Cliffside Village WIP
Hello PC!
This is my first post here.. Been lurking for quite a while and finally decided to get my feet wet.
This scene is a term project for my independent study. My goal is to model, texture, and render the scene as game ready. Ironically, the courses I take are for a Game Art and Design Major, but they do NOT teach normal mapping or modeling for games in specific.. Thus I am working on my own to learn it.
This is very much a WIP. I want the cliff to be overlooking the ocean and where I have the placeholder watermill looking blocky thing is gonna be a waterwheel that's catching a waterfall.
I have many many questions about a lot of pretty basic and noobish things.
First of all, I have no idea how to model/render an ocean. Any pointers on that would be awesome!
Second, I don't have any experience normal mapping. I have a copy of Crazybump and Xnormal(and zBrush, but no experience there yet), but I don't even know the basics.. like.. modeling with the intention of normal mapping at all. What kind of poly count should I aim for? Should I avoid 90 degree angles like the plague? When are they alright? Are tris or ngons bad for normals? (I should mention I would love to render this scene in Marmoset if possible.) I have been browsing the ultimate normal mapping thread for a while, but a lot of the replies are for specific issues and/or for 3ds max. (Using Maya currently)
Plus any advice/criticism for what I have so far would be great, including concept/idea.
I'm sure I will have more questions, but it's late and my brain is wandering slightly, so for now, here's what I have so far!
This is my first post here.. Been lurking for quite a while and finally decided to get my feet wet.
This scene is a term project for my independent study. My goal is to model, texture, and render the scene as game ready. Ironically, the courses I take are for a Game Art and Design Major, but they do NOT teach normal mapping or modeling for games in specific.. Thus I am working on my own to learn it.
This is very much a WIP. I want the cliff to be overlooking the ocean and where I have the placeholder watermill looking blocky thing is gonna be a waterwheel that's catching a waterfall.
I have many many questions about a lot of pretty basic and noobish things.
First of all, I have no idea how to model/render an ocean. Any pointers on that would be awesome!
Second, I don't have any experience normal mapping. I have a copy of Crazybump and Xnormal(and zBrush, but no experience there yet), but I don't even know the basics.. like.. modeling with the intention of normal mapping at all. What kind of poly count should I aim for? Should I avoid 90 degree angles like the plague? When are they alright? Are tris or ngons bad for normals? (I should mention I would love to render this scene in Marmoset if possible.) I have been browsing the ultimate normal mapping thread for a while, but a lot of the replies are for specific issues and/or for 3ds max. (Using Maya currently)
Plus any advice/criticism for what I have so far would be great, including concept/idea.
I'm sure I will have more questions, but it's late and my brain is wandering slightly, so for now, here's what I have so far!
Replies
Whenever I open it up to mess around with, all the buttons seem to be offset below themselves.. if that makes any sense.. for example, i'd have to click about an inch below where the button displays to actually click the button for a reaction. Any fixes or ideas?
Thanks again!
I love the idea of a city built into a cliff face like this, but please consider the practicality of everything as you go!
What program do you model in. A lot of programs allow you to bake meshsmoothed or other high poly objects onto lower poly stuff.
Zbrush is cool for showing off on forums and all, but for actually creating game assets to use normals, you can learn a tremendous ammount just modeling objects and playing with smooths and such. Max and maya both allow you to apply a smooth onto a low poly object withotu actually augmenting the geometry. This is great for making the high poly and low poly at the same time. At some point they'll diverge into different objects entirely, but if you plan ahead you'll have a low and high poly ready without extra effort spent on the low poly.
There's no right or wrong process for normals, but they are very confusing at first. Just start playing with them and at some point they'll "click".
Way to go give the guy more work why dont ya!:poly124:
I know nothing of the normal maps, but I have an idea that in your modelling software you should have some kind of ocean/water primitive texture/shader. No need to model the entire ocean(unless you want to).
Looks good so far.
I agree, the supports are huge right now :P I kinda threw them in there for the concept to come across, so revisiting wouldn't be tough at all
I also plan on having really big ropes thrown down from the top, holding up the platforms as well. It looks really really floaty right now in my opinion, and i want it to look like its on the verge of falling off haha
I model in Maya, but ive never baked my smoothed models onto any lower topo. ones.. I'm honestly more experienced with modeling to smooth, so this whole project was a bit of a step out of my boundaries. I like it so far
@crazyfingers - I will try out not maximizing the window in marmoset, hopefully that'll help cause i'd REALLY love to use that to render this scene
@cycloverid - funny you say that :P The idea came from that town in spain thats literally built under a cliff to the point it looks like the cliff is crushing it!
I wanted it to be more "on the verge" of the cliff, instead of built into the cliffside.. kinda liek the inhabitants had to work harder to make this town feasible :P
Thank you all for your comments and help thus far! I will be posting more WIPs and some close ups soon!
