A prop

I love creating props! In any scene, movie or video game, the props slowly build up what becomes the scene.  Every little piece adds that much more to the environment.  World building is all about prop placement and lighting.  I think that’s why I love game environments. You have to use a set amount of static props in very limited ways to build scene that is immersive to the players.  When it’s done right the player really believes that their in that world. But it all has to start with basic prop building.

Not that this prop is amazing or super immersive or anything.  But I enjoy creating props, so any chance I get to create a prop for a project, i’m all about it!  This project called for wood chips, so I started to create some wood chips.  Wood chips are a mix of organic and so much mechanical.  The wood material itself is organic but the way it is cut up is mechanical. So i started with a cube, modified it a little to look like some chips. Apply 2 texture variants, and it’s start to look...OK.

Wood chips have to be varied and random and their usually in piles. Bam, varied piles. 

Looking over the project, it not only called for wood chip samples but large amounts of wood chips. Instead of a few small varied piles, a big pile would be needed.
 

 

It’s looking a little like a pile of wood chips, the texture is doing a lot to sell it, but there are issues.  Wood chip piles aren’t mushy or smooth, they are more like piles of rubble, there’s also texture stretching.  So I used the previous small piles I had to help break up the silhouette, cover areas with too much texture stretching, and surface area. 

Till I have a better prop to show!