I am very excited to finally be able to post about the Dark Forest region in SineSpace. It’s one of the first projects I began after our seasonal Burning Man break, and the first to see the light of day… or dark of night as the case may be. This region can be home sweet home for any wizard or witch! Use as a home or setting for fantasy and role-playing adventures or first person shooter fun.
Updated on 10 December, 2019: The region has finally been released to the public and is now available in the SineSpace Shop in-world!
Loaded With Features
The Dark Forest region packs quite a punch. The target audience is SineSpace premium subscribers, who get a lot more space than the basic 128MB region. I wanted to pack as much art and technology as I could, while still allowing for over 250MB of space to decorate and personalize. Let me walk you through some of the features of this 360,000 square meter (600 meters x 600 meters) region. Let’s take a look!
From The Ground Up
It begins with the terrain itself. I used a voxel-based terrain tool to create a land that not only had hills and flatland for the dark forest, but cliffs and caves and underground chambers. Use the SineSpace room editor to place furniture and decorate the walls. Go deep enough and eventually you’ll discover a bridge that crosses a river of lava.
Lanterns hang from the ceiling and light the caves and chambers. It is easy to hang art or place furniture because chamber walls and floors are flat in many places.
On The Outside
Outside, the skies are dark and thick volumetric fog clouds help create a spooky atmosphere. Similarly, the land is configured with 9 different arrival points, disorienting explorers and keeping players on their toes. The region has several different clearings, where you can place anything from buildings to spawners for first person shooter games.
What would a Dark Forest be without trees? I’ve created 7 different unique trees (in three different species), and have a few types of bushes in the woods, all moving gently in the wind. A black cat wanders near the caves, but can be difficult to spot.
A massive stone spider menaces the forest floor below, and also adds to the sense of foreboding in the dark forest. The legs can be climbed to make crossing the land and stream easier or to get a better view. However climbing the spider also make the player an easier target. A murder of crows flocks and flies overhead and occasionally land on the spider’s hulking form.
I’ve created a Northmore playlist on Apple Music, which you can check out below. It features a lot of the tracks and artists I was listening to while working on the project, and makes for a great soundtrack for exploring and adventuring in the Dark Forest region of Northmore.
Dark Forest Is A Winner!
I’m pleased to report that the Dark Forest region won the SineSpace Creator Challenge. A lot of work went into the project (I had started some of the tree designs several months ago). It’s nice to see the effort get some recognition and consequently I can’t wait for everyone to get a much better look!
Available Now!
You can get this region template now in the SineSpace shop. Look in the Regions –> Landscapes –> Forest. I have a tutorial on how you can create a region and apply a region template – click here to check that out.
Dark Forest Is A Work In Progress
This region was largely completed in early October 2019, but has been held up waiting for various SineSpace bug fixes. The biggest hangup for me was that fire effects were not working properly – and with the entire region lit by torches, that was a problem. As a result, I modified the design to use lanterns and added some lighting controls to let you fine-tune the look.
Fixes are coming for fire effects in the 2019.2 and above client app. Let me take a moment to share a sneak peek at a mandible fire effect that you will be able to enable or disable when SineSpace gets the update.
More from Trilo Byte Designs
- Sansar Commentary
- Rim Shader Avatar Skins
- Catwalk Animations
- Izi Sig Volcano World
- Tirana Rainbow Forest
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