But I'm back now.. busting out some 3D
I fleshed out a lot of little details, added barrels and crates. Gonna add some more ropes hanging down off the platforms as well as some varied props to break up the abundance of crates and barrels haha! Tomorrow i should have the rest of the modeling done and i'll be moving on to unwrapping this beast!
I think the tri count is nearing 100k.. is that a lot for a current-gen game environment?
I am planning on rendering it with Marmoset, as i just got it working tonight.. any pointers for exporting chunks/meshes? And whats a reasonable number of texture maps? I was thinking 2 or 3 1024^2 maps for diffuse and spec/normal..
Gimme some crits! Rawr!
Star Wars III: the planet of Utapau. has the same style of architecture built into rock.
The Time Machine: if my memory serves me correctly, the villagers in the future of that movie live in somewhat of a similar environment.
just some stuff if u need reference help.
additional comments: if you are going to make this game ready, might i ask which engine you will be using?
good normal mapping tutorial (this works very well with painted uv maps.. recommendation tho, use your height map to generate a normal map).
http://cgtextures.com/content.php?action=tutorial&name=normalmap
link for normal map plugin
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html
And what exactly is a height map? (sorry for the noob question >.<) Seems to me from a quick google search that its the bump map?
Also, I plan on hand painting the textures using photos for references and base colors. Any tutorials there? I was lucky enough to recently get my hands on a cintiq and i'm really excited to give it a shot!
Again, i'm sorry for all the questions >.< I kinda had a revelation from browsing these boards that my school doesnt teach me shit beyond the basics, so i am trying to push my boundaries on my own a lot lately..
about grass and trees.. what would be a good way to go about modeling grass? I understand how alpha maps and flat polygons would work with textures, but ive never done it before.. and i'd like to stay away from Paint Effects; they seem very game-unfriendly and dont really turn out that great in my experience.
any pointers?
Thank you all for your help
Which engine do you use at your college? (I use UT2004 right now at mine.. Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. We're in the process of getting UT3). Jason Busby's new unreal book just came out and you can get it for an amazing price on amazon (link below). It comes with a steam code for the game and editor. Also just for viewing purposes, you could take a look at the Unity engine. Ive dabbled with that quite a bit and you can actually take an entire 3ds max file, lights and everything, and drop it right into the engine. (link below)
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Unreal-Technology-Introduction-Design/dp/0672329913/ref=pd_sim_b_4/192-1552351-3978252[/ame]
http://unity3d.com/
And what exactly is a height map? (sorry for the noob question >.<) Seems to me from a quick google search that its the bump map?
Google never fails. Some people say bump maps, some people say height maps.
Also, I plan on hand painting the textures using photos for references and base colors. Any tutorials there? I was lucky enough to recently get my hands on a cintiq and i'm really excited to give it a shot!
You mustve been really lucky then. Ill link you to some great texture painting tutorials.
http://eat3d.com/texturing (these guys to amazing tutorials.. your money will be well spent here. i actually just bought this a few weeks ago and its fantastic!).
http://3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/blood_knight/blood_knight_01.php (this one is done for a pre-render but it has some good techniques)
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/8/Texturing (most of these pretty much can take care of what you need. some i would just recommend specifically is Hard Surface Texture Painting, Texture Painting: Weathered Surfaces, and then the three specific Planks and Pannels, Distressed Metal and Bricks and Blocks.
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Game-Textures-Second-Professional-Photoshop/dp/0240811488/ref=dp_ob_image_bk[/ame]
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/3D-Game-Textures-Professional-Photoshop/dp/0240807685[/ame]
those are some awesome texture painting books. i highly recommend them.
Again, i'm sorry for all the questions >.< I kinda had a revelation from browsing these boards that my school doesnt teach me shit beyond the basics, so i am trying to push my boundaries on my own a lot lately..
Not a problem. My school is exactly the same way, and in fact we're undergoing a lot of changes that has made a lot of game art teachers leave, as well as animation. the students here have pretty much taken it upon themselves to learn from each other. that along with the fact that our library has all the gnomon, digital tutor, and cgacademy dvds helps a lot.
about grass and trees.. what would be a good way to go about modeling grass? I understand how alpha maps and flat polygons would work with textures, but ive never done it before.. and i'd like to stay away from Paint Effects; they seem very game-unfriendly and dont really turn out that great in my experience.
well depending on the engine, you could do that a number of ways. some engines offer speedtree, where you can just paint out where you want your foliage (oblivion for example).
for some specifics on alphas tho, take a look at the eat3d texturing dvd i linked you to. they talk about creating grass alpha planes.
Hope all this helps.
Thanks a ton for those links! I've been trying to get as many of those gnomon DVDs as i can from our school library, but its pretty limited