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Terrain Design/Development


Maive features a closed terrain - a simple, multi-area island, each section of which contains a beat or movement of the story.

This was initially sketched out by Kerris, as a simple concept that we could refer to that provided a bit of visual structure to an imagined story.

It was then my job to turn a concept into a working terrain, something I had no experience in and had never done before.

Considering its size, we decided to make the terrain as one object - one world that Maive could traverse around without loading screens, etc.

Rather than do an in depth dive on the total process of making the terrain, I'll talk through the iterations of the terrain and the techniques I used.




Iteration 1

Made using Blender's most basic sculpting tools on a subdivided plane, I carved out the basic shapes of the mountain including the basic sections as per Kerris' suggestion.

The issue with this was that the terrain was far too bumpy for Maive to comfortably walk across.


Iteration 2

The second iteration was made by extruding faces on a subdivided terrain. It was a little more blocky but solved the issue of having uneven ground that was difficult for Maive to navigate. I also changed the original plan slightly, shifting the final area of the map (Maive's community up on the mountain) to the east side of the island to provide a little bit more of a dynamic journey through the island. However, the seams between the different gradients on the terrain really showed the individual faces, and didn't have the smooth look we were going for.


Iteration 2.1

Same base, but added a river and pond to give the terrain some visual interest.


Iteration 3

A completely new terrain, with a new, pastel gradient. I fixed the issue of blocky seams between gradients by revisiting Blender's sculpting tools and using the pinch tool to pull the blocky vertices into a straight line, with the exception of edges that the players wouldn't see. I moved Maive's community back towards its original position, but changed the route to get there. I designed this terrain specifically so at some point the player would face either north, south, east or west, giving a smaller area more of a dynamic, complex feel. It also makes better use of the space and doesn't leave big empty patches of unused terrain. I kept the idea of the river but made it cut through the Calico Cove area and run into the sea, creating a sort of sub-section that allows the game to feel more full but without having to generate completely new model types for that area.


Iteration 3.1

The final iteration of the terrain included the addition of a cave behind the waterfall - an Easter egg in the game that contains a bunch of items from Maive's childhood. This cave is where she used to play as a child, and went through a couple of minor iterations in itself, to make sure it was the right size to feel cosy rather than creepy.

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