Stone Bridge Project - Advice Needed
polycounter lvl 7
Hi Polycounters! I currently got my hands on Zbrush and a decent graphics tablet and decided for my next project, to create a stone bridge, which will ultimately be part of a small scene deep within a forest. It will be a long project for me as I have never really created assets for games using the zbrush workflow.
My initial work flow idea is this:
- Block out bridge in MODO (how the stones are piled on top of each other and getting dimensions right)
- Using that low poly information, create several blocks and prepare to extract to zbrush
- In ZBRUSH, sculpt these lil babies and extract back into modo for retopology and UV.
- Construct the bridge using the high poly individual stones, with some extruding out of the wall than other (gives me the chance to use all sides of the individual pieces and being reusable
- With the whole high poly bridge setup in MODO, I retop the whole thing and UV map
- In Substance Des. Link the Low Poly and texture from there.
If there may be a better and easier method of creating this asset, may can I hear them?
Much appreciated.
Peace,
beardy.
edit: sorry if the picture is HUGE :')
My initial work flow idea is this:
- Block out bridge in MODO (how the stones are piled on top of each other and getting dimensions right)
- Using that low poly information, create several blocks and prepare to extract to zbrush
- In ZBRUSH, sculpt these lil babies and extract back into modo for retopology and UV.
- Construct the bridge using the high poly individual stones, with some extruding out of the wall than other (gives me the chance to use all sides of the individual pieces and being reusable
- With the whole high poly bridge setup in MODO, I retop the whole thing and UV map
- In Substance Des. Link the Low Poly and texture from there.
If there may be a better and easier method of creating this asset, may can I hear them?
Much appreciated.
Peace,
beardy.
edit: sorry if the picture is HUGE :')
Replies
Again, if you have any advice about the best way (workflow) to sculpt the details and baking, then I will be more than glad to hear your opinions.
Do you have a specific workflow when you work with zbrush? Im thinking I should sculpt the bridge in its entirety, then decimate and UV Unwrap in zbrush before texturing in substance.
Thanks for that info!
I will try looking at some other artists that have done something similar using ZBrush.
This is a small piece from the bridge. It's a boulder that will close the gap between the much larger rock statues on the bridge. I decided to give it a sharp feel, with the central portion hand carved with symbols around.
The symbols themselves depict characters from the story I'm basing the bridge from.
I am having a little bit of trouble with baking the normals (ZBrush - sculpt, decimate) > MODO - bake. I will upload some of the failed bakes soon.
I managed to bake my normals in MODO 'from object to texture', after doing more reading I was able to set up my normals.
Here is a basic scene with the Boulder duplicated to show all sides:
There are a lot I can work on in terms of baking my normals, one being that I would like to use XNormal. As this is working for now I would like to see how I can go about texturing this thing and seperate some of the materials. This forest scene is buried within a forest there for I didn't want the textures to be too clean and clinical, therefore I would like to find a method of separate the materials and create some nice moss materials on the rocks too.
Here us a Marmoset render to show the wireframe and some of my ideas in terms of the materials/textures:
Texturing
Now, I want to begin thinking how I should texture. I guess polypainting is one method, perhaps polypainting where the materials with seperate and bake a color map for Substance Designer is a thing. I don't know. That's the way forward anyways.
Once I finish this asset. It will be used int he bridge project, but I will be able to create the other assets easier, given that I have the workflow down.
Any Crits are welcome, I would love you guys opinions!
Peace,
Beardy.
For rocks you definitely need sharper shapes. Try to use TrimSmoothBorder brush with square alpha and Orb_cracks. And I would also make a set of alphas to use on all rocks, to speed up the process and to make them look more consistent.
For texturing I think Substance Painter would be the quickest option, there you can easily mask top or bottom parts and crevices. Procedural masks are fast and give more natural look.
Keep it up! Sculpting is long, but results are rewarding
And create two tilable textures, one for the top and one for the sides of the bridge? Great advice! I was panicking a little because I wanted to keep alot of the information whilst creating the bridge within moderate time, you know?
