Looking for some suggestions on an area of my Island

[Dunquixote]

Hi! This is still WIP, but I still would appreciate some feedback on an area that I’ve been working on.

The first picture is just to show why I have a moon in the middle of the area. I’m thinking of changing this area since I think my museum area better deserves better. But nm that.

The area above my museum is loosely based on the Crossroads in Dragon Age Inquisition. Mirrors were an elven ancient magical artifact, so, that’s why you see a bunch of mirrors. I based my area on several images I found on google (haven’t played my game for years and it’s not an area I can access other than in a cutscene or at least in the non-dlc areas).

To give you a good idea of what I was aiming loosely for:

Spoiler

here and this:

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In picture below, on the other stool is a lost item journal. I have plans to put scattered papers with a qr design that looks like ancient documents (which I’m currently looking for) by the stool and maybe throughout the area to represent the codex entries you pick up throughout the game.

The black flowers, scorpion, statues, butterflies, benches are my own personal touch, which the palm tree lamps and frozen trees represent tose weird looking trees. The black customized mirrors represent the corrupted mirror and that’s why I chose to put black flowers and a scorpion (though I’m contemplating to switch it with a tarantula model since there were lots of giant spiders in the games—depending on how big it is and if I can find one).

I didn’t realize how big the Valiant statue was and was planning on putting it where the bench is.

Before I realized how big the Frozen trees were, my plan was to have two of each on each platform.

For the last picture, as you can see it’s identical to the opposite side except for the zen-style stones and no Valiant (the cliff ends there and that’s where my museum is).

One question that I have is if you think that it looks fine with small differences to each side or that it should be exactly the same, or be more different?

I also want to mention there is only one walkable area aside from the path and that’s between the informative statues on both sides.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can make this better? I‘m planning to add more flowers, weeds and butterfly models.

I wanted the area to have a kinda creepy feel to it and so, I have K.K. Hypno playing.

 

[nageki]

i think it looks really cool! i love the creepy vibe to it.

one criticism i could give - to me it looks like a lot of the small items on either side of this area are kind of just scattered on the lawn instead of being a part of it. you could try playing around with making small cliffs to place things on to add some height variation? putting some small things like the bug models or gothic mirrors up on little 1x1 or 2x2 cliffs could make it more visually interesting, especially if you placed a tree (real or fake) in front of the cliff to camouflage the cliff faces a bit.

you could also consider 'wrapping' the area around with a cliff so it feels more closed off and secluded? i made a terrible little ms paint diagram since it's hard to explain lol

Spoiler: pic

these are just suggestions though ofc. good luck with it!!

Post automatically merged: Jul 23, 2020

OH one more thing - you could also try out some lighting with things like floor lights and hidden blue/green studio lights or even the lava lamps! would definitely give the area even more freaky ambience

 

[Dunquixote]

i think it looks really cool! i love the creepy vibe to it.

one criticism i could give - to me it looks like a lot of the small items on either side of this area are kind of just scattered on the lawn instead of being a part of it. you could try playing around with making small cliffs to place things on to add some height variation? putting some small things like the bug models or gothic mirrors up on little 1x1 or 2x2 cliffs could make it more visually interesting, especially if you placed a tree (real or fake) in front of the cliff to camouflage the cliff faces a bit.

you could also consider 'wrapping' the area around with a cliff so it feels more closed off and secluded? i made a terrible little ms paint diagram since it's hard to explain lol

Spoiler: pic

View attachment 290792

these are just suggestions though ofc. good luck with it!!

Post automatically merged: Jul 23, 2020

OH one more thing - you could also try out some lighting with things like floor lights and hidden blue/green studio lights or even the lava lamps! would definitely give the area even more freaky ambience

Thank you so much for the feedback! I really appreciate it! Those are really nice suggestions! I’ll definitely look into them and play with the terraforming even though I’m bad at it lol. I was thinking of it being cool if there was like a fog machine in the game to make artificial fog, but the lighting might actually be a good substitute at least to add to the creepy vibe I’m trying to make.

