UDK Jungle Environment Techniques and Level WIP

gartht3d

***UPDATED***
It's been ages but I decided to do a fly through and use this in my folio. Funny to see how much I have learnt since completing this:P Is my first time with camera fly throughs and compression so if there are crits, I'm listening:P


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsfYEiYDbJo"]UDK Jungle - YouTube[/ame]









20/08/2012 -FIRST POST
Hi everyone. I've been working on a jungle level for a game I'm working on in UDK. I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread to share knowledge. I have a lot of questions regarding UDK as I am relatively new to it. The more searching I do the more clear it becomes that there isn't a lot of good natural environment tutorials out there. Foliage is a tough beast to master. I thought if I get this thread going, people could ask and answer questions, direct one another to good tutorials and share techniques related to everything involved with natural environment building in UDK. My goal is to update my level progress weekly as well as ask for and share knowledge. Feel free to ask and answer at will as I'm sure there is a bunch of valuable information we can share to make us all better artists. Cheers. Garth.

gartht3d

This is the first screenshot of my jungle environment WIP. Please feel free to provide feedback as well as ask any questions related to natural environment building.
p.s. the gray meshes are still inplace from my gray box to add depth and feel whilst placing finished meshes. Landscape hasn't been painted.



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gartht3d

to get the ball hopefully rolling, I have a question. I am using height fog and it only shows when looking forward. When I turn around and face directly opposite to the above screenshot, the fog disappears. Anyone know why? Cheers.

chrisradsby

It's probably because you're facing the sun and the fog is more apparent facing the sun. But that's just my guess, try and rotate the sun The fog is a bit overkill though, don't get lazy and have the river actually come from somewhere, like a small cascading fall or something.

A jungle is usually filled with a lot of colors, deep and rich greens. Yours is looking a little bit too Far Cry 2.



Make sure you have water-type plants along the edges of the stream, and incorporate rocks and roots going into it.



Make the water feel a little bit more shallow/transparent (with depth) if you can.

EDIT: Also notice the bowl-shapes along the banks of the stream/river. Like the water has been carving into the terrain, leaving it bowl shaped. So no outwards bulges facing the river.

good work so far

gartht3d

thanks chrisradsby. some good info. you can't see it and I imagine it's pretty hard to imagine but there is a waterfall infront and behind you in this shot. Impossible to tell but the water is definitely coming from there as you suggested:) Will be starting rocks in a week as need to be done by 19th sept. the tree roots and water movement are awesome recommendations,. Cheers.

chrisradsby

No worries ^^ I make Jungle Rivers and stuff for a living now so xD

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out

gartht3d

^^^
nice. the kind of feedback I need. thanks mate:)

gartht3d

another question chrisradsby. Is there any info on how to make the best tree canopy's anywhere? Or do you have a method of making realistic canopy's? thanks again.

JoshWilkinson

Enjoying your work, and looking forward to reading the knowledge shared in this thread.

*subscribed

Mark.N

Looks like a really solid start, good job :thumbup:

Definitely get some more color variation and depth to the scene going as Chris mentioned, it should help your contrast quite a bit. As it is now it seems a bit flat.

You could axe the height fog entirely and build something akin to a rocky mound that wraps around a pond, creating what is essentially a spring for the water to flow out of/from. I think that could make for a pretty interesting scene while also giving you a nice backdrop to keep things tied in close to the camera.

As far as building tree canopies, the wiki is chalk full of great foliage tutorials, check some of em out.

Wiki Foliage Tuts

gartht3d

Mark.N wrote: »

Looks like a really solid start, good job :thumbup:

Definitely get some more color variation and depth to the scene going as Chris mentioned, it should help your contrast quite a bit. As it is now it seems a bit flat.

You could axe the height fog entirely and build something akin to a rocky mound that wraps around a pond, creating what is essentially a spring for the water to flow out of/from. I think that could make for a pretty interesting scene while also giving you a nice backdrop to keep things tied in close to the camera.

As far as building tree canopies, the wiki is chalk full of great foliage tutorials, check some of em out.

Wiki Foliage Tuts

LEGEND!! Thanks so much. It's really hard to tell in this screenshot but most of the ideas you mentioned are infact what I've designed. I'm only about 3 weeks into this since beginning so I have a lot of detail to add. Have a peek at my graybox. This might give everyone a better idea of the layout. Also, give people ideas for feedback. Cheers.

edit: p.s. the bright green meshes will be waterfalls

edit: some assets in my graybox are from UDK for design purposes only. All assets in my final level will be 100% hand crafted:)



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nathanbarrett

Yeah I agree with Mark.N. The scene seems quite flat and the fog is too thick. I also think the water could do with some work; at the moment it kinda looks like green sludge or mud.

gartht3d

hi. does anyone have a water method or tutorial they stick by? the water I've used is purely placeholder for now. Cheers.

nathanbarrett

To get really nice water in UDK you NEED to use a 2D capture plane and reflection vectors and things.. There is stock water with UDK that have reflection vectors and masks and things which allow the colours of the environment to feed into the colour of the water.

