Sunny Hill Village Guide

The UModeler team told us about the Sunny Hill Village project, providing insights into the creation process using UModeler X for modeling, texturing, and rigging tasks. The developers also shared an overview of how they managed to complete the entire workflow exclusively within Unity and UModeler X.

Project Overview

In this project, we exclusively used UModeler X for modeling, texturing (except for some base textures), and rigging work. Our goal was to complete the entire workflow within Unity and UModeler X without relying on external tools. We've also created a YouTube tutorial explaining the process, which we hope will help those looking to create assets in Unity.

Initial Concept

The main theme of this project was to create a village with a bright atmosphere. We drew inspiration from small European villages and animation backgrounds, gathering reference images along the way. To avoid a heavy atmosphere, we envisioned a village abundant with trees and flowers, featuring well-organized orange rooftops as its signature characteristic.

The village was designed with gentle hills surrounding it, featuring a windmill on the hilltop and small fields around houses to suggest a self-sustainable community. For references, we specifically looked for stone buildings rather than medieval timber structures to maintain a lighter feel.

Asset Creation

Our first step was creating small-scale assets for modular design. We started with the most crucial element—the houses—building large-volume models first and then adding details progressively.

Roof Design

While we could have handled the roofs with simple textures, we chose to create actual tile geometry to capture the dimensional quality of the roofing. This allowed us to create various roof variations and add interesting silhouettes to the houses. We designed several types of roofs—large, slanted, windmill roofs—and added elements like chimneys, stairs, and decks to vary the entrance silhouettes.

Exterior Objects

Beyond houses, we created windmills, barns, and wells to enrich the exterior environment. To make the village feel inhabited, we designed various combinable objects like windows and doors.

We primarily used stone and wood materials to avoid modern aesthetics, utilizing fences to mark individual house territories and naturally divide village sections.

Natural Elements

Since the village was conceptualized as rich in vegetation, we created trees, grass, and flowers directly in UModeler X. We first created bushes and turned them into prefabs, then arranged tree branches in spiral patterns to achieve natural-looking trees.

For the ivy (climbing vines), we divided the plane UV into four sections and arranged leaf patterns to create lush vegetation. To add subtle animation, we used UModeler X's rigging tools to make the ivy sway gently.

House Assembly

Using our created modules, we assembled various types of houses. While each house has its unique silhouette and details, we maintained consistent roof and wall colors to ensure the village's visual cohesion.

Terrain Creation and Layout

Using the terrain tool, we roughly created the landscape before placing mountains, streams, flatlands, and paths leading to the windmill. After positioning buildings, we used the painting tool to mark paths and added stone stairs in areas with elevation changes.

Village Center Composition

We placed a well at the village center as a focal point, with barns and fields marking the boundaries. We installed fences along dangerous mountain paths and area divisions, naturally finishing the spaces with grass and trees.

Detailed Terrain Adjustment

For the grass, we created natural variation by painting different tones to distinguish light and dark areas. In the outdoor scene lit by a single directional light, we added lens flare for visual interest and placed clouds in the sky. For depth perception, we positioned blue-toned mountains in the distance.

For lighting, we wanted a warm atmosphere, so we reduced blue reflections in post-processing and emphasized warm tones. We excluded fog except for the distant mountains, where we applied blue tones to create depth.

You can see the complete creation process of Sunny Hill Village in the video below: