Left is the main game world, which is currently still in blockout stage. This means that the rough elements are being placed, such as house locations, landscape features, trees, caves etc. But all still in a very basic state so design and level art can move things around if they need to since in this stage game design plans out paths, roads, town layouts, interiors and such. Once the entire world is blocked out and reached a certain quality, we lock it and start detailing things such as applying final materials with better textures, details and transition behavior, final models for architecture, flora, rocks and props, adjust lighting and optimize it all.
Our estimation is that the world will reach the fully blocked out stage early next year and once that happens youll start to notice very quickly that things are looking better and better with every release. This process did end up taking more time than we anticipated but since we are doing this for the first time, there was bound to be some miscalculations. But dont worry, we are working on it and things will look better in the future
Right is the old old wild life map, one that I just made myself with the rather limited knowledge in these things back in the earlier days of prototyping. Because the general landscape looks rather nice and because peolpe were already using this in their sandbo projects, we decided not to remove this level but instead keep it in a barren form so sandbox enjoyers can start projects from a natural looking landscape with different biomes. This will also be improved and touched up towards the end of the game production and once the sandbox gets the final in-game assets for placement it will also be able to create nicer and more natural looking levels. So it goes hand-in-hand with the development of the main world.
