Caves

Now I have decided on a theme I wanted to have a looked at different caves that already exist so that I can base the one that I am going to create on a number of different ones. Below I have looked at different images of real caves, caves that have been created for film and then also caves that have been created in games which I can look at.

 The first one that I looked at was Old Mother Shipton's Cave located in North Yorkshire as this is one that I have previously been to and has excellent examples of how I can take parts of it and use them in my own work. The thing that is the most interesting about this cave throughout the cave they have odd items having down on strings on some of the walls and even though I won't be using items like heads and teapots, I thought about using small rocks and bits of bone.

 

I then had a look at the caves that are located in the Caribbean, the first one being the Los Tres Ojos which is a 50foot open air limestone cave in the Dominican Republic. The thing that struck me the most about this cave is that there is crystal clear water running along the bottom and also a lot of plant life, which I could use in the centre of my cave around where the large treasure chest would be.

The next one is the Coffee River Cave which is located in Jamaica and has an impressive look to it. the reason this one will be helpful to me is due to all of the stalagmites and stalactites in the cave which is something that could be added throughout my cave and mainly in centre of the cave to be included around the plants and other items.

Another cave in Jamaica, the Xtabi Caves is an example of how I would want to front of the caves to look like and how I want the cove to look like. I wanted my game level to start at the front and the character to be able to look out of the entrance to the cove and see the ocean outside.

I then moved onto looking at my initial inspiration and had another quick looked at the Pirates of the Caribbean cave. The inspiration that I want to take from this cave is the overall look and layout to it with the big chest in the middle to make it seem more important and there is also a lot of mist which is something that I would like to add in, especially to the cove so that the edge of the world cannot be seen. There are also some interesting patches of light that flow down from the ceiling that highlight some areas of the cave.

I then wanted to have a quick look at other games that are already out there that include caves that are of a high quality and I could only thing of one good example besides the Skyrim caves. A new game came out last year which was based on a storyline rather than doing anything too challenging and action based. It was called Dear Esther and was based on an island which also had a cave underneath. This cave is amazing to look at and includes great detail which is something that I want to include in mine, so it will influence my own work greatly.