Here's what I've been working on today and yesterday. Firstly, I added the texture to the entrance gate. I've still got to create normal maps from height maps for some of the detail on this, and also the next thing.

I textured the small wall, and reduced the tri count of it. Its not got normals yet, although I have painted the height map for it. I'm prety happy with it, although a lot of the detail is lost in the 512 texture. However I don't think I can make it a 1024 as its not a hero asset.

I also made a tilable texture for the floor. I made this by sculpting out different bricks and then arranging them before baking the textures. For the walls I made a smooth mossy rock tilable texture. I changed the material ids of the cave and added these textures.

I also used the new floor texture to remake my path as I was not happy with it.

Next I am going to make this asset:

Here's what I've made on Friday and today. I made this small wall from this reference. Its unwrapped and I'm going to use hight maps to create the normals for it this week.

And I've started to make the entrance gate. I've scupted the detail and I'm unwrapping it tonight. I'm also going to use hight maps for the detail of this one.

By the end of this week I want these assets done, some more tilables for inside the cave baked, and another hero asset sculpted. I've really got to start to get some of these important parts made.

Just a quick update. Added the banana tree today and populated the level some more. I'm going to alter the vertex painting if I get the time. Tomorrow I'll work on the water. I'll try and give daily updates on things from now on, even if its just screenshots of the level.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

I got the plant photo reference today. I travelled over to Birmingham and went to their botanical gardens. I think I got some good photos, although the place was quite small, they had a good selection of tropical and sub tropical plants. It was a little bit difficult to get to though, I was walking and not really know if I was heading in the right direction most of the time. It was also good that they had labels on each plant, so I can look some of these up later.

Here's a selection of the photos, as well as a few random ones from the trip: 

I've started to make some of the plants I saw today in the level. I've changed the ivy, and I've added a small ground plant. As well as that I altered the fan palm, I changed the texture and bent it a little to make it look more natural. I also added more foliage, as looking at my new reference, I can see that it looks nowhere near as dense as it should do. 

Tomorrow, I am going to add a banana tree, and make a cube map for the water. There is also something else I want to add to the level if I get the time. At the gardens they had fish in the pool. I would like to have these in the water in my level, maybe make a simple animation to them. But that's all for a later date.