 

[Hobowire]

i think it looks great. you did a great job recreating the scene with palm tree lights, stone arches, and the fossil. Moon directly behind adds additional flavor. It extremely difficult to anticipate and fit some of the furniture in the game. I understand your frustration of wanting symmetry but absolutely love the staggered furniture. I think the asymmetric placement of the frozen trees gives it a lot of depth.



And I absolutely LOVE LOVE how you designed the character.

 

[Dunquixote]

i think it looks great. you did a great job recreating the scene with palm tree lights, stone arches, and the fossil. Moon directly behind adds additional flavor. It extremely difficult to anticipate and fit some of the furniture in the game. I understand your frustration of wanting symmetry but absolutely love the staggered furniture. I think the asymmetric placement of the frozen trees gives it a lot of depth.



And I absolutely LOVE LOVE how you designed the character.

Thank you so much! That means a lot to me; I truly appreciate your feedback and your kind words. I tried harder to be more creative with this than I had in the past with my projects in HHD and NL. Seeing your designs and everyone else’s on TBT forums though had pushed me to try to improvise more and add more flavor to whatever I am trying to create or recreate. Plus, I admit, I was too lazy to go in the game and take screenshots of every angle lol. Usually I’d try to recreate the room or area exactly how it was in the game, but as I play around with furniture and come up with other ideas, I realize that there’s not as much satisfaction in completing projects like that.

Part of me thought it would look better with both sides identical, but today, it dawned on me that maybe it’d actually be more interesting if I made the two sides different, which is why I made this thread to see what everyone else thought.

 

[Fisher]

This looks really amazing! If I could suggest anything I’d say maybe add some tarantula or scorpion models just to maybe add some more creepyness to the area haha.

I really like that screenshot of the moon behind the fossil, looks really epic.

 

[Dunquixote]

This looks really amazing! If I could suggest anything I’d say maybe add some tarantula or scorpion models just to maybe add some more creepyness to the area haha.

I really like that screenshot of the moon behind the fossil, looks really epic.

Thank you so much! Your feedback is much appreciated. I’ll definitely look into that. I have one more scorpion model, but no tarantulas since I missed them when they were around. I’ll see if anyone has more of either of them to trade.

 

[Dunquixote]

Here is an update: only minor changes have been made besides the area by the Valiant Statue. I put some blue floor lights down and put the butterfly models on stone stools.

I tried terraforming where the gothic throwback mirrors are, but doing so messed up what I was trying to depict.

This is the only area I have the lights at so far. I like how the one behind the moon makes the mirror behind it look a little like it’s being activated.

I tried to make this area a little more interesting, but I’m thinking I may have overdid it and made it look like a bunch of clutter. Since I can’t use the magic circle rug, I thought to decorate around the statue with fossils and/plasma balls (ordered two more but am not sure if having all fossils except for nova light would be better) to resemble what would be a summoning circle or ritual. The bird bath is black to represent it is corrupted. I’m didn’t add another fountain since I’m not sure if this will be permanent or if I’ll return it to how it was before (and not sure what color to pick if I keep it or to make another bird bath).

I haven’t found anyone selling tarantula models but I’ll keep looking and saving scorpions I find.

Thoughts on the butterfly models? Do they look better on the stools or on the ground? The extra scorpion’s placement might be temporary but for now I think it looks okay there.

Thoughts on the area by the valiant statue?

 

[Fisher]

Honestly I really like the changes you made, but I just really love putting floor lights down anywhere in general lol.

I really like putting the butterfly models on the stone stools too, makes them stand out a little more to me.

 

[Dunquixote]

Honestly I really like the changes you made, but I just really love putting floor lights down anywhere in general lol.

I really like putting the butterfly models on the stone stools too, makes them stand out a little more to me.

Thanks! I think the stone stools are nice if you want to keep a somewhat if not entirely natural look to the area as well. I was actually a bit surprised since I didn’t think they looked bad on the ground

I honestly never thought about using the floor lights until @nageki made the suggestion. I think it does make a difference in adding to the eeriness that I’m trying to depict. Now I’m just figuring out where to put a few more without it looking like it’s just random placement or without overusing them.