i also have to model some rocks at the moment. it really depends on your specs. amount of polys, but more important, the shadertypes you can use.
and even if you have good specs it doesn't mean they will look good. see the rocks in crysis, even if the rest of the game looks really good... (looks precedural...) http://uk.media.pc.ign.com/media/694/694190/img_4958630.html
FFD & Noise modifier will be your friend. Usually what i do is not concern myself too much with the polycount at first, and just get the shape that I want for each rock.
Sometimes I start with a sphere, others just a box with a lot of segments, it doesn't really matter. Then I'll use FFD Box a lot to get to the shape, then noise to add a little bit of, well, noise to the shape. Make it bumpy and irregular. That usually works pretty well for me.
Also, if I have a texture already that i am going to use. Once I am satisfied with the shape and model. I'll unwrap it, put the rock texture on it, then actually use the displace modifider and take the height map from the textures (if applicable) and try to bump out some of the geometry based on the actual texture. Usually only has decent results if you have enough geometry though. Just some food for thought. Good luck.
One thing that helps is to think about the type of rock since that will determine it's properties. You could have smooth sandstone with hardly any angles and bulbous features like boone NC, massive granite with big features like Yosemite, overhanging limestone with pockets and a bunch of features flagstaff AZ, quartzite like Devils lake.
Cracks and crevices in the rock will have black streaks running down because of the water/mud seeping out, this is also where lichen will start to form.
Here are a couple of images of a tiling rock wall that I did for Sega Rally Revo. They were very specific on what they wanted here, provided photo source, etc. Before anything else, have some reference in front of you and get a good idea of exactly what kind of rock that you are going for. There's a wide variety of rock types and surfaces. What you'll see in a river in eastern Europe is a lot different from what you'll see in a desert in Arizona.
Technically, make sure that you've got enough geometry to carry the profile well. After that normal maps and AO bakes can really sell things.
In this case, the photosource had quite a bit of lighting already in it, and it wasn't worth doing an AO pass on it. It was actually a fairly easy cut by numbers job, where I just traced cut lines around the recesses, then added extra verts in the middle and pulled them out. After that, it was a CrazyBump pass if I remember correctly.
wow. a really nice looking rockwalk... plus i really like the colors and overall style of the sega rally game.
what i do for rockwalls, i make a tiling rockwall texture(photosourced if you want to save time..) and throw it on a subdivided plane. then i push and pull out the geometry the way that corresponds to the texture.(make sure the uv's are locked...) when i'm done with the rough work, i render the ao map and add it to the base. then i start working on the texture and refine details, cuts, put grass here and there, add extra layers for more details etc... it also helps to lightsource the texture a little with light from above. this gives the rock more volume...
I'm using Max with this project, so FFD and noise mod worked really well actually. I need to learn mudbox or zbrush to make some really good looking rocks though.
here's a picture i did a while back while working on the blizzard fanart contest, maybe it'll help.
i just created a tileable normalmap out of this and then retopologized my mesh according to the normalmal, so i had tileable rocks i could use for the environment.
Hi, this is not quite a tutorial, but it may be useful. I posted it here awhile ago: A video showing the creation of a rock material in CrazyBump. Worth watching, if you haven't seen it before.
Quick Snowy Rocks. It can also be used for moss, grass, different types of dirt, dust and rust on all kinds of objects, it can then be baked out to several different texture maps, normal, spec diffuse... Saves hours of trying to hand paint all of that stuff on a UV jumbled.
Modifier stack looks like this:
Noise (very fine details)
TurboSmooth(for fine details)
Noise (large rough details)
TurboSmooth (just enough for large details)
Edit Poly (Rough out the shape)
QuadSphere
Material looks like this:
Blend Material:
Material 1: Snow (in this case I put noise in the diffuse slot and chose snowy colors)
Material 2: Rock (noise with rock like colors)
Blend Mask: Falloff (with "Falloff Direction" set to World Z)
Feel free to complex tile textures with bump spec whatever. They can even use separate UV channels and you can bake to a 3rd UV channel/layout. This is where baking a specular mask/map in RTT can come in handy.
