Wild Mongolia

Artist Statement

Wild Mongolia is a 3D experience that takes you to the wonder of Mongolia and gives you a sense of freedom only vast landscapes can give you. The idea for the this project came from my memories of a family trip to Mongolia when i was 12. There I experienced landscapes so vast and flat it gave me a sense of absolute freedom. I never quieter experienced that level of spatial freedom since then. This 3D experiences is a way to recreate the feeling and pass it along to people who may never get the chance to go there themselves. A Lot of the memories are of the wild horse and how they ran and played with each other in ways I never seen a domesticated horse play. The colours I remember most fondly are the deep greens of the grass to the light blues of the sky. I as an artist learnt much about creating virtual environments as I created Wild Mongolia. Every asset has gone under countless alliterations until it's reached an acceptable level. Although there is many techniques I cant use or do yet I have improved greatly as an artist through foundational skills. The hardest part of recreating a mongolian landscape was the sheer size of mountains and plains. To capture the sense of one continuous large landscape I modeled the entire environment on one single mesh. I added fog to create depth and ambient occlusion for shadow depth. The horse was even harder to create as of the requirement for natural movements in the animation. After looking through many reference footage of my own and other peoples on Mongolian horse I recreated a gallop animation as best I could. The goal of the game is simple, you can follow the horse if you desire however it is to try and lose yourself in the environment. A Lot of thing could have had more attention put into them, however realizing that the last 10% of work could take 80% of the entire projects time is essential. This is because sacrificing so much time for an element that may only be seen for a fraction of time is not worth it when weighed against the benefit of a larger element with more focus time.