Does this forest look right to you?
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If you ever tried creating a forest environment the easy way [i.e. brush tools or simply duplicating tree models] you’re probably familiar with the struggle to get your mass of trees actually look like a forest. It can be hard to pinpoint why that’s so difficult or why it doesn’t look quite right. For functional purposes, what you have is a forest, but in this tutorial I want to elaborate on what a forest really is and why it’s such a hard task to replicate this kind of environment.
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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you heard the word? Is it the trees, the general atmosphere? You may assume that a forest is nothing more than a place where many trees are present and that is one of the root causes of the issue we’re addressing. A forest is not only defined by the trees, a forest is a complex community of often mutually dependant species living in a state of ecological equilibrium, often harboring thousands of genera of flora and fauna. Forests are biodiverse, and this leads us to one of the most visible, yet still often hard to notice problems with creating such an environment -
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A general lack of diversity. What do I mean by “diversity”? Plants in the undergrowth (or lack thereof), features varying in size, frequency and character, etc.
-One manifestation of this is that trees are often the same size and placed at even distances from each other.
-Real forests comprise trees of all ages and shapes, some of which are dead, rotting and fallen. Dead trees provide visual interest and break the player’s line of sight while also providing a landmark with the help of which the player can navigate.
^This forest has a unique topography, namely a canyon cutting through it. It shows a lush undergrowth despite its dense canopy overhead, there’s saplings and smaller trees occupying the same space as older trees. If you were to walk deeper into this forest, you would probably encounter exposed rocky outcrops covered in moss, areas where the ground is barren and areas where ferns grow so large you can get lost. The key and the only word you need to remember is diversity.
*Yet here is another forest.
You’ll notice the differences right away - the undergrowth is less dense, the ground is covered in leaf litter and the dominant kind of trees are deciduous broadleaves. Upon closer inspection you will notice more differences. The environment is shaped by climate conditions, geology and topography alike and here’s another thing to consider: the location of your forest. It’s self explanatory how and why nature looks different in different places, you need to keep that in mind. Pine trees don’t usually belong in a desert environment, neither will cacti grow in the taiga. The best advice i can give is to explore the area you want to recreate through Google street view, deconstruct what you’re seeing and try recreating it using whatever resources may be at your disposal.
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There’s:
^Wood pastures
^Tropical rainforests
^Temperate rainforests
And many, many others, each with their unique features that you can use to make your game immersive and unique. -
Some other general advice I can offer:
-Improvise. You don’t have shrubbery models? Take the leaves from one of the tree models, perhaps retexture and resize and there you got your shrub, place it half under the ground so only the top of what would otherwise be the tree’s canopy is visible, etc. There’s plenty of ways you can repurpose what you have and create something new and unique by only resizing and recombining.
-Acknowledge that forests are living, breathing ecoystems that are NOT homogeneous in any shape or form. There will be openings in the canopy and the ground below will harbor different species just like there will be multiple successional stages and plant communities - shrubbery, meadows, riparian zones and many others - occupying one forest.
-Verticality is good, but it gets boring after a while. Some trees grow slanted, some have double stems and some are crooked and gnarly, some are broken and some grow multiple stems from one singular rootstock (like in coppiced woodlands).
-Not all trees will be alive and healthy and that is a good thing. Dead and decaying wood is one of the indicators of an old growth forest.
-Use your assets for environmental storytelling and let the player piece the clues together. That provides them with mental stimulation, leaves space for theories and overall makes your game look interesting. Trees slanted outwards from a central point with charred trunks near the center? Could have been an asteroid, could have been a chunk from a satellite or even an alien spaceship making a sharp maneuver in the nick of time to avoid a crash.
-Use water. Forests often get swampy and muddy, there’s creeks and streams and waterfalls, those carve dells and gullies into the landscape.
-The time of the year changes everything. In spring there will be wildflowers carpeting the ground and fresh green leaves coming up. There might be patches of snow and generally more water (e.g. vernal ponds) brimming with life and diversity. In winter the ground may be icy, muddy, snowy and the undergrowth will be mostly dead or dormant.
*I hope this was helpful, It’s my first such post and english is my second language so please excuse any errors. Feel free to ask me any questions and good luck in all of your future or current endeavors!