Building The World: Pandora’s Forest (Part 2)

 

What reminds me of the film Avatar (2009) ^(Film)1 is the iconic forest of Pandora. This forest has different plants that give a unique look and feel to the cinematic film. The beautiful alien-like plant design inspired this project. For example, I saw this plant design on Pinterest ^{(Figure 1)}. This design inspiration helps me to sketch out the plants I wanted to add on my Unity scene.

Figure 1

Source Courtesy of Pinterest: Avatar Plants, Biomydra (2023)

Sketching my ideas will help me later to plan how the plant will look in the scene and what are the elements I need to build the forest. ^{(Figure 2)} This helps me to plan out the next steps in creating the 3D designs and textures in Blender, as well as determining the software I need to make it work.

Figure 2

Source Plant Sketches, Studies on my Sketchpad and Save on my PC (2023)

Setting The Scene

Going back to Unity, I first imported the 3D designed trees that I created in Blender to the scene. ^{(Figure 3)} Adding trees in Unity was not straightforward for me so I checked tutorials on how to add the 3D model from Blender to Unity. ^(Video)2 Since this is the first time I was adding a 3D model to Unity, I needed to do a few steps to make sure that the textures and the 3D model will work inside Unity. After finishing the 3D model in Blender with texture, the next most important part is to export the file. In Blender you can export the file by going to the file then choose export then choose FBX. Once saved as FBX, the file can be added in Unity by first creating a new folder and then just drag and drop the file to the folder. FBX includes all the materials inside the 3D model asset. Because I did my own 3D model in Blender, I don’t need to follow the tutorials and how he unpacks the textures, but instead I just saved my textures in one folder. This helps me to organize and later to manage my textures and other assets. There are still a few steps on how to add the textures to the 3D model inside Unity. I also encountered that when I drag and drop my model inside Unity, the 3D model doesn’t have the texture yet. I can get the texture included on the FBX file or I can create a new material and add my texture on this new material. By doing this I have the freedom to change the textures of Shader Properties. I will explain later why this is important as I did a few tests and trials to improve the 3D models inside Unity.

Figure 3

Source Unity, Trees, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Once I had these trees in the scene, I encountered the first challenge in Unity. ^{(Figure 4)} When I tested it on the VR headset, the tree leaves were missing. But in my Unity preview window, the leaves are visible, so I needed to do some research. The free asset of the tree leaves is originally vector file, so I converted it to png file. The reason it was not showing is because png file is transparent and Unity doesn’t show the other side of the image so the side under the branch vanished. I tried to fix the issue with Unity free double-sided shader. ^{(Figure 5)} This didn’t help because I am using Universal Render Pipeline (URP) and it just turns my asset to pink colour. To fix this issue I needed to change the shader material setting to Universal Render Pipeline (URP) then choose 2D then Sprite-Unlit-Default.

 Figure 4

Source Unity, Trees Issue, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 5

Source Unity, Free Double-Sided Shaders, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

After this, I tested it again and I could see the tree leaves from below. ^{(Figure 6)}  Then I needed to add the character controller which will be the vessel in this immersive experience. The video from Valem Tutorials helped me to set up the hands in Unity. ^{(Video) 3} The process of setting up the hands was not too difficult. By having these hands in the VR, it creates a sense of connectedness with the VR world and the animations make them feel more natural. Now we have the terrain, trees and the hands set up. The next step is to add more plants.

Figure 6

Source Unity, Fixed Tree Issue, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

By using the same technique in Blender as I did with the tree leaves, I created the plants using Photoshop to add some glowing effects. ^{(Figure 7)} I wanted to achieve the night scene at Pandora’s Forest where the plants are glowing in the dark that gives the participant a feeling of alien and fantasy world. And the challenge here was that the scene still looked bright. I followed the tutorials from UGuruz for setting up scene in night mode that works on URP mode. ^{(Video) 4} The glowing plant looked good in the night mode. It emphasised the glowing effect better. ^{(Figure 8)} But another issue occurred - the leaves on the trees colour look too bright for the night mode. ^{(Figure 8)} It’s not supposed to look like this and inside VR it doesn’t look good. The glowing plants are supposed to be catching the attention and the trees are supposed to be in the background.

Figure 7

Source Unity, Glowing Plant, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 8

Source Unity, Night Scene Glowing Plant, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

I managed to remove the flashy colour of the leaves without issues with transparency by changing the shader material but this also caused the leaves to have reflective metalic effect. For the moment, I kept the shader material until I figure it out.

Figure 9

Source Unity, Night Scene Trees, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Here is the link for my Video Recording:

https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/First%20Recording%20-%20Final%20Project%202023/1_evfcdxqh

Software’s:

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Unity

Blender

Visual Studio

PowerPoint

 

List of Illustrations:

Figure 1: Pinterest: Avatar Plants, Biomydra, 2023 (https://in.pinterest.com/pin/239324167676286786/)

Figure 2: Plant Sketches, Studies on my Sketchpad and Save on my PC, 2023

Figure 3: Unity, Trees, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 4: Unity, Tree Issue, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 5 Unity, Free Double-Sided Shaders, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 6: Unity, Fixed Tree Issue, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 7: Unity, Glowing Plant, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 8: Unity, Night Scene Glowing Plant, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

Figure 9: Unity, Night Scene Trees, Screen Shot from my PC 2023

 

 

 

List of Sources:

1. Unity: Free Double-Sided Shaders, Ciconia Studio, 2021. (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/free-double-sided-shaders-23087 )
2. Valem Tutorials: Oculus Hands How to Make a VR Game 2022. Unity Package, 2022. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/10b39IekUdpBHlcTslZ-BlNRyH5uqPUe1/view )
3. Freepik: Realistic tree transparent set with isolated images of single trees with foliage green leaves and text vector illustration. ( https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/realistic-tree-transparent-set-with-isolated-images-single-trees-with-foliage-green-leaves-text-vector-illustration_26760512.htm#page=2&query=bush&position=10&from_view=search&track=location_fest_v1 )
4. Freepik: Flora Summer Beautiful Tree Herb, Zir Conicusso. ( https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/flora-summer-beautiful-tree-herb_1047589.htm#query=leafpng&position=3&from_view=search&track=robertav1_2_sidr )

 

References:

1. Avatar (2009) Directed by J. Cameron [DVD] United States. 2oth Centuries Studio.
2. UGuruz, (2020) How to Export from Blender to Unity 2020. YouTube. 10 August. (Video) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UZ-niuRWz8  (Accessed: 3 May 2023)
3. Valem Tutorials (2022) How to make VR Game in Unity - Part 1. YouTube. 18 July. (Video) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhtTtvBF5bI&t=605s (Accessed: 4 May 2023)
4. UGuruz, (2021) Night Lighting in Unity URP. YouTube. 16 November. (Video) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7KTlSVDyu4 (Accessed: 5 May 2023)