Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Option 2. Make some trees and grasses from the landscaping content in the OpenSim texture library,
utilizing the time-honored structure of three thin box prims intersecting at a common point with the
textures on their lat sides to create an illusion of a 3D tree.
Option 3. Free landscaping content. Many of the grids now have freebie stores, and there are several
sites offering free content (http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/opensim-content-providers/).
When you are landscaping a terrain, it is helpful to remember scale, pattern, and color. Keeping the scale
relative to the avatar's size creates believable perspectives. If you want to make the avatar seem small, then
scale up your trees, but by doing that, you risk creating a diminished sense of distance. Even in the most
profuse vegetation on our planet, there is a structure and pattern to how it grows. Smaller plants tend to
cluster under larger trees and carpet the ground. If you work with images from the kind of forest glade or
tropical jungle you want to imitate, you will see the small details in placement and scale that can be put into
your virtual environment to make it look better. Color in landscape is always necessary, and it should be
used judiciously. Unless you are making a coral reef or the lower ields of Holland, color in the landscape
is muted, and only pops when you are near the plant. Of course, if you are doing a fantasy alien landscape,
you may want to break all these rules to increase the strangeness of it all. Whatever you do, have fun with it.
Figure 5.16 has some shots of how Wheely Island was landscaped utilizing a combination of Second Life
library trees and some handmade grasses from the textures in the OpenSim library.
5.11 CONCLUSIONS AND RECAP
Well, you have come a long, long way in this project. What started out as a lat piece of virtual terrain is now
an all-access wheelchair trail walk with exciting features. Congratulate yourself and take the time to show this
off to your friends. Maybe you should throw a beach party? If you are interested in learning more about how
to design with access for all in mind, check out the Able Gamers Foundation (http://www.ablegamers.com/).
REFERENCES
1. Hodges, Jim, Cover Story: Human Terrain Experts May Help Defuse Future Conlicts,
Defense News
, March
22, 2012, http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120322/C4ISR02/303220015/Cover-Story-U-S-Army-8217-s-
Human-Terrain-Experts-May-Help-Defuse-Future-Conlicts. Accessed August 26, 2012.
2. Sacred Mountains, Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_mountains. Accessed August 26, 2012.
3. Burns, Ken,
The National Parks—America's Best Idea
, http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/. Accessed August 26, 2012.
4. Harrison, A., G. Derwent, A. Enticknap, F.D. Rose, and E.A. Attree, Application of Virtual Reality Technology to the
Assessment and Training of Powered Wheelchair Users, http://www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk/2000/papers/2000_03.
pdf. Accessed September 2, 2012.
5. National Trails Training Partnership, Resources and library, http://www.americantrails.org/resources/accessible/
index.html; Speciic to Malibu Parks, California, http://atiles.org/iles/pdf/Trail-Accessibility-Design-Malibu.pdf.
Accessed September 2, 2012.
6. Tips for Creating Heightields and Details on Terrain RAW iles, http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Tips_for_
Creating_Heightields_and_Details_on_Terrain_RAW_Files. Accessed August 30, 2012.
