Makin Rocks

Selaznog

Hey guys, I've been trying to make rocks. It seems like such a simple task. I mean, it's a freaking rock. My first one turned out kind of mushy looking, so I've been staying away from certain zBrush brushes. My goal is a universal rock that I can use for cliff faces or small chunks of it for boulders, overlaying worldspace normal maps to keep them in uniform detail.

Here was my first try:




And here's my new attempt so far.


Main source of reference is here
http://www.oilfreefun.com/2010/06/greyskull-crag-and-boulders-jackson.html


I would love some critique!

ASGUARDVIKING

Hi there!

Well most of your rocks look good for the specified use ya want, maby have the first rock pictured be a mix of dark/light greys.Most of the rocks i have used is in the SKyrim game engine and those are close to how they look and are made.

Also the last rock ya made looks volcanic and not along the bolder area.

Keep it up!

PixelSuit

Hey Selaznog, which brushes have you been using so far? I would probably recommend trying the Claytubes brush to build up your main shapes then going over those with a planar brush to give you the crisper edges and nice angles. Depending on the finish you want you could then overlay some finer detail using rock or stone alphas which you can easily create in Photoshop using any rock or stone texture.

I might have a couple of helpful tutorials saved on my PC at home, I'll try dig them out for you tonight after work.

BeserK

Your latest attempt is a huge improvement, well done!
The colour of your first attempt might have been a problem as well, not a lot of variation, looking forward to updates!

Jacob W.

I agree with PixelSuit. Alphas can be great to pull out shapes in the beginning and in the end have some micro texture. Too much micro texture can get too noisy though.

Also, I really like your detail on your updated one. That is looking really nice. I recently posted my process of rock making in my blog. Everyone does it differently but maybe this will help: http://www.jacobweberg.blogspot.com/

If you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer. Cheers!

Stromberg90

Here is a little post I wrote up in my thread, texture file is missing though, but might be something useful in there.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1553288&postcount=139

Bek

The vertex book has some rock sculpting stuff in it too: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104752

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