BA6 | Specialism #03

Researching Ancient Ruins of Thailand

A large part of TR: Underworld is based in Thailand therefore I thought it would be a good idea, before I research any other games, to look into the ancient ruins of Thailand and see if I can get any inspirations and influences from there.  I began simply by typing in “ancient ruins in Thailand” into YouTube to see what would come up and this is the first video I watched.

  >> video reference, credit goes to michaelpluznick <<   

I thought this was actually really helpful. I could see a lot of connections between the architecture being shown on the video to that which I saw in TR:U. The only main difference was that these were primarily inhabited, obviously maintained for tourists and natives. So whilst the architecture is definitely influential, some of the shots are too maintained. I need more jungle like exteriors for proper visual references. 

Reading through the comments on the previous video I saw a lot of people stating that the images were from a place called Chiang Mai. Chang Mai is the largest city in northern Thailand and is the capital of Chaiang Mai Province. When I typed in “Thailand jungle temple” into YouTube I was presented with a video named “Wat Umong Temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand”. Whilst there is still a clear effort to preserve these temples and areas, probably for tourism and religious purposes, this video shows more natural growth to the area. There is more evidence of luscious vegetation and natural surroundings similar to that of the TR:U game. However, they still weren’t showing me enough ruins or areas which looked mysterious enough and uninhabitated. Still very useful though.

>> video reference, credit goes to Earthoria <<

I went back to searching for temple ruins within jungle environments so that my search wasn’t limited to Chaiang only. Although still preserved for tourists and local visitors, these videos portray more of the style I am debating attempting for my 3D environment. The rock and stone formations that build up the temples and ruins are truly organic, not rebuilt or worked on, they are totally natural. Many of the walls you can see have dense vegetation growing over them too which is a feature I would like to consider within my environment.  This is definitely along the right lines inspiration wise, videos like this will prove incredibly helpful when I need to pull my visual stimulus and references together to help back up my designs and ideas :D  

  >> video reference, credit goes to earthmagictours <<      >> video reference, credit goes to earthmagictours <<