Blue Sun Tech ancillary maintenance section 0-24 (Medium Poly workflow + Unreal)
polycounter lvl 13
Hey PC,
Just wrapped up this scene in Unreal 4, used FWVN and a kind of offline POM decal system set up in Maya.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1y5zq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYPcOa5UrSk
I wrote a couple of Maya scripts that really helped speed this scene along and i'm going to be spending sometime cleaning them up so i can share with yall if anyone is interested.
I'll probably update this thread with some WIPs of the tools and see what everyone things, but they include automatic panel loop tools, tools to assist with placing, mapping and matching attributes on decals ect.
Just wrapped up this scene in Unreal 4, used FWVN and a kind of offline POM decal system set up in Maya.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1y5zq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYPcOa5UrSkI wrote a couple of Maya scripts that really helped speed this scene along and i'm going to be spending sometime cleaning them up so i can share with yall if anyone is interested.
I'll probably update this thread with some WIPs of the tools and see what everyone things, but they include automatic panel loop tools, tools to assist with placing, mapping and matching attributes on decals ect.
Replies
Really nice work dude, especially on the decal :O
How did you manage to get the POM on the decal :O
I really would like to know how to make that
I used what i'm referring to as offline decals, i think it goes by a couple of names, but basically Unreals defered decal system isn't robust enough to handle the decal work i'm after so i use a mesh decal set up in Maya with the UV sets and tangent normals synced to the source mesh.
So in UV set 0 is where i map all my decal info, the source mesh is mapped to a small blank area on the decal sheet, so it's basically receiving 0,0,1 normal information.
And UV set 1 is where i set my material definition, so i texture the source mesh basically how ever i'd normal texture, and then i transfer attributes in maya matching the vertex normals and the uv position on UV set 1.
It basically allows me to use one opaque shader for the whole set up, so there's no limitation on what i can use, such as POM ect.
I'll probably do a full asset breakdown when i finish my scripts to kind of demonstrate what they do, but if you have any more questions just holla i'll try answer them.
It does a lot of time that I'm a trying to do that :O
When I get good results, I'll share some screen with you:)
Can't wait!
I'm very familiar with the workflow in 3ds max as well, so if you run into any issues let me know and i can help there as well.
Thank you!
Oh and AMAZING WORK this looks like a finished aaa game level that I want to play
Here's a link to Obscuras method inside of 3ds max, the thread also has some hand information. It's a good start.
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2410469/#Comment_2410469
You just want to have two UV sets, or 3 if you plan on baking lighting.
Apply all your decals to UV set one, i use set 1 for my decals because normal map angles are calculated based on the orientation of the first uv set, a lot less headaches.
Then map all your textures to the second set, then use the projection modifier to match the UV sets (or UV channels in max) from the source to the decal. then you should have no seams.
Super quick explination i know, but give it a shot and if you get stuck anywhere send me a message and i can help.
I definitely want to find time to do a proper break down soon so that should help.
Haha thanks Machen, I'd really really love to do a breakdown but i probably won't get around to it until this weekend.
That thread i linked AXEL is a good start, but i'd like to have a comprehensive breakdown in one spot for you all.
I think I have manage how to make nice decal with this technique
I have make a little Gif for show you some test I have done
Looks good! Can't wait to see what you do with it
It just seems to create weird stretching if the underlying mesh has an UV seam/"cut". But it works.
I made a simple material with to material fonction for a better visibility.
I have the decals as a separate mesh and the effect of the POM just disappear because it seem too be close to the surface of the base Mesh.
EDIT: I doesn't make sense them being merged I guess. Although by merging the meshes together I can just apply a UVW Map modifier on UV Channel 2 and both the base mesh and the decal will have no seams, seem easier to keep Texel Density constant for when you have a lot of objects. But I don't how it affects the whole method.
I was having the problem I mentioned above with my POM shader so I recreated another one just like your and now I seem to have some issue.
https://gyazo.com/6d5a03209016bfa51b2134bedc6642c8
Although, it's almost clear how to archive this result. But I would like learn your "decal-modeling" tricks.
If that produces the same result, check what is your base value in your heightmap texture, and set that value in "Reference plane" input on the POM node.
Do you have pixel offset on by chance? If you do, remove that.
Also yes meshes are merged on export, i generally keep them separate in Maya so i can run some scripts on them, I recommend using transfer attributes to speed through things.
Sorry if it sounds like a silly/noob question but how do I check my base value of my Heightmap Texture?
The copy of Machintrucs's POM shader seems to be behaving correct now except I'm getting some sort of artifacts, or maybe that's the correct behavior when viewing from such extreme angle.
https://gyazo.com/c4105531b202e512d77d5cd12c349cd1
Here's mine following the UE4 documentation guide.
https://gyazo.com/465aac3c5f5ee55fcd10ec43d1ed5a3f
Still I've managed to get the POM working in a different way without blending both material and instead I used two separate Materials for two different Mat IDs.
https://gyazo.com/cb4ab1cf8662db078774976f1479a4c3
I feel like the issue here is that I need to fix my Alpha and also need to rethink some of my decals themselves and rebake them.
I was fumbling with for a while and not sure anymore if I had at the time, but it's working now, thanks.
Still have some question but I'm going to wait for your breakdowns.
Thank you soo much for sharing this. And big kudos on the corridor, it looks on point with the actual Starfarer, awesome stuff.
Couple things come to mind based on the gifs you showed.
The first one is to be expected, the depth of the POM is a bit extreme, to compensate you'd need to add more steps.
Alternatively, the second gif is actually a work around, by using TAA you can dither the results which allows you to use less steps. Although i think the dithering is pretty extreme here, but i think that's partly because of the depth you're trying to achieve and some other problems.
Couple things I notice in you're technique that could use improvment is, your decals are too far from the source mesh, they really only need to be about 0.001 units away from the source mesh to eliminate Z fighting, you want to keep the decal as close to the source mesh as possible, this will stop natural paralaxing from the discrepancy in distance.
Also, which UV sets are you using for which part, looks like your decals have normal errors, which makes me think you aren't using UV set 0 or compensating using world space normals and derriving your tangent basis. actually, have you connected your decal normal map up?
You're base height value should be 0.5, neutral grey, and with standard height map practices this value in the value that doesn't do any displacing. So when baking your heightmap where ever the bake plane is relative to your highpoly is where your mid value is going to be. So think of the position of your bake plane as .5 and your highest point on your high poly being 1 and the lowest being 0, best practice to set up a plane when you're modeling your decal sheet and make sure that every decal border terminates on the same position as the plane
You can see in my decal sheet i've modeled majority of the decals onto a plane so i can make sure they're aligned with the bake plane.
I'm trying real hard to get the breakdown out, i've just been really busy at the moment with work and home life.
Something that I forgot to ask on my last comment was at which point do you apply the Weighted Normals? I feel like the script I'm using might be screwing things up.
Doesn't seem to be anything similar by default on Max, so I'm using a script : "SlideNormalThief".
POM is working now after all the feedback. Thank you so much everybody for the help.