First post for a long time lurker. Greets to everyone.
I've been working over some rocks lately and thought I'd add my 2 cents. This is non-procedural, but the Clay Tubes brush in Zbrush with a square alpha works wonders for rough stone/rock shapes. It takes a bit of practice to get them looking right, as evidenced by my picture below. I build the rough shape in Max, export and divide to about 7-8. Then just start building up/cutting in with short, overlapping strokes. The nice thing about this is you don't really have to go back and add in finer detail as the overlap of the brush does it for you. It's a bit tedious for doing a lot of rocks, but not too bad for a single scene. Great when you need 'that rock' as opposed to 'a rock'. Hope this helps someone.
Artifice: What you have there is a decent start, but I'd say it's still far too clear that you're using the ClayTubes brush. I picked up on that before you even mentioned it. I think for good rock definition you will almost certainly be better off using custom alphas made from photos in the end, and generally scattering a lot of fine "grain" or "crack" detail across the surfaces.
That pillar definitely needs an extra pass or two before it will be recognisable as any sort of stone. Right now it might as well be plasticine - there's no hardness or sharpness to your edges or cracks, and that's what you need to make the material recognisable.
nothing really beats making 5 or so rocks of a type from reference, generally with scale rotation etc thats all you need. then you can use those to create all your other assets like scree slopes rocky cliff faces etc
Thanks for the advice, MoP. This is really my first serious foray into Zbrush and it seems like I find new and better ways of doing things all the time. I agree that it's rough, but that pic is early WIP, I just put it up to show what 15 minutes of goofing in Zbrush can get you. I also agree that custom alphas are the way to go, especially for fine detail. Of course, diffuse/spec/AO goes a long way towards selling the texture as well. I just like Tubes as a quick way to block in shape and detail without having to think to hard about it. The other advantage is that the details hold up pretty well with small maps (256/512) for distant viewing. I certainly wouldn't try to pull that off in a FP setting that the player can get right up to it.
One problem I'm having that you identified right off the bat is the definition between rocks. Zbrush seems to resist all attempts to make a good, solid crease. I've considered sculpting each one individually and then placing them, but it seems like there should be a good way to get an edge without having to do that. I'd like to keep the rough edge whilst still maintaining a good crease.
Thanks again for the input. Posts on specific tasks like rocks and whatnot goes a long way towards expanding my skill set and figuring out workflows.
Does anyone know a fast way of modelling lowpoly cliffs/rocks that only have a diffuse texture? I'm working at a really tiny company so I don't have the time to model unique details and shapes so I wonder if there's some way to do decent looking cliffs that are semi-generated or something like that?
I know there are some tips in this thread but they are mostly for using normalmaps...
One problem I'm having that you identified right off the bat is the definition between rocks. Zbrush seems to resist all attempts to make a good, solid crease. I've considered sculpting each one individually and then placing them, but it seems like there should be a good way to get an edge without having to do that. I'd like to keep the rough edge whilst still maintaining a good crease.
What about stop being Zbrush-lazy and actually do it! It's been mentionned a few times already. It's just a matter of less sculpting and more modelling. Except!!!! If you have either mud1 or mud2010 (not 2009). With these guys you can pick a surface and have the flatten brush bring everything to it, making perfect sharp planes. ('update planes' turned off). That's something no other sculpting app has.
pior, there's a brush that does the same thing in ZBrush 3.5 (or at least very similar if I understand you right) - basically you just start painting and whatever the initial plane you started painting at was, it'll flatten the surrounding stuff you paint onto that plane. Can't remember what the brush was called, it's one of the new hard surface ones.
yep sounds perfeclty like the planar cut and all the other hardsurface brushes that are new, there are quite a lot of them, so jut play around with that
Well tbh the handling of the new hardsurface brushes in Z feels very random and hard to predict - I personally get much more controllable results using Muds 'update plane'-off. But yeah new things to explore for sure.