I had some problems with the UV Borders showing through the diffuse, so I used the polypaint in MODO to blend it in, I'm definately not happy with these textured boulders, but it's a learning curve I guess haha. I found some awesome references that may help me define my rocks more.
Here's one test that Im not happy with. What I will do is create another rock, using this workflow, but define the edges on my rock and make it more sharp and ''ROCKY''. Thanks!
People have given me advice regarding how I could texture the bridge etc.
My plan is to:
1. create one tiling texture for the side of the bridge, this would preferably tile in both directions.
2. create a tiling texture for the top of the bridge, this would have dirt, mud and mossy layers beneath the stone pavings shown in the image below. I would only need to tile this in one direction. I could create single rocks and rubble piles and other rpops to break up the repeating tiles.
3. create half of an arch in which I can duplicate on both sides of the bridge, I also plan on spending a bit of time learning to create flora and ferns between the rocks to also break up the fact that it's reused assets.
4. Sculpt the 6 statue-esque rocks individually, however reuse most of the rocky materials to save time.
Once this is done, I will be designing the layout of the scene itself. I plan on the environment being a forest, which resides in a forest during wartime in a medieval era. I shall be looking at other games and analyzing some environments in their methods of using rivers and streams, and how they create a subtle presence of war. Anyway, one step at a time!
Because I can't afford substance designer/Painter at the moment, I will be making most out of photoshop and the paint feature in MODO to create my Diffuse, normals, AO and spec map. The quality won't be up there compared to using substance designer/painter, but it will give me a chance to go back to basics with texture creation.
I made a few layers in modo, and found some rock textures that I airbrushed onto the rock, from there I used a mossy texture to add other details. I combined and used some scripts in photoshop to adjust and combine the normals from the bake and the diffuse in which I then created the other maps.
I need to work more on my UV skills as there are SOME stretched areas where the texture distorts a tiny bit, but most of these areas are unseen.
here is the result, any feedback would be appreciated:
Things to improve:
1. control the distortion on UVs
2. produce cleaner diffuse map
3. learn an efficient and professional workflow for creating spec maps. (tweaking etc)
4. keep drinking coffee (need to improve this alot)
Here are some real time renders in UE4:
I don't want to be creating all of the assets using that workflow as it will have bad results, so I will keep practicing until I finally get a good result!
I will keep this thread updated until I finish this project! Which could be a good few months.
I guess it's all part of getting better!
Peace,
Beardy.
I am debating whether to create all of the rocks need for the scene, bake all the normals and set the scene up ready for texturing.
An alternative is creating each asset individually. I may spend all this week just creating all of the assets I want and baking the normals, the reason being that I could then prep all of the folders and crack down on texturing the rocks, the bridge tiling materials and the terrain materials.
I think, looking at my progress, I need to begin creating all the assets and then I can focus on texturing these, build up a small folder with materials I can re-use and apply them.
There are 4 rock formations flanking each opening of the arch in the bridge, by creating two, I can reuse them without revealing repetition. Another thing I would like to try with the diffuse on these rocks and the bridge is to apply other colors such as orange mossy specs, all in good time.
Here is the normal bake made in MODO:
Using the same rock material (height, roughness, diffuse) I painted it onto this new model to see how it looks with color etc. I also created a cavity map to show the definitions on the rock.
I am pretty happy with the current progression I have made, but I can still improve greatly on my sculpting.
I am going to continue creating the assets for the bridge, as I am interested in how it would all fit together. Using a similar material across most of the rocks will also help with blending it all together.
Any feedback would be great!
edit: been getting feedback for this rock....and it looks too much like a penis. I'll get there one day folks xD
Peace!
Beardy
I would probably just hit up some references. You've researched bridges which is good, but I'd focus more on how rocks look IRL and some existing, high quality rock sculpts you can already see online. It looks like you do a lot of manual brush work, but from my experience less is more: block out the shape and the basic form using dynamesh and hammer/trim brushes, then use some draggable alpha brushes to apply the detail.
