The Secret Grotto

This digital environment was inspired by the calm quiet forest areas of our planet. Many of the species of plants can be viewed in The Aquarium of the Bay located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Like the other digital environments found on this site, all assets were created from scratch using reference photos. The large rocks, or boulders utilized in the scene, as well as the rock walls, and other stone surfaces were given varying degrees of smoothness in order to simulate the realistic degrees of roughness observed on stones near a river, or other flowing body of water.

The most important aspect of executing the jungle scenery was the selection and creation of the plant species. When trying to replicate nature in a digital environment it is important to pay careful attention to the types of plants used, particularly the species chosen. Since the environment was conceived as a jungle type forest, tropical species of plants were employed as reference when creating the plant assets.

The trees were perhaps THE most time consuming assets to be created for this project, as they were modeled by hand. Many studios rely on procedural algorithms to generate a "base" tree then modify the model to suit their needs. The procedural method does have a few draw backs. The trees created tend to fall outside of a particular species and wind up looking too general. Also, the trees created procedurally sometimes look very similar. Although, the procedural method is a great way to save modeling time. The trees found here were not generated by any procedural means. While modeling the trees by hand is time consuming, this non procedural method was perfect for allowing a closer study of tree branching patterns which helps to match a particular tree species. Hand modeling the trees also gives each tree a distinctive feel that helps differentiate between trees of the same species and provides a higher level of detail to be obtained. This attention to detail is one of the strengths of this project and helps enhance the "jungle" feel of the images.

The digital environment was turned into a short clip to better show the detail in the project. The waterfall employs particle effects, which were rendered seperately and composited into the completed render sequence. An animated procedural water texture was created and applied to the water surface to give the impression of realistic water.

The fallen Tree trunk is one of the many assets created for the Secret Grotto environment. Below we see the texture maps used for the fallen Tree Trunk asset, along with a quick render highlighting the asset in the digital scene.

Concept Drawings