Ok, big update, the level looks a lot different. I've changed the lighting back to what I originally was planning. I think this looks a lot better than before. The lights are going to be coming from candles and torches.

I've also started work on the Garuda. Here's the sculpt so far.

Added a few more things to the level. Firstly, I vertex painted the plants, so that they are now swaying. The level looks a lot more natural now that in. Here is how the vertex painting looked in max.

Each colour controls a different part of the movement. Once it is tweaked, I'm going to make a video to show it in motion.

Another major thing to go in is another hero asset. This is sculpture that goes in the cave part of the level. I changed the design a lot, but that is becuase of some new reseach I have been doing. These statues of Hanuman looked way too interesting not to put in in some form or other.

Here's how the final sculpt looked in the level.

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. The presentation went well this last Friday. It was suggested that I add some animals into my level. I have started on a fish for the pools of water, but I was having difficulty with the animation. I could get it animated, but my animation skills are lacking and I'm going to have to give it some more work.

Today I redid the vines and added some new ones. I remade the textures for the tree vines and made the old vines into alphaed planes as I thought it would look better. I then made the vines that hang between the trees.
I also redid the tree leaves. I made a highpoly branch then baked it down to make the textures. The colour needs to be tweaked, but I think it looks a lot better. I also changed the normals of the leaves to face outwards using the speed tree plug-in in 3dsmax, which makes them shade a lot more naturally.

In the last week, I made height maps out of some of the patterns I had researched. The normal maps from these I am planning to use throughout the level.

I also added a new medium sized plant, based on one from my Birmingham trip.

Finally, I changed the cliffs and added more variety to them to make them more natural.

Since the last update, I've added a new hero asset. This is the dragon statue. I modeled it then added a little bit of damage in high poly sculpt. There is still some detail in the texturing that I would like to add, but I'm going to add them using a height map.

Here's how the asset looks in level.

I also made a large wall, both a whole and damged version. I think this adds a lot to the level, as it implies that there was more buildings before this area became ruined.