We’re back with another developer blog, in which we will talk more about the various plants we are using in the scene.
In the world of Aqua there are different plants that are based on real life underwater plants. We also use these plants to light our environments and guide the player. To make the environment look more natural, we also have a variety of corals and sponges in there to make it look even more interesting. Lots of detail and care goes into crafting our environments, because we really want the player to be thrilled to explore our world.
plants
To make the plants look more realistic, we are moving them in a certain way. Most usual “animation” techniques do not work here, therefore we are basing our plant movements a lot on actual water physics related simulation approaches. We are trying to make the movement look like it is caused by water currents and other forces moving the water.
Beyond this, it is also important that we are “planting” the foliage around rocks and rock formations, and avoid direct areas with heavy water currents, as they would not survive in a realistic case. Most of our foliage planting happens through either Unreal Engine’s amazing foliage tool (although somewhat specified to our needs), but we are using other techniques which help us generate plants in more realistic and detailed method, based on research gathered from real world references.
Thanks for your continued interest in Aquanox Deep Descent!
Your Aquanox Team