If you post the refs it's also easier to critique your stuff just because we know what you aim for.. there's a lot of rock types out there and they often require a different approach.
After I posted this, I gathered a crap ton of reference images of the amount of detail I will be trying to aim for, which I will be working on tonight.
The next post should be referenced etc.
Once again, thanks
Firstly, let's talk rocks! I was thinking about all the feedback from you awesome guys, and I told myself off 'Glenn! USE REFERENCES BRO'. Okay, so here are the ones I found which I will use tonight and get right.
I want the bold silhouette of these rocks, with the secondary shapes to have a sharper and layered formation one them. I will test more zbrush brushes = trimDynamic > SmoothTrimBorder etc to try and create these cleaner layered shapes. From there, as others have mentioned, I shall look online for some nice alphas to play with after I have created this.
I feel that in terms of moss, there was an awesome moss tutorial for rocks, in which the artist would create 2-3 layers of polygonal sheets on top of the rock, each with a different texture. I believe the top layers would have an alpha texture. in which would show the darker layers below.
The only reason I want to try this, is that I have been painting the height onto my model in subtance painter, which is providing a natural look that doesn't look...well...natural.
It would also be nice to include another alpha layer on the moss for fallen leaves. (it's an option)
I don't just want to create a rock, with a boring texture and say "TA-DAA'', when i could create a natural looking rock, with not only mold, moss and leaves on it, but also perhaps Fungi growing in some areas and even Ferns sprouting between some cracks.
Below: I found this rock in the 'post your rawks' thread, in which I fell in love with the simple form and the way the layers blend naturally to the main bulk of the stone.
Below: I noticed this on Pinterest, and thought about creating a single tilable texture from a sculpt similar to this. I imagined the rocks and lumps of mud on the sides being flush against the inside of the wall on the bridge itself, in which the softer mud, dirt and gravel along the centre.
Now! I am always thinking on how I can improve the overall design of the bridge, with the scene in mind. Given that I am still learning programs as I go through this project, I was looking at my bridge thinking 'This is the main focal point of an environment'. Once I asked this myself, I realized the original/current design of the bridge, may not be as impressive as the main asset.
I searched online for a few references, looking for images with substance, lighting, proportion and design. I found this image below:
It reassured me that my current bridge is just 'too safe' in terms of design. Games that impress me are the ones that have the coolest environments. So let's see where I can take this!
I made a quick comparison in not only scale, but also the impact it would have on the scene. By using the image reference I believe the bridge being larger, with a rounder arch prevents the bridge from blending with the land, giving no sense of transition from ground to bridge. Height, is also something I wanted to play with, given that a room looks different when standing on a table. It also transforms the bridge into somewhat of a local landmark to the environment. I also loved the space created underneath the bridge, where I could create some props such as bags or hidden stash or even a TROLL!!! It allows more room to play around with the environment.
The next post I make, will be me getting the rocks right and referenced to the image above.
Thanks and again, feedback is awesome!
Peace,
Beardy.
I think I need to work on 'HOW' to achieve these intended details, in terms of utilizing as much of zbrush possible.
I still feel room for improvement, but it's the subtle details such as the secondary layering you see. I will look into adding some more details via substance painter, and see where this model goes.
Peace
beardy
Are you referring to the Rock cluster I posted on Jan 25th and 28th?
If you see any room for improvement, I would love to hear!
Thanks once again!
Peace,
Beardy.
Who could I ask for this to be done, and make this my Digital Sketchbook?
Peace,
Beardy
Here is what I have at the moment. I wanted the stones to be more bulky and rounder, so that's the direction I wanted. I believe it emphasizes the medieval fantasy theme. I also fell in love witht he Brazier design I found on Pinterest, and rather than using rocks to flank the bridge entrance, I wanted to use Braziers to light up the bridge ends.