how to professionally texture terrain?
Hi,
I'm working on a swampy, jungle like level in UDk atm. It's definitely linear and extremely foliage and rock static mesh heavy. It follows a path from a ravine to a winding, thin creek bed which eventually ends in a swamp.
I've decided modeling the terrain in maya or max is the way to go. No height maps, no sculpting, no world machine. It;s gonn be so foliage and rock heavy, none of that detail will be noticeable. I got this information from another forum where 2 guys, one from Naughty Dog, the other from Relic both suggested using terrain modeled in a 3d app covered in foliage or static meshes or both is the best way to make interesting terrain.
I have 2 questions.
1. Do you think this is the best way to make a 'next-gen/curren-gen' (whatever it is now) terrain?
2. What would be the best way to texture the terrain?
If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. It's hard to find a modern method without running into 2000 UDk terrain tool techniques.
Thanks in advance
I'm working on a swampy, jungle like level in UDk atm. It's definitely linear and extremely foliage and rock static mesh heavy. It follows a path from a ravine to a winding, thin creek bed which eventually ends in a swamp.
I've decided modeling the terrain in maya or max is the way to go. No height maps, no sculpting, no world machine. It;s gonn be so foliage and rock heavy, none of that detail will be noticeable. I got this information from another forum where 2 guys, one from Naughty Dog, the other from Relic both suggested using terrain modeled in a 3d app covered in foliage or static meshes or both is the best way to make interesting terrain.
I have 2 questions.
1. Do you think this is the best way to make a 'next-gen/curren-gen' (whatever it is now) terrain?
2. What would be the best way to texture the terrain?
If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. It's hard to find a modern method without running into 2000 UDk terrain tool techniques.
Thanks in advance
Replies
Honestly, unless you have a specific pipeline or workflow I don't see why you'd want to model the terrain separately?
NaughtyDog and Relic aren't using UDK so their reccomendations aren't relevant. UDK has a suite of tools called 'landscape' for creating terrain that should solve all your problems.
Using a pre-modeled piece of geometry doesn't give you the same performance advantage as using the landscape actor.
this link will answer your questions:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Landscape.html
There are also a few threads here on polycount about various ways to use the landscape texturing tools.
I don't think you can use any of the foliage tools on a static mesh in UDK so you'll be placing all your grass, bushes and other ground cover by hand rather than just brushing it down - I could be wrong though.
as far as what's the modern way to do things, technically making the whole level in a 3d app was the 'old school' way to do it, plenty of modern and 'next gen' games use terrain systems. Naughty Dog & Relic do what works best for their games.
this is all good stuff. i'm happy to use the UDK terrain tool, i've used it before and got decent results. I've done some searching but not found a 'great' tutorial. Can anyone suggest a workflow tute for an intermediate user?
Cheers
Don't use Terrain use Landscape. They're two different things and landscape is much more feature rich.
here's a polycount thread with some info and some tutorial stuff:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100011
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88933
But if you're spamming the level with static meshes, then the terrain is going to be mostly hidden. So I would just sculpt a Landscape mesh in UDK.
yeah sorry, i'm still calling it terrain tool, it's hard to break:)
I'm prototyping something in Unity, and it's gonna be RTS-ish as far as the camera goes (fixed angle/distance, isometric). Anyone has any idea where to start for the terrain? I've read Unity's terrain system is useless and performance heavy and was looking for alternatives.
Depends on how much variation you need, how many modular pieces you need to make. Renderhjs posted a cool breakdown of the terrain pieces he made for his iso game. Creative tileset! http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1318630 You could do something similar in full 3D, and still make it work nicely.
I can't get into much detail about the project but I think I can make myself clearer without compromising anything. The game isn't really RTS but terrain-wise it seems like good reference. A large exterior area (no interiors), height differences (ramps, cliffs, overpasses and bridges...), paths and roads, and of course, isometric camera with little to no zoom variation. Something along the lines of:
Death Rally seems to be more modular and rigid since they have smaller, closed circuits, I'm aiming for a larger MOBA-like environment. I was checking out the DOTA 2 beta and it looked a lot like a mix of heightmap based terrain with beautifully done static mesh set dressing, so I'm tending more to this option. I'm just curious as to how to author content and iterate since the level design is going to change a lot, so I'd like to be able to waste as little work as possible. Any ideas?
As we discussed in another thread, this only goes so far, it seems changes always have to be made late in the dev cycle.
But blockouts do save a lot of artist iteration time. In the meantime, Artists can be working in "look and feel" levels, developing assets and workflows, so they're not idle while Designers get their actual levels into working condition.
Also, it looks like you'll want heightmapped terrain for this. Not modular pieces. I don't know if Unity's terrain is decent or not, haven't looked into it.
1st post on Polycount. I often end up here searching for solutions, so...
UDk Landscape - I am no expert only a modder!
I'm having problems with hit effects on UDK Landscape - that's one reason I changed from UDK Legacy Terrain to UDK Landscape. UDK blurb says hit effects and tyre tracks etc now work on Landscape. I guess that's true, but it's not obvious to me how that's done.
Could be they mean footsteps 'hit' effect which I working, and they didn't work on Terrain.
My hit effects work fine on standard materials like bsp, static meshes and skeletal. Although, projectile hits effects do work on Landscape (my tank's shots plaster it fine with black hit textures. Projectile code (the tank shell) and UTWeapon Attachment code (instant hit weapons: pistols, rifles etc) are similarly coded. Why projectiles works and not instant hit, my coding dept is looking into, that also being me ^^
And I read about a problem with making caves under terrain, that weapon fire does not show when used under terrain.
Landscape is limited to 10 textures, as of this moment - and that 10 includes bump maps, so you could say 5 if your Landscape texs' have bump maps. I'm still figuring out how to add specular effects to the Landscape material, which is entiretly different to the standard type of material setup. So I've used 2 small Landscapes and joined them up.
Maybe soon UDk will change the hit effect code - maybe I'll find some workarounds. But I was also thinking about making my terrain static meshes and saving myself some headaches.
So don't be surprised if you want to try something fancy and cannot find the resource for it, as long as you keep it simple, it should be easy enough to figure out.
Yep, I'd prefer UDK Landscape over static meshes, but my reply apart from my experiences was hopeful for an answer on how to get InstantHit decals to appear on Landscape. If you come across a solution, please let me know!
Ace-Angel.
Displacement maps - I've been calling them bumpmaps... btw height maps are different. Height maps (there are none in the screenshots) are black and white renditions of the image with either white or black as the raised/lowered areas - I forget which is which...
Here's my material setup for Landscape with displacement maps. The 5.5.1 are Vector3Constants-these sometimes, not always result in a pixellated effects using that setup, so watch for that. The Terrain Coords to the right are TerrainLayerCoords.
I'm thinking here, should I give you more info? I guess ask me if you need more help!
Ok, a little more, hoping it's useful. There are far better tuts than the brief info I'm giving you here...
The LandscapeLayerBlends > ParameterName, any name you like - the name is used in the landscape "Layer Name" with the + sign on the right of it, so you can add that that layer and paint it on the Landscape. ParameterWeight: You need progressive numbers. I start at 3.. for a tex and go 4 5 etc.
If you change rotation or scale after applying a texture to the Landscape then footsteps and particle effects won't show up. You'll need to redo.
Argh shocking little tut, but again, if you have problems, ask and I'll help.