Rocca Calascio

During this past month I focused on creating an environment inside of UDK that was inspired by a real life location. I've always taken a liking to castles and ruins so I immediately went on Flickr and started browsing the photos for one that could catch my eye.

The fortress Rocca Calascio stood out from the others because of it's unique look. It seems that it is almost one with the rocks of the mountain, and in a way it seems that it has replaced the peak of the mountain it sits on.


After gathering a good selection of reference photos of Rocca Calascio I began to block things out and started composing the scene. The idea was to use the real life photo as an inspiration for the scene and not photo recreate it, but rather create an environment that could be used in-game based on the location.  Not only that but to also push the look and contrast (while staying within a realistic style) because let's face it, reality can be pretty boring most of the time.

I modeled,textured, and lit everything in the scene. Here are a few shots of the final product:



During the first few days I began to realize just how difficult it is to create a natural environment. The organized chaos and meticulous destruction that nature creates over hundreds of years of constant wear on the rocks is incredibly difficult to mimic. I am happy to say that I have taken a whole new level of appreciation not only for nature itself but how other artists go about recreating it.