Progress on Our Vegetation
Hello everyone! For today’s Patreon post, we, Chloé and Léa, are excited to show you the progress that we have made so far for the vegetation of the game!
Through the creation process, we encountered many challenges; we will be discussing these today as well. This post is for Patrons only, so please do not share it with non-Patrons. Thank you!
Our Art Direction for the Vegetation
First thing first, references! We had to figure out what we wanted for our game. We knew we wanted something stylised, but not to the point where we would greatly stray from reality. We want the players to be able to recreate their own gardens with vegetation that is recognisable.
(1) (2) (3) We are big fans of Ghibli, and luckily for us, there is a lot of great material that inspired us from their movies. Other works such as (4) Victoria Zavhorodnia’s, (5) Harry Heath’s, (6) Marterio HF’s inspired us a lot, too.
The real challenge was to compromise between the idea and the technical constraints in order to create the best result possible for the game.
Our Basic Bushes
One of the trickiest things we had to figure out was how to create fluffy and voluminous trees and bushes. When it comes to leafy plants, they have to be simplified a lot. Here’s an example:
On the left, an example of a branch: we’d have tons of leaves and then have hundreds of branches in a tree. It would be heavy to run in-game! On the right is how we simplify it. One branch becomes 2 big triangles, which is lighter for the game to run.
Once we figured out how to make our branches, we decided to tackle bushes (they are basically tiny trees!). Things didn’t quite work as we’d hoped.
V3 was fluffy, but it didn’t feel organic. We can also see the triangles we used on the bush. V6 was a bit better, but it lacked the desired fluff. V11 is our final version. Look at that fluffiness! There were a lot of iterations created.
I (Chloé) ended up developing a tool to make bush creation not only easier for us, but to also get the look we wanted.
The tool allows us to change the color of the foliage easily, and has a lot of other features! It also helps with the issues discussed previously. Colors might not be modifiable in-game because it might cause conflicts with our season system. (If you are on mobile, the GIF may not show up for you!)
Our Fluffy Trees
Next, we tackled trees. They had to be big and fluffy trees without being too heavy and make our computers catch on fire. It required a lot of work to find an in-between between style and limitations.
I (Léa) tested a lot of different looks for the foliage: very stylized and round, very artsy and plain, with and without shadows in the leaves...
From left to right: v4 foliage is very stylized and round, v11 foliage is diverse without any shadows, v18 foliage is plain without shadows, v20 foliage is diverse and has shadows.
Here is the final result for now:
The same tree, rotated, lifted, resized and recolored to look different
This latest version represents real trees more accurately, while maintaining the stylized look we wanted! The irregular silhouette will help you reuse the same tree many times without it being noticeable: change the color, lift it, rotate it, resize it, and have fun!
Our Conifers
Unlike fluffy trees, conifers have a strong structure –we had to illustrate this in our asset. If we don’t give the proper structure to the conifers, they become harder to recognize and tell apart.
While most trees have branches that go in all directions, conifers’ branches usually point either slightly downwards, or upwards.
Luckily, the creation process for the conifers went smoothly. I (Chloé) was able to figure out ways to match them nicely to the style of the leafy plants.
Our two conifers as they currently are. They, too, are fluffy – it makes me want to hug ‘em?!
Our Hydrangeas
Next, we decided to create an hydrangea. Just like conifers, hydrangeas have a specific structure. We thought that modeling the structure accurately would do the trick, but it was not quite the case!
On the left is the version which had an accurate structure. It was lackluster and bare. We ended up cheating a bit with the hydrangeas on the right to get the fluffiness we wanted and tested a few different looks.
In the end, we decided to go for more subtle textures, which made it blend much better with the rest of the vegetation.
Where Are We At Now?
Our (blood, sweat and tears) current assets.
To this day, we are still tweaking and improving things. The vegetation we just showed you is a work in progress, after all. We hope that you enjoy how things have come along! We are looking forward to showing you all more of our work in the future.
Today’s Poll – A Special Quiz!
On a slightly unrelated note, did you know conifers are near indistinguishable from one another from a distance? I (Chloé) gave this quiz to the team, and they all failed to find the intruder that’s a different species than the others! We’re curious to see if you have more of an eye for conifers than the team did.
Vote in the poll below for the conifer you believe is the odd out (species)!
Chloé and Léa, signing off!
