Another Exterior Level Done!

The weekend started off pretty quietly - for the whole of Saturday, I was not able to work on BaL though I wanted to.  Sunday looked to be turning that way - we had the daylight savings kick in and I realized I actually hadn't gotten up early :)

Still, I managed to finish the level I was working on - it is a fairly small level and will be used in one of the area transition encounters. It resembles a small clearing in a forest with a path winding through it - the sort of area where you'd stop to camp. It's so hard to create the illusion of a forest though, especially one around the rim of the clearing. For one, there is no terrain darkening tool and I wasn't able to find a suitable texture to substitute for that. Second, there is, as far as I was able to determine, no way to remove light from a particular area. This is very significant for forests as trees in Dragon Age do not cast shadows.

The view from near the entrance to the area

For now, the level has been marked complete which means it is 90% done. I will probably do the shadows later when I have time. I also tried using negative lights for this purpose but apparently, they have some other purpose.

I also managed to finish (read: 90%) an important cutscene that sets the stage for the plot beyond the first couple of areas. It is still a little rough around the edges at certain points but it's functionally complete and that's all that matters for now.

Till later...