Could someone give me a suggestion

I am making a scene in my game in which you will have to go through a loong road. As it will take some time, i want to make something pretty and simple, but i don't have any idea of what to do.

I made the road in the middle, and some grass around it and some fences. I will add some trees on the grass, but my question is: What could i add on the sides (marked by the red arrows) do fill those empty voids there?

Here is a pic:

Any suggestion would be appreciated =]

Obs: I want to completely fill that void, i don't want the player to see that grey part.

 

Maybe you should make a winding road instead of a straight one? With houses, bushes, trees, garbage collectors, parking lots, buildings of any kind, whatever, anything that could fill void places.

 

Fog, hills, trees, water, buildings, zombies - basically whatever you like.

 

Thanks for the answers, i made a river with a nice forest along with it and it seems just fine ^.^

 

@Bryangs , I feel that the Forest idea is too simple. I mean, like the other guy suggested, winding roads would be good. The path should be made dynamic, and scenery changes along the way would be more attractive.

 

It sounds like you're happy with the forest. But since this is the design forum, I'll ask a design question. What do you want the player to feel?

If you add something just to fill space, it's a wasted opportunity.

Storm clouds behind the player but sunny skies ahead could convey hope.

Straight roads and flat squares of farmland could convey orderly abundance, or it could convey a feeling of being trapped in monotony.

Gnarled, dead trees and rotting farmhouses twisting through foggy mountainous curves convey something entirely different.

 

You see that grey part at all because you're using the default skybox. Adding a skybox that doesn't show grey there will add a lot to the game. You could also create large terrains along both sides extending further outward, or you could place water. I'd probably make one side a shoreline with water and the other side some hills, maybe add some curves to the roadway. Make it like highway 1 in California.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Pacific_Coast_Highway.jpg

 

Even if you do that, you will not get the feel that you want the player to get. It'll still be just another road with a fence.

 

I added some extra things to make it a little more tropical, which is the setup of the game and added a new skybox with a blue sky and some cute clouds. Thanks guys, i think this might transmit the atmosphere i was looking for.

 

I would put a quad with a repeating texture of Steve Buscemi's face on one side. Then a video playing Dali's "An Andalusian Dog" on the other. And that baby sun face thing from Teletubbies on the horizon.

But that's just me because you didn't really give any context to the game or the scene.

 

You need the obligatory trash bag. Name me one game that doesn't have a trash bag. It is as common as grass.

 

NotSure for president!

 

Seriously? You didn't read my thread and still replied? It's a road, and i uploaded an image. Man i can't give a context to a road...

 

I mean, you *can* give context to a road. What sort of game are we playing where we find ourselves on this road? What is happening in the game when we are on this road? What has just happened, what is about to happen? To @TonyLi 's point: what do you want the player to feel while they are on this road?

 

We are playing a game that is supposed to be addictive and make you have a lot of fun. You are traveling. It's a long road, it's quite easy to discover the feeling: I don't want the player to look at the environment and say "Woah! That's soooo boring".

 

Seriously? Do you know what "context" means?

I read the whole thread. You never once mentioned why there's a road, what the setting and theme of the game are, what platform you're aiming for, what the mechanics are, or what kind of camera you are using.

 

"i want to make something pretty and simple", platform doesn't have ANYTHING to do with filling voids, mechanics neither, and for once look at the picture that's the camera view '-'

 

Wrong. Dead wrong.

Platform determines what mechanics are actually viable and your hardware targets. A first person shooter on a mobile device is going to have more strict limitations than one on PC and will play dramatically differently. You say the game is supposed to be "addictive and make you have a lot of fun" but you neglect to mention how. You don't want the player to look at the environment and say "Whoa! That's soooo boring?" Then give the player a reason to care about the environment they're in. This is like... design 101.

 

Roadside billboards. Then when your game becomes hugely popular, you can sell advertisement space and make loads of revenue.

 

No, you can literally implement any mechanics you want on any platform, it is just ignorant of you to say that hardware limitations can "block" you, and make you unable for an example to make a parkour game for smartphones. Again, mechanics don't have ANYTHING to do with the design. Literally, there is no point on saying that, as mechanics and environment design are two completely different things, with completely different content. You are also confusing graphics with gameplay. Also, why are you even talking about this -.- This is a thread about filling voids on a road, not a discussion about the difference of developing for mobile and desktop.