Have a great weekend! ★~(◡ω◡✿)
Comments (66)
Cool! Love the progression you gals are making. btw, my answer to the question was the drawn-out girl with the googly eyes; I never seen such a specie before. Them 2D pix of the conifer trees must have really shocked her and made her out of her natural habitat. :) ★~
What was the answer to the poll? Which tree was the answer? Did I miss it?
No. 4
The plants look so pretty, I really love the art style!
Oh wow these plants are really shaping up. Each post is getting me more and more excited!
I love the planned customizability for Paralives. I remember the post about even the solar system technically being modifiable. I'm really looking forward to creating fictional worlds of mine for that reason. To make them more accurate I'd have to recolor the foliage however. If seasons conflicts with custom colors, maybe if foliage is a custom color it disables the seasons for that particular plant? Would I be able to import custom plants in the colors I want without conflict to that system? Curious about workarounds to this particular issue.
We are still working on how we will handle the seasons and give you some creative freedom to recolor the environment. Some of the plants are not fully recolorable for technical purposes, through the mod system you will still be able to load your own version of the textures if you want to!
This is just amazing. You have done a great job.
Because of the way the game looks. A farming/cottage add on would be amazing. Paras keeping chickens etc
Beautifully designed. 🌲 And I love that you creators are fans of Ghibli. Can't wait to see more!
Everything looks amazing!! Thank you all for your hard work!! I hope that these trees will move and blow in the wind on windy days 🤞🏾🤞🏾
Need to see the palm trees. 🌴 ;) #palm-tree-lover-here
Looking awesome! Loving where you're going so far. I'm so happy you're using Ghibli as inspiration, I love their stuff. My biggest requests: 1. Bushes that are not spherical (maybe one or two for manicured gardens) 2. All the vegetation that is used in the world is also available for us to use in landscaping (Sims 4, why create so many unique plants for each world but not let us use them without cheats? Why does my lot have to look so out of place in the environment?) 3. Some basic bushes and trees that are free so houses built with a tight budget don't look like they're just plopped on top of a barren field. Not all plants should be free though, landscaping is expensive irl! 4. idk if this is asking too much but I would love to be able to put a tree close to a house without branches clipping inside. I'm imagining something like how roofs in sims go invisible inside or under another roof. Maybe some way to manually select branches and hide them?
I love thisss!!! maybe some rocks and more dirt to make it look realistic maybe? but I LOVE the ghibli inspired vegetation.
I love these assets so much they look so happy and fluffy I love it!
This is great! The art style has really shaped up so nicely, its such a clean visual and I like that you're adamant about creating a strong, consistent, unified art style. I hope the leaves still blow in the wind with the same effect as some of the earlier videos, I thought that effect was done so well. Were there any changes made to the grass texture or is that something that may come later?
Hello Ramaru! We still plan on having wind blowing through the leaves :) The grass texture was modified, but it is still actively being worked on!
It's so cool that you mention Victoria Zavhorodnia! I always think of her work when I see the design of Paralives.
they look amazing! i love the colours and the texture and shapes. looks close to reality but still remain game like to keep it for our escapism ;)
I'm in awe, it looks so good! Congrats, guys, I'm loving all of it!
the hydrangea looks wonderful!! this makes me think about the previous videos shown of the bed resizing, and how the number of pillows changed as it hit a certain width. Could the resizing of flora work similarly, where making a flowering shrub means the number of flowers increases while staying the same size? This sounds terribly complicated to me myself lmao but I think about our hydrangeas and how the clusters of blooms are fairly similar on our biggest and smallest bush. I suppose this is something we might be able to achieve with plain bushes and custom content of separated individual blooms, too, though, if we wanted that degree of control/customisation over how larger plants look
1 or 5 🤔
We need number 5! It's a Christmas Tree! 🎄🌲
I'm not great at landscaping, but for assets that look that good, I'll make the effort !
Will you be making it so the "look" of the tree will "randomize"? Or will it be 1 of every type of tree?
Omg I LOOOOOVEEEEE the foliage! It looks so nice. It looks from a game but at the same time, not.!
I love that the vegetation was inspired by Ghibli! It looks so soft and fluffy, I love it!
It looks sooo good 😭😭 Just like with the furniture, I love the „smoothness“ of it all, the hand painted aesthetic and the overall meshes. The only thing I don’t like that much (which isnt even the main focus of this post ig) is the color of the ground (grass). I think it’s because it’s a bit too saturated maybe? Which is too „cartoony“ in my opinion and less calming and ”ghibli”ish. It reminds me a bit too much of the grass color in a certain game-that-shall-not-be-named, before we got the season expansion in that I couldn’t stand looking at the always brightly colored summer grass.
