Project 3 - 3D Environment
3D modeling actually isn't as hard as I thought it would be - it's just more of a PITA to make sure everything's placed properly in a three-dimensional world.
I actually have one tree (createLeafyTree()) function that creates a very complex, spherical tree, but I was wondering why the engine was rendering so slowly - then I realized the polygon count was almost 5,000 polygons PER TREE!!! Eeep! I switched the fancy trees out for more simple ones made of layered cones, which kept the entire file around 20k polygons. If you'll notice, in some areas there is serious artifacting due to the renderer not knowing whether to render the largest grass plane, the moat plane, or the internal grass plane. Looks funky, doesn't it? :)
I am proud of my mage tower - the ethereal blue tile I put on the rotating sphere looks simply fabulous. The two rotating "satellites" add to the mystique as well, I think. My only problem with the tower is that the satellites don't rotate solely by themselves - they actually rotate WITH the larger sphere. I wanted one to go one way, another to go another way, but I couldn't figure out how (and quite frankly, gave up after awhile - not worth the time that could be better spent fixing the cameras).
All in all, I think this project was exhausting, but well worth the time spent and effort invested - although my 3D environment may look a little plain, if you know how much work goes into it, you can appreciate the fancier 3D modeling like Doom 3 and such.
Complete documentation of all sources for tiles used are on the Media page.