Asset Creation: Unity Scenography Creation Tools - Creating Games with Unity and Maya - page 126

Terrain Settings: This area includes a lot of settings that define how the
terrain will react with the player. How far away from the player with a tree
swap from a billboard to a high-poly tree? How hard and fast will the wind
blow? How much will the wind bend elements? This and more await the
user within the Terrain Settings. If there is a setting that should be adjusted
for how the terrain looks or plays, chances are it's within this panel of sliders.
But enough of the grocery list of descriptions. Let's build something with it.
Creating the Ground Topography
Step 6: Using the Raise/Lower Terrain tool, make a first rough pass similar to
Figure 6.13 . Don't worry about poking in too far into the dock, just use as big a
brush as you can; just make sure it has a soft edge, and give the terrain a rough
outline to mask out the edges of the dock and come up to the walls of the dock.
Figure 6.13 First draft with a
big brush using the Raise/Lower
Terrain tool.
Tips and Tricks
Notice that generally the first pass here is simply a ridge of mountains
around the outer ring of the shape of the EntryWay object. Big strokes
like this are made to just give a little bit of structure to deciding what
is needed. The key to effective terrain creation is multiple passes. Don't
worry about getting any one area just right on the first pass.
Step 7: Add some mass to the terrain with further raising of the terrain
( Figure 6.14 ). Again, use a large brush to quickly rough it out.
Figure 6.14 Added mass.