Paths/Signposts

After roaming around for a while it became clear that the world, although having the village at its centre and the resources on the outside, it was not clearly defined where the player should go to get a particular item. I considered making real geometry paths, but in the longterm that would be unfeasible due to the LOD system in place, it would clip in and out of different levels of geometry and in itself cause more processing through both mesh and material.

My solution was the hand draw the paths on to the existing floor textures, this was a good solution that would automatically slot in to the existing LOD system and be easy to modify (within a Photoshop document). The only issue was the floor is divided in to four 1024x1024 textures so I have to ensure paths that would cross two texture sheets would seamlessly match up. 

 
Here is an overview in-game of the paths, they are more clear in the game than on the example texture sheets above. 

 

The next stage after making the paths was to give some form of indication of what would be found down the routes ahead. I have created a very simple signpost system which new places can just be slotted on to using texture offsets on the signpost material and adding an additional point to the post. 

I think I may revisit the design of the sign post as currently its only understood by english users, it'd be great to research in to symbols and implement icons to symbolise the different areas much like road signs are universally understood.