Check out Hourences water tutorial for a start: http://www.hourences.com/ue3-water-outdoors/

gartht3d

nathanbarrett wrote: »

To get really nice water in UDK you NEED to use a 2D capture plane and reflection vectors and things.. There is stock water with UDK that have reflection vectors and masks and things which allow the colours of the environment to feed into the colour of the water.

Check out Hourences water tutorial for a start: http://www.hourences.com/ue3-water-outdoors/

thanks man. Will pretty much use that tute for all water. thanks.

zombie420

Haven't checked out that tut yet but it looks like it's used for large, open bodies of water, not calm, still streams like yours. Could be easily adjusted but certainly something to think about.

gartht3d

zombie420 wrote: »

Haven't checked out that tut yet but it looks like it's used for large, open bodies of water, not calm, still streams like yours. Could be easily adjusted but certainly something to think about.

yeah I've had a play and it looks decent but not exactly what I wanted. More suitable for open bodies as you said. I'll use it if I can't make something better. I now have just over 3 months to get this done.

I'm not 100% happy with some of my plants and trees, I'm gonna upload some renders of individual plants I've made this week, in hope for some feedback. Cheers again.

gartht3d

Hi again. I've added these shot sof some of my foliage as I am not really that happy with it. Especially the tree canopies. They are too jagged. If anyone has a better method of creating large tree canopies please let me know. More specifically, the arrangement of branch clumps or 'crowns'? Thanks again.

gartht3d

By ntmrmggtt at 2012-08-25

gartht3d

By ntmrmggtt at 2012-08-25

gartht3d

Hi guys. Im doing terrain painting and it looks a bit dull by itself. You know in crysis, how the ground is covered in hovering above the terrain leaves? How is that done? Is it alphas or actual meshes? Cheers

chrisradsby

It's probably better to post a pic of what you mean

gartht3d

like this:P

edit: the leaves are actually off the surface. Floating just above it.



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davidosterlind

Interesting thread! I'm also doing some kind of jungle environment, will create a thread when I have more to show. We should compare notes:)
Plants looking good! They look quite random which is good. Trees are tricky, i think your branches have a sense of direction that is too strong, maybe spread your leaves out so they don't point so much. And add more planes in different direction and different sizes.

Tim1

nitemaremaggott wrote: »

By ntmrmggtt at 2012-08-25

Hi, Im currently working on a level with foliage in, I was just wondering how do you go about making the plants? Do high poly model them first then texture them, or do you collect the textures first and arrange them on a texture sheet and model from that? Also where do you find your textures for plants? cg textures or do you photo source them yourself.

I know there a good tutorial on 3d motive for foliage but it only covers grass and trees and I cant find anywhere else for a tutorial on plants. If anyone else has some good tutorials on plants it would be much appreciated, Thanks for your time.

gartht3d

davidosterlind wrote: »

Interesting thread! I'm also doing some kind of jungle environment, will create a thread when I have more to show. We should compare notes:)
Plants looking good! They look quite random which is good. Trees are tricky, i think your branches have a sense of direction that is too strong, maybe spread your leaves out so they don't point so much. And add more planes in different direction and different sizes.

yeah good. ill subscribe if you start one:P

sltrOlsson

Take a leaf texture, with alpha and create a plane. Model that plane so that it get some volume. I'm talking MAX 10 triangles, if that's needed. I say 5 tris. Then you place the pivot a bit underneath the model. Do a couple of variations then export it like you would do with grass. There's a tutorial on there wiki on that..

gartht3d

sltrOlsson wrote: »

Take a leaf texture, with alpha and create a plane. Model that plane so that it get some volume. I'm talking MAX 10 triangles, if that's needed. I say 5 tris. Then you place the pivot a bit underneath the model. Do a couple of variations then export it like you would do with grass. There's a tutorial on there wiki on that..

cheers. what if I modeled say, 10 high poly leaves and baked them in RTT to a plane, added geo and then moved the pivot point jut below the middle? That sounds like a plan. Man, it's gonna be a pain placing them all in but totally worth it.
thanks again.

toolpaddz

nitemaremaggott wrote: »

cheers. what if I modeled say, 10 high poly leaves and baked them in RTT to a plane, added geo and then moved the pivot point jut below the middle? That sounds like a plan. Man, it's gonna be a pain placing them all in but totally worth it.
thanks again.