All in one I am still a firm believer in following an existing pic used as a reference to build a basemesh from, as opposed to random flatten brush strokes
Does anyone know a fast way of modelling lowpoly cliffs/rocks that only have a diffuse texture?
Sure, height map, displacement, minor sculpting and general mucking about. This is for terrain made in Blender 3D but I've used this to produce all manner of 'terrain', inc what you're doing - that could be done in a day.
Does anyone know a fast way of modelling lowpoly cliffs/rocks that only have a diffuse texture? I'm working at a really tiny company so I don't have the time to model unique details and shapes so I wonder if there's some way to do decent looking cliffs that are semi-generated or something like that?
I know there are some tips in this thread but they are mostly for using normalmaps...
I had something like this in mind :
Thank you
i come from a ds and wii background. the way i do this is to make a tileable piece and then deform it with either a bend or path deform and some soft selection manipulation to fit the necessary environment.
the tricky thing is the shader. best results come with vertex ao to give the relust depth. of course you get even better results with a lightmap and shadows, either baked or realtime. soft shadows are usually better.
here is a example to illustrate this. it's more a cartoony style, but you can make it more realistic with some tweaks.
you know ironically I made a TON of rocks recently if your going for some BIG chunk rocks in a setting of either a FPS mode OR in a Dungeon crawler setting where I did both
my work flow was rather simple
1-MAx, Make a basic Sub D box
2-import box into zbrush (assuming your using 3.5r3)
3- Get some intresting shapes on it (sculpt it using the move and standard and the claytubes brushes)
4-Once you get some intresting shapes its time to make it believable! Up the sub D's Some and make it around sub D 6 or so before you start using the best brushes in there, planar and plannar flatten , these 2 tools are the perfect combinations to making your rock feel more natural and sharp.Remember to sculpt in your BIG forms before you chisel them away in previous sub D levels!
5- Try to not make a Turd, it sounds funny but my 1st rock is a long jaggedy one, looked like a turd until it was layed out in the game engine
6:If you decide to paint within Zbrush Poly paint this bastard and get some REAL dynamic effects in there and use some alphas to really make it pop even more! Saves tons of time when you can see it visually on something such as this and you can avoid seams easier, or even get a BASIC template to work from. But this part is totally optional!
7- From this point you have a few options you can
A: Export a mid poly of you mesh now and poly crunch it
B: Use Zbrush built in tools and poly decimate this sucker to be at the EXACT polys you want
C: Export your mid poly and rebuild a new low poly etc etc
I was told when building these to think about end result not so much as technical know how, in the end a rock is a rock. Its something quick and dirty and used to build a level.Do you really need to worry about Geo? Do you really need topology to be cleaned nicely? Remember this is something used to layout a level so chances are they want a nice rock thats of a certain polycount and to look like a rock, unless if its a special case where its dynamic used or a rock monster or something where its more then a rock, you can have it however as long as the 2 end results are the same A: It looks good B: Works in the level with the level designers choice.
For my method I at first did A and C I made a polycrunched rock originally and then a Zbrush Decimation rock, it saved time to do option C later and retained the shape MUCH nicer then anything else...Could I have rebuilt the rock from scratch? Yea probably? But could I get a rock done in like 1/2 a days time from A-Z From high to low and in game the same way? Probably not. Pick and chose your battles on this. All the Advice given here is right in there own way. Pior brings up good points where mudbox has nice control and my methods I explain Make quick results but not GREAT control. Since your doing more dungeon crawler style rocks You might like the methods I explain .
You can see the results of both the FPS rocks and Dungeon crawler rocks (same ones) shown here
Thanks for the tips seforin, also nice tut bitmap.
