Rocky surface modeling

MasterBeard

Hello guys.
I wanted to make this model made of rocks and im stuck.
I want to make it skyrim forge look alike. What is the most efficient way to do it?
I was thinking to manualy place all rocks and then take it to zbrush
or is it better to put a random rock tile texture with normals?
Thanks in advance.

MasterBeard

Here is another example.

MisterSande

there are several ways to approach this piece:
1. use a (tiling) texture and uv it to a low poly mesh. Make sure your lowpoly mesh has the right ammount of corners and corresponding smoothing splits (ideally lining up with the brick lines).
2. sculpt a single brick in zbrush and lay out a pattern inside of your modeling program. Then append a 2 sided cylinder for the "grout" in between the bricks. Then you can model a LP on top of this and bake down the details. For the best result this is adviced.

Im in a hurry now so I cannot go into details but if you have any questions just fire away.

MasterBeard

Does it means i will need to detach every UV to match it the tiling map?

Eric Chadwick

That's a combination of tiling textures on the larger models, along with smaller models placed here and there, to break up the hard edges and add detail.

Here are some good tutorials for this kind of workflow.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

MasterBeard

Thanks a lot Eric Chadwick although I cant relate modular modeling with what im lookig for. But i found there lots of good stuff so thanks

MisterSande

Yup, the first method I mentioned is what Eric describes. What workflow you use really depends on the project and your skillset. I am looking forward seeing yourresults!

Eric Chadwick

If you want the most efficient method, the one actually used by Bethesda to make Skyrim, then this article is worth your time.

Skyrim’s Modular Approach to Level Design

It's the 7th link on that wiki page.

Lots of other great stuff on that page, specifically how to create assets that work in real game levels. Not just a pretty model in isolation, but a pretty model that works well in a real game production situation.

MasterBeard

Thanks guys. I will try this method with UV splitting. cheers