"Joy" - Skyrim

Skyrim is a name of a game created by Bethesda. Within the game Skyrim is place in the north region of Tamriel set in the Elder Scrolls series. It's a great RPG (role playing game) and a good place to start after using  Unity game engine and the terrain tool because I felt I was ready to make my own version of Skyrim using different terrain types, tundra plains, forests, and Mountainous regions.

I love this game because of the amount of detail in the world and various tasks to preform, plus the self contained stories to experience, in addition to the main story.

Any good detective, or adventure story needs sub-plots to weave within the main story line to create a depth of interest which will hold the game players attention. In addition to this you need a visual "wow".   because of this"wow" factor the above picture shows really solid composition using an underlying cross shape with a strong base created by adding darker, almost black trees. The white light can be read as sunrise or sunset but also as infinity, leaving the viewer a sense of wonder.

in the picture I was looking at Skyrim's hard textures and hard edges. On a closer a look there are some  visual flaws e.g. when you walk up to a building it becomes grainy. While doing texturing myself, using Maya and Unity, I found that I can do textures similar to Skyrim but as yet cannot improve on this grainy problem. Obviously Skyrim is much bigger and more detailed than my present work but as it  looks amazing, it is ideal to use as a model.

I looked at small villages and cities to get more ideas for my Joyful area, Whiterun is the first city you come across in Skyrim (following main story) it is a small peaceful place which is full of life and interesting things to see with many shops in the "wind district" (lower half of the city) 

The picture above is the city, it has a Mod (modification) on it to make it look better and I thought it would be better to look at the modded versions of the city to see how they have been improved.  I will use these ideas in my level rather than the pre-set( before modded) version of Whiterun. Interestingly the cross composition has been used again in this "shot" of the city with the house at the back forming the centre of the cross this is done more subtlety then in the landscape but it creates a strong triangle for the shape of the road which leads you into the scene. I need to think about similar compositions in my level.