Sorry for the bump everyone, but this thread kinda deserves it and I have a question anyways! :P
I don't know about other engines, but on cryengine you can't have a tillable diffuse and a unique normal map (Baked NM) in the shader. If you try to tile the difuse texture in the material editor, the normal map goes along with it.
So what kind of workarounds are there for this? It's ok to have a blurry normal map, since it's supposed to give depth, but a blurry diffuse is painful in the eyes.! :P
I noticed that seforin didn't use tillable textures on this either but still looks ok, mainly because it's 1024*1024 but my cap is 512*512.
I don't have a lot of experience with tillable stuff when it involves bakes. So far, I have always created unique UVW's for my LP's and bake them. How would you do to bake an asset when this is not a possibility?
yeah, in CE is a detail normal map. (Basically a normal map that tiles on top of your existing one)
That's what I had to do today, use a detail NM to hide the blurry diffuse.
can you use a 2nd uv channel for the normal and tile the 1st channel for the diffuse while having unique uvs in the 2nd for the normal map? or vice versa if it support multiple uv channels.
is there AO in the diffuse or why does it have to line up with the normal map?
i'd just use the diffuse to give color variation to the rocks. or if you have to tile it because you want the details couldn't you use the normal map for the large forms in the detail nm slot and make that tile big and use the detail nm in the regular normal slot and tile it with the diffuse?
Sculpting micro details such as that with alphas is usually what I do but usually it reads as pimply noise from a distance
often times in games now days they have a small micro tileable normal map that is blended with the existing normal map so when a character is close theres a tiny micro level of bumps on the rock but from mid to a distance its just the major forms.
Replies
and even if you have good specs it doesn't mean they will look good.
http://uk.media.pc.ign.com/media/694/694190/img_4958630.html
Sometimes I start with a sphere, others just a box with a lot of segments, it doesn't really matter. Then I'll use FFD Box a lot to get to the shape, then noise to add a little bit of, well, noise to the shape. Make it bumpy and irregular. That usually works pretty well for me.
Also, if I have a texture already that i am going to use. Once I am satisfied with the shape and model. I'll unwrap it, put the rock texture on it, then actually use the displace modifider and take the height map from the textures (if applicable) and try to bump out some of the geometry based on the actual texture. Usually only has decent results if you have enough geometry though. Just some food for thought. Good luck.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/photos/page.cgi?g=Artistic&Submit=Go
One thing that helps is to think about the type of rock since that will determine it's properties. You could have smooth sandstone with hardly any angles and bulbous features like boone NC, massive granite with big features like Yosemite, overhanging limestone with pockets and a bunch of features flagstaff AZ, quartzite like Devils lake.
Cracks and crevices in the rock will have black streaks running down because of the water/mud seeping out, this is also where lichen will start to form.
We did most of these for FMP using mudbox, retopo in maya and a texturing using photos ref and an AO baking
Technically, make sure that you've got enough geometry to carry the profile well. After that normal maps and AO bakes can really sell things.
In this case, the photosource had quite a bit of lighting already in it, and it wasn't worth doing an AO pass on it. It was actually a fairly easy cut by numbers job, where I just traced cut lines around the recesses, then added extra verts in the middle and pulled them out. After that, it was a CrazyBump pass if I remember correctly.
what i do for rockwalls, i make a tiling rockwall texture(photosourced if you want to save time..) and throw it on a subdivided plane. then i push and pull out the geometry the way that corresponds to the texture.(make sure the uv's are locked...) when i'm done with the rough work, i render the ao map and add it to the base. then i start working on the texture and refine details, cuts, put grass here and there, add extra layers for more details etc... it also helps to lightsource the texture a little with light from above. this gives the rock more volume...
i just created a tileable normalmap out of this and then retopologized my mesh according to the normalmal, so i had tileable rocks i could use for the environment.
Tutorial
*edit
oh and here's the actual mesh and textures. Bear in mind this was a quickie..
