features are roughed out should you focus on fine details. Which brushes are appropriate for the coarse features? Which for the fine? What role does a brush’s opacity setting play? How does one lower terrain instead of raise it?
- Add an
FPSControllerto your scene and playtest. - Getting the player’s vertical position can be tricky. If you set it too high above the terrain, it will briefly fall before it collides with the terrain. If it’s too low, it will fall forever in the Neath. To position an object (a player controller or other game objects) exactly on the terrain, click on the Translate tool (W on the keyboard), and Command/Control-Shift-Drag on the gray cube at the center of the translate manipulator.
- Add some texture to your terrain. The first texture you add using the Paint Texture tool is the base texture that’s applied everywhere automatically.
- Let’s add a more realistic texture. Import everything in the Environment assets package. Replace your base texture with one of the imported ones.
- Create a multi-tier plateau somewhere in your landscape. What tool makes this easy?
- Steep elevation changes tend to distort textures. Your plateau probably demonstrates this. Argue with your partner why this is the case. Which terrain tool can help soften these distortions?
Checkpoint 2
Person B is at the helm.
- Paint a walking path for your player. Add a second texture that seems appropriate for a walking path.
- Add trees to your scene.
- Add a wind zone to your scene. Make the wind gentle. The default settings are usually too powerful for anything but a hurricane.
- Add grass.
- Carve out a sunken area and add some water. Size it so the edges of the invoking geometry cannot be seen.
- Add a teleporter using a game object of your choice. Give it a trigger collider.
- Make a prefab out of the teleporter and add a second teleporter like the first to your scene.
- When the user enters one teleporter, have it move the user automatically to the other. How can you do this? You’ll probably want a
TeleporterControllerscript. Give it a publicTransformin which you can drop the matching teleporter game object. When the player enters the teleporter (OnTriggerEnter), move the player to the matching teleporter.