The Village | Whitebox
Initial Whiteboxing
This was the first attempt at a Whitebox of the top down, and…. It wasn’t good. But luckily this was only after about half an hour of work so I deleted it, and started again. This initially used Unity’s terrain toolbox, but after this attempt, I decided to move onto using ProBuilder instead.
Whitebox Attempt 2
While blocky, this version of the whitebox (or technically, greybox) was much better for running around the World. It still didn’t feel right but I just thought I’d need to “populate” it to feel better.
The Underside
As shown in the Whitebox, this does have an underground section
Populating
I first started the populating by adding different houses as well as a castle (all on the original top down)
Populating
This also included the underground section. At this stage I also started adding in placeholder NPCs
Changing the castle
The final part of the Village Whitebox was changing the castle. After walking around the map, the castle didn’t really feel like one, after talking to the team I was working with (and in fact talking to some different “playtesters”), they felt the same, so I made it bigger to incorporate this feedback.
The Plains | Whitebox
A Basic Start
Using Unity’s terrain system, I was able to create some basic form of map for the Plains following the Top Down
Creating Caves
This also meant I needed to find a way to implement caves. As Unity’s Terrain system isn’t voxel based, I couldn’t just create cave systems and had to manually add them in using Pro Builder.
Deeper look at the Whiteboxed caves
Another Angle
Another angle of the plains showcasing its scale compared to the Village
Adding Smaller Villages
I also took some time to add in smaller villages around the Plains, as well as some NPCs around the area.
The Catacombs | Whitebox
The Beginning
This was the beginning of the Catacombs area, with the idea being a drawbridge that the player can only access once they’ve completed all the necessary quests
Creating the different corridors
This whitebox stayed very true to the original top down.
More Open Areas
The only thing that the top down didn’t have was information as to how the open areas were going to be used (hazards, puzzles), so I knew after the Whitebox there would be changes.
Making it feel treacherous
A few different ideas went into this, with bridge sections over lava, and jumping puzzles
Large Open Areas
Finally, one thing I fell in love with in this whole production was making the player feel insignificant by making very large areas for them explore, or by having statues tower over them.
That was virtually all of the Whitebox, however, I did record a video showcasing some of the Whitebox while I was still making it.
(Music Credit to: InsaneInTheRainMusic)
Noah Rigden 