Explore Asia Game

A low poly, Asian environment designed for exploration in VR. Wildlife roams around the area and have realistic behaviors. Small details like the vegetation and sky are moving if you look closely. Each area has something special going on. This project was not code heavy, so I found myself working all over the engine just tweaking assets and optimizing wherever I could. Making the environment as beautiful and smooth was my main goal.

This project gave me a lot of creative freedom as it was loosely defined as a visual experience. My job was to fill it with life and make it immersive. I experimented with different assets and that’s how the animals, vegetation, and particles came together. Putting the level together was a satisfying process and I’m proud of how the overall vision came out. My favorite part is the baked lighting, it really makes the colors brilliant.

This was the first environment of the Explore type projects, so there was lots of trial and error involved discovering the ideal balance between visuals and performance. Keep in mind, this had to run smoothly on a Quest 1 which has the hardware specs of a decent mobile phone, pushing over 70 FPS on two 1440p screens. I worked with my 3D Modeler to reduce the mesh topologies, implement occlusion culling, and optimize lighting. This project taught me a lot on how to optimize outside of code.