Terrain 1 - 5 Shots

I took the influence of Antelope Canyon as a material texture and how the overall terrain looks.

I had a few problems with the grids that I didn't know how to resolve getting rid of, however for my future terrains I will correct this. 

I decided to take my captures during the late afternoon where the sun isn't as bright giving a different effect compared to midday.

 Impending

 Narrow

 Vast

 Uncertain

Split

5 landscapes

Antelope Canyon, Navajo land

The terrain is void of vegetation and consists of many curves in the slot. The lighting of the canyon can only be gathered from the gap and created interesting shadow effects that continues through the canyon. The above terrain consists mostly of flat land and have very little topographic variation.

 Giant's Highway, Northern Ireland

Varying heights however the overall height spreading across the terrain is quite low. Terrain is made up of indvidual placements of cylinder-like rocks that pans across the surrounding sea. Lighting is bright and the colour of the rocks is yellow brown. Little vegetation is located at this specific area.

Grand Canyon, Arizona USA

Top of Topography is flat and over all there are varying heights that spread across the terrain. the environments consists a mix of vegetation and rock/sand. Having a spread of natural colours that varies from green to brown. 

SIngapore CBD, Singapore 

Varying heights of building that makes up for the flat topography of the land. Lighting is spread throughout the whole area. Vegetation is located on some parts of the area.

The Wave, Arizona

Smooth varying heights for the terrain, with slightly uneven surface at the top of the topography. bright and light colors such as brown, orange and white for it's surface. No visible vegetation.

Week 1 Task

Getting Started and Folded Structure

5 things about Sandbox folder structure:

• The game folder is fairly important, consisting of the pack files and it's where the animations and CGF files are contained.
• Bin 32 and 64 is the core of how cry engine runs.
• It is recommended that the system.cfg file should be left untouched and if the user wishes to add their own personal commands that they create a new file and name it user.cfg.
•  dmp files and log files is where you go to debug when cryengine has an unexplainable crash
• Open the settingsmgr.exe at least once before installing any external plugins, making sure that there is a green light when you open the exe. User also has to make sure that the route directory is pointing to the build that is currently being used. 

Overview of the Cryengine 3 Sandbox User Interface

10 Tips and Tricks relating to Sandbox User Interface:

• Right clicking the [Perspective] located at the top left of the viewport provides other viewing options such a wireframe.
• The Search bar located at the top right of the viewport allows the user to isolate searched object (leaving the terrain).
• The speed option located at the status bar allows user to modify the speed of viewport where 0.1 is slow and 10 is fast.
• Turning on AI Physics would leave all the physics that is present in game mode however editing is still possible. 
•  Anything that is modified or put into the terrain is done through the roll up bar.
•  The rollup bar consist of the create, modify, category and layer manager tab respectively from left to right.
• The solids option in the entity tab is useful; it blocks out parts of the levels are convenient for exporting to other programs.
• Users are able to export anything in the entity tab to a obj. file.
• Using groups located at the top bar allows you to be more organised when modifying and controlling your scene.
• View tab located at the top of the screen allows you to hide/show different panels, this is very useful if you accidentally close off a window or panel.

Customising The Editor

5 Ways to Customise Sandbox:

• Drag and drop open tabs together to form one window.
• Windows can be attached to panels depending on the position it is at on the screen. 
• Console and rollup bar can be attached and detached from the panels.
• Tools>Customize Keyboard allows you to modify Shortcuts/Hotkeys.
• Ticking show short hot keys in Screen Tip allows user to know what hot keys are assigned to modifiers such as select, move and rotate when mouse is hovered over button.

Viewports

3 Different Ways of Moving Around Level:

•  Using the WASD keys to move forwards, left, backwards, right respectively.
•  Clicking right on the mouse allows you to look around your environment from one spot.
• Middle mouse button allows user to pan around.
• right click+middle mouse button scrolling allows user to move around in the scene.

User Interface Panels - Overview

5 Shortcuts/Buttons and their functions:

• CTRL+P - pauses physics.
• CTRL+G - game mode.
• F3 - Wireframe mode.
• CTRL+Z - undo action.
• Q - turn on and off terrain collision.