 

I literally gave examples of how it would affect design.

This is on its face a completely ridiculous statement. Game development is not a bunch of entirely disconnected tasks, especially when it comes to design. Design informs and is informed by mechanics because at its core, design is the way you communicate all your ideas to the player.

Because right now you're making the absolutely least inspired design possible.

 

Whelp, have fun with that.

 

You could build a tiny world for the road to go over, and move a controlled camera over it as the player moves down the road. Only the camera updates the skybox. The idea is to only do this slowly enough that the background changes as the player progresses.

This could be dynamic but at a slow rate or you could generate and bake the skyboxes in Unity then just update them in your game. You could even build the skybox system in a 3d renderer by hand.

It depends on your target platform and desired frame rate.

 

Agreed. You've clearly shown you don't actually care about any of this, so good luck with your little game.
#boybye

 

How about some HQ 2D Trees? You could just have planes with tiling texture, the transparency is a good thing because you can add other 2d arts like some sort of 3d parallax scrolling effect, because the road is straight that is

 

Whether they will be successful is another matter. Different platforms have different audiences with different expectations.

 

Add house models, fences, trees, etc. It depends on what kind of scene you want to create.

 

i read above you already put some trees and a river next to the road. which is nice but this only gives you 1 "level" in your overall visual image.

now, check out this random road image: http://www.wallpapervortex.com/wallpaper-54936_anime_scenery_empty_road_scenery.html

you will see that there is not only scenery next to the road, but also background like mountains and skies. thus: multiple levels (or planes) of background

i think your player would get a much better feeling of being in the action if you also work with at least two planes.

so, you have the road and your first plane (the trees + river). behind that i would put a second plane that has silhouette of mountains an/or faraway cities. which must move slower then the threes+rivers-plane!!

If you do this: you can add variation to types of cities to give the player a different feeling in a different level. Which will also improve his/her experience of being in your game.

e.g. plane 1: trees and greens - plane 2: mountains and rooftops of cottages and churches => signifies a rural environment in your level for slow pased levels
e.g. plane 1: trains/trams and houses - plane 2: mountains and modern city-tops => signifies a more modern environment which could go hand in hand with a more fast-pased level.

 

Also some random animals along the roadside, deer, rabbit, skunk, orca killer whale, that sort of thing.

 

Can't we all just chill out? There's exactly zero humor or lightheartedness in this thread (and lots of threads of the past year). So OP want to fill in some voids beside his road, there's really no reason to argue about these things. Its kind of silly.

I don't mean to veer off topic but if one takes a look at threads on these boards from say five years ago there's a whole nother' level of positive attitude. I'm admittedly not the most positive person but I try.

 

I dunno, those were some dark days before they curated the collaboration/commercial forum. Seems much better now, but going back even further (pre 2011) I agree its fairly hard to find turbo angry threads like today... But, there was like 1/10th of the users.

I was a little confused by this whole thread, then I realized I had ignored 3 of the people in it and couldn't all the posts. Maybe thats why my overall forum experience isn't so bad.

 

Oh ok. Its just that when I search for things on Google sometimes I frequently venture across a forum post which doesn't have a more serious tone. I just caught a whiff of seriousness in this thread, and many others lately. I could be off base but I mean some of the people commenting here argued with the OP about design vs mechanic decisions. To me that seems like a pointless thing to argue about. If someone wants to be wrong let them. Others will see it too. There's no need to correct everyone.

Edit: I showed here and started using Unity in 2014. Never saw the old boards so I'm not sure what you mean but I'll take your word for it.

 

@OP

What do you want the player to do, moment to moment? Instead of asking for things to put in the scene, consider investing some time thinking on what the player is doing. There are an infinity of options - dodging, pedaling a bike, looking for cute hidden things, relaxing-watching, counting, manipulating space, choosing paths, and so on. Knowing what you want the player to do will make it pretty clear what else needs to go in. What's less clear is how to then make that fun. That's hard.

Gigi