UIdaho Arboretum Virtual Library
I learned Unreal Engine 4 and Speedtree to do this project, which is my college capstone.
The idea displayed here is a prototype for a Virtual Library, an idea for how data could be displayed in a futuristic database. Every tree in here exists in the real-world UIdaho Arboretum. If you press 'Z' next to a tree, it gives you its facts, 'X' toggles day/night, 'C' Shows native species in green with invasive in yellow, 'V' shows lines that interconnect the species, and 'B' brings up a prototype UI for world navigation made by a classmate and not shown here.
Everything you see here was built in about a month, with photos of the real location, LIDAR data and height data.
There are 25 different, custom made trees in this world with 19 different information templates.
This has been both a first dive for me into creating an expansive outdoor environment and doing game engine work (dabbled slightly with Unity before), and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
A shot looking at the moon past the Subalpine firs. Did I mention all of these trees exist in real life?
Looking across the pool at nighttime, you can see our hybrid black willows on the right and some ash trees on the left.
This is our daytime lighting in action.
When you press the 'C' key in our program, it shows a filter that highlights non native plants in yellow. The native ones are in green! The more invasive a species is, the redder its leaves would get.
Some brewer spruces on a hillside.
The same brewer spruces by night.
When you press 'Z' next to the spruces.
We can see here that they're from the East Coast.
The willows and birches with the filter off
some bush willows (left) next to some water birches (right)
