For my updated version of the Paper Nature project, I decided to focus entirely on the digital portion since I hardly had anything to show for it last time, and because I was already satisfied with how the book turned out. Ironically, I also decided to do away with the paper castle concept – after reading some of the feedback from my last post and looking at my setup again, I realized that any time I might put into making a cleaner, sturdier, more rustic-looking popup structure would be much better spent on the actual seasonal elements of the scene.

This time around, I decided to break away from the project guidelines a bit by using the Unity game engine instead of Max. In addition to the troubles I’ve had with making and playing Animate files in my other projects, while working on my patch last week I felt that Max wasn’t able to really replicate the kind of interaction that I wanted (especially when multiple pages were open at once). Furthermore, I figured it would be far, far easier to make falling snow and leaf effects – both major parts of selling the idea of each individual season – in Unity than in Max.

I am very happy with how this Unity version turned out. With audio (from FreeSound.org), smooth transitions, and particles, the seasons now each have a unique feel to them. (Side note – if you look back at the previous post, you’ll also see that the symbols that appear in the archway above the temple match the ones in the book!)