There's a paint object tool in the graphite freeform tools. If you place the pivot of the object right at the point where the leaf/branch/etc. should connect to the later geometry, then you can use mentioned tool to quickly paint the objects onto the trunk/thicker branch/etc. Also, you can play a bit with the tool's parameters (painted object's random rotation etc.) to get the best results.

gartht3d

toolpaddz wrote: »

There's a paint object tool in the graphite freeform tools. If you place the pivot of the object right at the point where the leaf/branch/etc. should connect to the later geometry, then you can use mentioned tool to quickly paint the objects onto the trunk/thicker branch/etc. Also, you can play a bit with the tool's parameters (painted object's random rotation etc.) to get the best results.

Thanks heaps dude. Will be handy.

gartht3d

So I had a little trouble with a sculpt today, was more than half asleep and made the mistake of not creasing or adding a chamfer to my edges of one of the many rock/earth ledges I've been building for this level. The sculpt was fine but xnormal couldn't project my bakes to my low poly because for some reason beyond my tired mind, the low poly was shifted off center in maya and the edges were not creased and overall it was a mess. Seeing I'd already uv'd the low poly and seeing it is a modular piece likely beinng pushed into the landscape (so exact 100% original scale is not important), I exported my low poly from zbrush......Not sure whether this is done regularly but what it produced was a perfect xnormal bake and a tiny increse (from 550+ to 639 tris) on my low poly mesh. Is this alright to go with?

edit: i'm doing thsi with all of them, the results are amazing
edit: if anyone isn't clear on what my ramblings were.
1. make low poly in maya/max
2. unwrap
3. export to zbrush and sculpt
4. export low poly and high poly from zbrush (1st mesh with divisions) there is a slight tri count change but not much at all, it more averages verticies very slightly)
5. import low poly to max/maya and relax uv's/layout better and make light map
6. export low
7. bake normals out in xnormal
8. flip green channel in photoshop
9. apply
10. perfectly displayed normals (as good as zbrush displays them)

Please tell me I'm not doing this wrong.

garth

gartht3d

Tim1 wrote: »

Hi, Im currently working on a level with foliage in, I was just wondering how do you go about making the plants? Do high poly model them first then texture them, or do you collect the textures first and arrange them on a texture sheet and model from that? Also where do you find your textures for plants? cg textures or do you photo source them yourself.

I know there a good tutorial on 3d motive for foliage but it only covers grass and trees and I cant find anywhere else for a tutorial on plants. If anyone else has some good tutorials on plants it would be much appreciated, Thanks for your time.

Hi Tim,

I originally used that 3d motive tutorial then made my own educated choices on how to adapt it to all foliage. It's definately worth getting that tute, it covers modeling from a photo to a high poly mesh, then bake that to a texture with normal, alpha and colour variation etc maps that are all perfectly combined in photoshop. This method is by far the best as you get light and normal detail from the high poly versions as well as accurate depth to the diffuse texture.

You can make anything foliage-wise using the methods in that tuorial. I highly recommend it.


edit: I get most of my textures from cgtextures but also take a lot myself.

gartht3d

Hi. Here's an example of a sculpt. This is 800 or so tris. I added in a bunch of edges to clean up non-polygon faces for the sculpt as is a modular piece and still fairly low in count for it's size. I'm fairly new to Zbrush, this is my first rock like sculpt and it took around 45 minutes. I know it is far from perfect but with a nice ambient occlusion bake and cavity along with a texture paint, I think it'll look decent. Let me know how I can improve my technique. Thanks. Garth

edit: this is a rock and dirt ledge that will fit around the edges of terrain drops and river beds. It currently has only a nomral map applied.



By ntmrmggtt at 2012-09-01

gartht3d

edit: removed screenshot as was not the one I meant to post. more coming soon:)

gartht3d

I've almost finished all rocks and cliff faces. I was going for a really jagged angled rock face as a lot of the rocks will be covered in creeping foliage and I wanted to have different levels of geometry to poke through. Also, the vertical look adds height. Was just low poly modeled in Max sculpted in Zbrush, painted in Mudbox and rendered in UDK. Let me know any hints on how to improve my technique. Cheers. Garth


By ntmrmggtt at 2012-09-07

roosterMAP

I like the cliff rocks. I wish you had made the edge-highlights generated for the normals pop out a bit more. I say that cuz right now, its like the shapes of the rock is being lost in the cracks of the texture.

gartht3d

^^^^^^
yeah I'll make them wider and lighter and see how that looks. thanks.

sltrOlsson

Not really what I meant. Apply this yo your leavs. Won't be such a hastle to place And like someone said. You can apply an mesh, like grass, to a terrain layer. Painting the leaves out that way.