Rockwall.zip
http://forum.cgarena.com/viewtopic.php?t=1274#8350
i think there are better ways to model a rock, but the technique is alright.
www.crazybump.com/video
http://i28.tinypic.com/2d1tuuf.jpg
Quick Snowy Rocks. It can also be used for moss, grass, different types of dirt, dust and rust on all kinds of objects, it can then be baked out to several different texture maps, normal, spec diffuse... Saves hours of trying to hand paint all of that stuff on a UV jumbled.
Modifier stack looks like this:
Noise (very fine details)
TurboSmooth(for fine details)
Noise (large rough details)
TurboSmooth (just enough for large details)
Edit Poly (Rough out the shape)
QuadSphere
Material looks like this:
Blend Material:
Material 1: Snow (in this case I put noise in the diffuse slot and chose snowy colors)
Material 2: Rock (noise with rock like colors)
Blend Mask: Falloff (with "Falloff Direction" set to World Z)
Feel free to complex tile textures with bump spec whatever. They can even use separate UV channels and you can bake to a 3rd UV channel/layout. This is where baking a specular mask/map in RTT can come in handy.
I've been working over some rocks lately and thought I'd add my 2 cents. This is non-procedural, but the Clay Tubes brush in Zbrush with a square alpha works wonders for rough stone/rock shapes. It takes a bit of practice to get them looking right, as evidenced by my picture below. I build the rough shape in Max, export and divide to about 7-8. Then just start building up/cutting in with short, overlapping strokes. The nice thing about this is you don't really have to go back and add in finer detail as the overlap of the brush does it for you. It's a bit tedious for doing a lot of rocks, but not too bad for a single scene. Great when you need 'that rock' as opposed to 'a rock'. Hope this helps someone.
That pillar definitely needs an extra pass or two before it will be recognisable as any sort of stone. Right now it might as well be plasticine - there's no hardness or sharpness to your edges or cracks, and that's what you need to make the material recognisable.
One problem I'm having that you identified right off the bat is the definition between rocks. Zbrush seems to resist all attempts to make a good, solid crease. I've considered sculpting each one individually and then placing them, but it seems like there should be a good way to get an edge without having to do that. I'd like to keep the rough edge whilst still maintaining a good crease.
Thanks again for the input. Posts on specific tasks like rocks and whatnot goes a long way towards expanding my skill set and figuring out workflows.
Does anyone know a fast way of modelling lowpoly cliffs/rocks that only have a diffuse texture? I'm working at a really tiny company so I don't have the time to model unique details and shapes so I wonder if there's some way to do decent looking cliffs that are semi-generated or something like that?
I know there are some tips in this thread but they are mostly for using normalmaps...
I had something like this in mind :
Thank you
What about stop being Zbrush-lazy and actually do it! It's been mentionned a few times already. It's just a matter of less sculpting and more modelling. Except!!!! If you have either mud1 or mud2010 (not 2009). With these guys you can pick a surface and have the flatten brush bring everything to it, making perfect sharp planes. ('update planes' turned off). That's something no other sculpting app has.
All in one I am still a firm believer in following an existing pic used as a reference to build a basemesh from, as opposed to random flatten brush strokes
[ame]
i come from a ds and wii background. the way i do this is to make a tileable piece and then deform it with either a bend or path deform and some soft selection manipulation to fit the necessary environment.
the tricky thing is the shader. best results come with vertex ao to give the relust depth. of course you get even better results with a lightmap and shadows, either baked or realtime. soft shadows are usually better.
here is a example to illustrate this. it's more a cartoony style, but you can make it more realistic with some tweaks.
hope this helps.
my work flow was rather simple
1-MAx, Make a basic Sub D box
2-import box into zbrush (assuming your using 3.5r3)
3- Get some intresting shapes on it (sculpt it using the move and standard and the claytubes brushes)
4-Once you get some intresting shapes its time to make it believable! Up the sub D's Some and make it around sub D 6 or so before you start using the best brushes in there, planar and plannar flatten , these 2 tools are the perfect combinations to making your rock feel more natural and sharp.Remember to sculpt in your BIG forms before you chisel them away in previous sub D levels!
