A village beside the lake

Brightsite’s new village stretches from a timber jetty to cottages high on wooded slopes. Between them are winding lanes, a market green, little gardens and gaps where the forest comes back in.

Today’s work brought the building experiments into a larger setting. A window, a porch or a tree now has neighbours, and the routes between them matter as much as the view across the lake.

Homes along the hillside

Twenty-six cottages sit around a planned network of paths and shared spaces. Waterfront homes face the harbour; others gather around the green, follow the hillside lanes, or look down from the ridge. A foresters’ clearing sits further into the woods.

The lanes climb with the ground and branch towards each porch. Small plots give the houses a place to stand without lifting them onto tall, blank platforms. Trees fill the spaces between clusters of homes.

Up close, the cottages have timber posts, boarded gables, glazed windows, shutters and sheltered porches. Brick chimneys rise through their copper roofs, with a small hearth inside each house.

A closer look at one of the harbour cottages in the historical village layout.

A woodland with more variety

The forest gained four different tree forms: spreading pines, dense firs, broad oaks and slender birches. Their trunks and connected branches give each crown its shape, with variation between individual trees.

Smaller trees fit among the houses, while larger ones fill the surrounding slopes. Bushes have their own rounded, spreading, upright and thicket forms, including pink-leaved shrubs beside the gardens.

A staged grove from the same build, showing different individuals of the four tree forms.

Seasonal leaf colours were also added as choices for foliage. These are colours to build with at this stage; the world is not yet moving through the seasons.

The water looks back

The lake now reflects the visible houses, banks, trees and piers around it. Gentle ripples break up those outlines, while turquoise colour remains beneath the surface. Under moonlight, the same view takes on a cooler, quieter mood.

Water also gained more of a response to changes in the ground: it can fall through a hole, spread across a lower surface and settle into a pool. Fixes later in the day helped a pond lower from its surface when dug beneath, rather than leaving flickering pockets of air inside it.

The village under the night’s lighting preset, captured from the same lakeside viewpoint.

Still taking shape

This is a village layout for exploring the world and its materials. The houses are not occupied by a simulated town yet, their rooms are unfurnished, and doorways are still openings.

Reflections depend on what the camera can see, so hidden or off-screen objects can disappear from them. The scene is still being worked out, but it now offers a longer walk: from the water’s edge, through the lanes, and up into the trees.

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Archive note: these screenshots were captured on October 21 from the unchanged final October 8 Git checkpoint, using its own assets. The village is that build’s authored test layout; the tree grove is a separate scene arranged for visual review.