[EDIT] Realized that you used UDK for this. Thought you used CE3 after posting the Crysis screen. I guess you should be able to do the same thing in UDK like the wiki entry..

gartht3d

sltrOlsson wrote: »

Not really what I meant. Apply this yo your leavs. Won't be such a hastle to place And like someone said. You can apply an mesh, like grass, to a terrain layer. Painting the leaves out that way.

[EDIT] Realized that you used UDK for this. Thought you used CE3 after posting the Crysis screen. I guess you should be able to do the same thing in UDK like the wiki entry..

thanks again. theres a foilage painting tool that paints chosen meshes to the surface of terrain, maybe thats what you are referring to. The hexagonal layout is a great tip, I didn't now that, I'll arrange my leaves that way for sure.
Did you mean make individual leaves to be arranged like this? Or groups of say 5-6 on a plane, multiplied a bunch of times, then arranged into a hexagonal group, then spread out over all tree covered terrain?

mbischof

I'm really digging the progress going on here; keep trucking!

sltrOlsson

Well, it kinda depends on how you want to work really. What ever looks best for the minimum amount of work

gartht3d

mbischof wrote: »

I'm really digging the progress going on here; keep trucking!

thanks mate. appreciate it:)

gartht3d

Hi again. I'm struggling with leave and foliage shaders. I want to fake SSS (sub surface scattering) as we are using dx9 UDK. Does anyone have an example of a shader I can go by? I cant get it right and its wasting too much time. Cheers again.

Like this



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see the light through the leaves? It's what I'm trying to do, but in UDK

gartht3d

Hi again. I've found it really hard to find a decent foliage shader. I've done a bunch of tutorials but none have yielded any better results than the last. I find each type of leaf or blade of grass requires different attention, depending on size, amount and normal direction. Doens't look like there is a quick, or cheap way to fake sub surface scattering that can be instanced throughout a variety of leaf sizes and still be useful.
If someone can link me to a tute I don't know about or post an example of a good jungle-like foliage shader, I'd be WAY more than happy to try it:) Thanks again.

leleuxart

If I remember correctly, the 'Transmission' nodes in UDK can fake SSS. It's not going to be as accurate as the DX11 SSS, but Transmission gives the effect of bounced light within an object. This UDN link should help

As far as using it across multiple objects, you could do a master material for foliage and include the parameters for the 2D texture(mask) and a constant 3(color). Then, with the instance, you can modify the mask and color for each model.

gartht3d

leleuxart wrote: »

If I remember correctly, the 'Transmission' nodes in UDK can fake SSS. It's not going to be as accurate as the DX11 SSS, but Transmission gives the effect of bounced light within an object. This UDN link should help

As far as using it across multiple objects, you could do a master material for foliage and include the parameters for the 2D texture(mask) and a constant 3(color). Then, with the instance, you can modify the mask and color for each model.

Hey thanks man for the info. I'd spent a while with transmission last week and got some average results. Using dx9, I've managed to get my shader looking like the below picture. It's not great but better than what I was getting earlier. Now I am maybe pushing the boundaries of beginner in UDK so keep the feedback and suggestions coming it really helps. Thanks.



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gartht3d

another really important discovery......UDK may 2012 has a bug in it that prevents certain static meshes from baking shadows. I'm not sure how deep this is or what assets are effected but I've been looking at a 1/2 baked level for a month now wondering why it looked so half baked. It's cos there were no freaking shadows being baked:( DAAAAMNNNN! I got the July version. Looks so much better now.

gartht3d

Hi again. I've added a more recent screenshot of my level below. I have much more of the level done but this area, I'm using as a kind of test bed so it's the most full of the modular pieces so far. The light build is taking 15 minutes or so. I'll have a bunch more parts of the level to show off in about 3-5 weeks. PLEASE ADD FEEDBACK:P:P I need fresh eyes. Taa. Garth

p.s. the fog look MUCH better in game. This .jpeg looks good too but for some reason, since uploading to photobucket, it looks more dense. No idea why.

Oh, the shader I built for the foliage is not yet applied to the larger trees either, so that's why they look too dark.



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gartht3d

does anyone know how to get light shafts to work in high res screenshots? Like when you use 'tiledshot 8' in the console, the screenshot doesn't include the light shafts. Thanks

tyddynroger

nitemaremaggott wrote: »

does anyone know how to get light shafts to work in high res screenshots? Like when you use 'tiledshot 8' in the console, the screenshot doesn't include the light shafts. Thanks

like the look of his enviro!

as far as im aware some effects don't work in tiledshot especially post effects so you'll have to settle for the standard screen shot command, go into your post fx settings and ramp up AA to give you better results.

gartht3d

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Cheers. Didn't know about the AA setting. Awesome. Thanks.