Chapter 3.  Constructing an Immersive 3D Game World

In the previous chapter, we defined our game's design. Specifically, we documented the game world we want to create, the player-characters, the non-player-characters, the game objects, gameplay, and our immersion plan. Throughout the remainder of this book, we will make those plans come to life. We'll start with the creation of our game world. That is the focus of this chapter.

Our game world, also known as the game environment, will have several key features to include, such as trees, rivers, hills, mountains, light sources, and shadows. And, in order to test our game, we will create a player-character and a camera.

The concept of immersion is important to grasp. An immersion plan is typically part of a game's design documentation. This might not be a formal part of a document, but it is an overarching consideration. We want players to immerse themselves in our game, also referred to as losing themselves in the...