Thank you for your feedback! The ground/grass is still very much a work in progress, the colors and looks of it is going to change in the weeks to come! :)
This is amazing and I'm impressed by how persistent you are in getting it exactly right!
i love the foliage creation tool, and really just the care taken to make detailed but still great looking foliage. They really feel quite lively
As much as I appreciate #4 I’d be very happy with all of these art styles, I just want vegetation to feel full and “bushy” and I really look forward to the colors and floral aspects too! I think the background environmental details in games can very much sell the full rich story of where you are. Bright, but also wide ranged in hues and varied greens make me happy and add depth to environments! Personally, I actually am a fan of sims 3’s take on random varied plant sizes that can occur when placing multiples back to back, idk if that’s in the works or conceptualized, but it is definitely a fun way to tone down the amount of cluttered menu items, and I think that it’s quite a successful take on it! Thank you for allowing us to be a part of that decision!
Yes, I love that feature in Sims 3! Such a simple little thing that makes a big difference
The plants look fantastic so far!
Even though everything is still in development the trees and plants look amazing as they are atm! It's so fun to see how you all make this game more alive every week. Keep up the good work! ❤ (Can't wait to play the game!!!)
I love building and making the inside and out as pretty as each other I'm really excited seeing the development of this 😍
The flora look great!
Excited to make forests like that, and have my Parafolks explore them for hours. 😊❤
beautiful❣️❣️
I am so excited for those hydrangeas! They look amazing. They're one of my favorite flowering plants, and I use them all the time in other simulation games. Yours are the prettiest I've seen, by far!
Fluffy plants! That’s so pretty!
So pretty! Can not wait to decorate my world with them
The trees and other flora are so pretty! They're simple without being flat, and they look really natural! Your effort definitely paid off!
I want to take a hike in that forest!! It is beautiful!! Amazing job!
Personally as a player who can spend litterally hours and hours in build mode to make everything perfect, this post is really exciting !! Maybe some tweaks will be made but right now, I find them pretty, especially the hydrangeas, one of my favorite flowers.. I assume hydrangeas will be resizable? Waiting to see what others plants/ trees you will create ! For the quizz, I answer 5.
Yes the trees and bushes are all resizable!
It's gotta be #3. The others look like common pines and that one looks like a larch! :D Anyway, the flora looks beutiful <3 I'm a Ghibli fan, too. I love the style you're going with
I love the vegetation art style so much 😍 you did an incredible job!
It's looking so good! I'm so excited about the progress you've made so far. Thank you!
It looks so beautiful. So excited for our paras to explore outside 😍
Best post ever!!! I've been so excited to see foliage! And you made my favorite flower too 😭 💖
Beautiful work. I hope I can hug a tree in game. If not ill just pretend by staring at it lovingly.
This looks fab, for the fluffy trees I'd even have been satisfied with one of the earlier versions, heh. Question: will it be possible to adjust the height (and possibly) thickness of the stem/trunk of trees? Would be nice if the width of conifers could also be adjusted. No problem if that's too much to ask technically, just curious!
I'm afraid that would be too much of a technical challenge, but I would love to be able to customize them that way! Don't worry though, we will give you different options for the trees so you will get some with bigger trunks and wider conifers, if you want!
beautiful work, im so excited about how this game is developing!
I love the foliage! I know most games use triangles to simulate plants, but I never liked how obvious they could look. Here, they look very natural! Love it! ❤️
i know it is maybe taking a step backwards but i would love to see the chalet updated. 🥰
I absolutely LOVE the new vegetation art style! It looks so unique! Good job!
I love the art style and appreciate all the love going into this project!!
Number 1? I mean, it looks less fluffy and I think is the one that its leaves touch ground where the others ones doesn't... Im not a tree doctor so... hahaha
I love this look! I'm hoping you give the plants real names so we know what we're using 💚
Beautiful work, I'm of the opinion that not everything has to be super realistic/detailed because of performance issues and so these trees look perfect to me 👌
Looks stunning! Can’t wait to see more! You guys are doing great🥰
I would looove some pink japanese trees in the game 😍😍
Like cherry blossom trees?
Vegetation looks amazing, I cannot wait to see more details on that!