Revamping the interiors

Level-building...it can oscillate between fun and tedium pretty quickly. Play-testing the interior area I built earlier resulted in almost re-doing the level as it felt too big and empty. I had to rework most of the level to bring the size down - I should have used a test creature for getting a sense of scale right from the start. Further, while I initially envisioned this area to have a minimum of combat, it does look like I will have to add more now - primarily because most of the actions in the puzzles and pseudo-riddles do not have any side-effects at all. At least one quest can do with some hostile spawns on selecting a disagreeable answer.

Here is a screenshot of one of the main rooms in this level. The lighting is not yet perfect but it is getting close - I wanted a dark ruined level with sporadic patches of bright light to accentuate the darkness more. However, some of the props, the statues and ivy primarily, have blotchy shadows.

This area still looks a little bare, I know. I am working on the plots and conversations for the various placeables and the plan is to complete this area by this weekend.

Meanwhile, I started working on the exterior level and I must say, it is a whole different beast - the lights aren't rendering how I want them to and I realized too late that you can have only one static light per chunk. Since there is no way to change the level properties, I am stuck with what I have for this area. The good news is that one of the exportable area layout is almost done and that is another area I plan to devote time to over the weekend.

I also need to start reading up on cut-scenes since the game starts off with one and while it will be a simple affair, the few posts I've read on the forums seem to indicate that even a simple cut-scene takes a good amount of work to get it right.