FULULU

I was thinking of the typical Japanese path to shrine and the ancient forest in Taiwan. I also got the inspiration from Genshin Impact. I knew that I would like to create the underground cave. Initially, I would like to do the HUB area (temple) as the middle ground, while having the forest path to the mountaintop and the underground path to the cave area.

The Original Concept Art for Fululu: Forest area, Cave area, HUB (temple area)

Initial Prototype of Arena: Game Jam Era

Initially, the team want an open world with linear storyline. The tutorial area originally was a short path to restricted zone and started outside of the island.

However, we realized that the players couldn't understand and utilize the game mechanic, especially with the ghost capturing function. So we created a long tutorial area to explain how each game mechanic can be utilize in different obstacles and situations.

Building the Map

I placed a main character model to get a sense of size before working on terrain. Using the character model as a guide, I utilized the terrain painting to draw out the rough routes I desired. After sketching up some rough routes, I began raising and lowering the terrain height accordingly.

I followed these tutorials on creating the large scale stylized texture in Substance Designer. 

Grass: video by 3dEx  

       - I change the grass to blue color palette to match the game overall color palette

Dirt: video by 3dEx

Stone Path: video by Kalyson

Stone Ground for cave arena: video by 3dEx

Tree Bark/Root: video by NVector

Cliff with moss: video by Nina Shaw - GameArt

       - I remove the moss for cave arena only.

Arena: video by Nina Shaw - GameArt

 

The process of following the speed up tutorials is very tedious and hard. I did learn some workflow of how to build textures by shape, transform, color, and tile sampler. However, I didn't have time to absorb all the information to make my own textures. I did adjust some colors according to the overall game color palette.