5- Try to not make a Turd, it sounds funny but my 1st rock is a long jaggedy one, looked like a turd until it was layed out in the game engine
6:If you decide to paint within Zbrush Poly paint this bastard and get some REAL dynamic effects in there and use some alphas to really make it pop even more! Saves tons of time when you can see it visually on something such as this and you can avoid seams easier, or even get a BASIC template to work from. But this part is totally optional!
7- From this point you have a few options you can
A: Export a mid poly of you mesh now and poly crunch it
B: Use Zbrush built in tools and poly decimate this sucker to be at the EXACT polys you want
C: Export your mid poly and rebuild a new low poly etc etc
I was told when building these to think about end result not so much as technical know how, in the end a rock is a rock. Its something quick and dirty and used to build a level.Do you really need to worry about Geo? Do you really need topology to be cleaned nicely? Remember this is something used to layout a level so chances are they want a nice rock thats of a certain polycount and to look like a rock, unless if its a special case where its dynamic used or a rock monster or something where its more then a rock, you can have it however as long as the 2 end results are the same A: It looks good B: Works in the level with the level designers choice.
For my method I at first did A and C I made a polycrunched rock originally and then a Zbrush Decimation rock, it saved time to do option C later and retained the shape MUCH nicer then anything else...Could I have rebuilt the rock from scratch? Yea probably? But could I get a rock done in like 1/2 a days time from A-Z From high to low and in game the same way? Probably not. Pick and chose your battles on this. All the Advice given here is right in there own way. Pior brings up good points where mudbox has nice control and my methods I explain Make quick results but not GREAT control. Since your doing more dungeon crawler style rocks You might like the methods I explain .
You can see the results of both the FPS rocks and Dungeon crawler rocks (same ones) shown here
http://www.seforin.com/gallery/Rockedge/index.html
They are shown in unreal UDK and in Iron Lore's Titan Engine
I hope this helps you out
Sorry for the bump everyone, but this thread kinda deserves it and I have a question anyways! :P
I don't know about other engines, but on cryengine you can't have a tillable diffuse and a unique normal map (Baked NM) in the shader. If you try to tile the difuse texture in the material editor, the normal map goes along with it.
So what kind of workarounds are there for this? It's ok to have a blurry normal map, since it's supposed to give depth, but a blurry diffuse is painful in the eyes.! :P
I noticed that seforin didn't use tillable textures on this either but still looks ok, mainly because it's 1024*1024 but my cap is 512*512.
I don't have a lot of experience with tillable stuff when it involves bakes. So far, I have always created unique UVW's for my LP's and bake them. How would you do to bake an asset when this is not a possibility?
Sculpting for environment stuff - video tutorials
Tutorial- Zbrush- making tiling meshes for environments
EDIT:
In Unreal you can blend a tiling normal map with a unique normal map in the same material hopefully you can do that in Cryengine.
yeah, in CE is a detail normal map. (Basically a normal map that tiles on top of your existing one)
That's what I had to do today, use a detail NM to hide the blurry diffuse.
i'd just use the diffuse to give color variation to the rocks. or if you have to tile it because you want the details couldn't you use the normal map for the large forms in the detail nm slot and make that tile big and use the detail nm in the regular normal slot and tile it with the diffuse?
actually they were shrunk down to 512 in the titan quest engine :X
But the ones in UDK I left at 1024 because I wanted them to read nicer at a distance.
Sculpting micro details such as that with alphas is usually what I do but usually it reads as pimply noise from a distance
often times in games now days they have a small micro tileable normal map that is blended with the existing normal map so when a character is close theres a tiny micro level of bumps on the rock but from mid to a distance its just the major forms.
If only surface noise could scale in 1 or 2 directions...
zbrush or mudbox. just do it,, move tool to get the big curvy shapes, then put in the more detailed streaks