Biome Reference and Blockout

     For my evocative biome I decided to do a winter taiga that instills the viewer with a feeling of wonder and curiosity. The scene will take place a little after midnight with northern lights flitting through the sky. I also intend to incorporate a sci-fi element in the form of an alien world on the horizon, as if the viewer were in a forest on a gas giant's moon.

Inspiration and References

The alien looking trees and soft rolling snow is what i intend to draw from this. However, the trees I intend to make are Alaskan Cedars.

The Common Snowberry. This will be one of the plants in my biome, although because it is a winter setting the plant will be devoid of any green leaves.

This is the Alaskan Cedar, I intend to make them covered in piles of snow, the entire tree bending under the weight.

An example of an aurora, caused by photons being emitted from oxygen and nitrogen molecules which have become ionized by solar winds.

Yep, that's Jupiter. The gas giant in my biome's sky will be loosely based on this swirling soup of hydrogen and helium.

LEVEL BLOCKOUT

 

Here is a rough blockout of my biome in unreal engine 4.

 

The first pass of my biome's assets done in Autodesk Maya and Zbrush.

 

First progress shot. The majority of the blockout meshes have been replaced, and I finally started figuring out ue4's landscape editor. Complex shaders are still nonexistent.