Anyhow, i could use a little help with some of you more experienced artists here.
I'm starting to work on second model, the support that the lion stands on. So, first things first, let me post reference:
So, the thing is, since i have two lions, and those are already symetrical, both lions stands on support stone, and i kinda don't want to make those symetrical aswell.
Now, i would like it to be as unique as possible, but i'm also not sure if it's good idea to completely map it uniquely; it would take a lot of texture space, but it would look very unique all around.
Also, while i do not plan to reuse on other areas those stone blocks, there is always possibility that i may change my mind, if i find out that it would indeed be good for some other types of smaller support stones. In that case, with unique mapping, it will be hard to reuse it.
However, if i make it too modular, i'm not sure if it is really worthy + it's harder to achieve unique look like on the reference (one corner is chipped off, the other is just barely, the 3rd one is not at all, etc).
So, i was thinking of breaking it up like on that image you usee. I would first break it like you see with different colors, then maybe make 2 or 3 variations of each, depanding how complex i want it to be, and then i could modularly put those together. This would also allow me to be modular and make other types of asset with those meshes, but it would still give me atleat SOME level of "unique" look, even if not maybe as much as i would like to.
Or should i just sculpt the hell out of it (wich sounds very fun aswell) in once piece?
Anyway, would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Yeah, seems like that would be the best case for the most part. Would you suggest something similar even for the top area (the large flat surface on top of which the lion stands)?
Was just thinking, regarding the decals you mentioned m4dcow, if i understand this, you will make mesh with tilable texture, and then another mesh that will have different material, that will be actual decal.
So, this would mean i would have to have 2 meshes with two different materials, inside one asset in udk, but i'm not really sure how to do that. Is that even possible with UDK?
Or is there more elegant solution to it?
So for the trim method, I would make the top of the base a 4 way tileable texture, but I would have the trim wrap over the top, sort of like this
As for the decals, you would they would be on pieces of geometry floating over the surface of your mesh. For best effect you would cut into your mesh where you want the damage, and duplicate a piece of the geometry and apply the decal material and setup your UVs accordingly. You would also then need to offset the decal geometry a bit from the mesh to avoid z-fighting.
When you export to UDK, you export everything as 1 static mesh, and in UDK you should have more than 1 material id to apply your material to, when you select one it highlights the applicable area in blue.
Ah i see, so i basically uv map both base and a decal mesh, apply different materials, and when i export both together as one mesh, udk will recognize that each of the meshes have different materials, so i can then also apply different mats in udk? Ok i think i got it then, tnx a lot!
I like it, the proportions are maybe a bit too "regular/bulky/box-ish" compared to the ref but the trims look great.
I'm not sure about the four rectangles though, they really look out of place to me. They don't look bad themselves but I don't think they fit the base very well, it's very obvious that they're cutting right through details, doesn't look real to me. I think it would look better without those, and use less texture space too.
Hm, yeah i see what you mean with the rectangular pieces, i'll either remove them, or implement it a little differently, so that they feel more natural as you said.
Also....well reference is somewhat box-ish, but i do plan to make it a bit less so, by add damage and such, and if i move the four pieces that you mention more inside or remove it, the silhouette should be a bit less boxy i think.
I don't think they are needed in the design. But yes, it's better now.
For the box-ish comment, it's only if you want to follow the ref for proportions. It seems to me the top part in the ref is smaller/thinner than the lower part, and the lower part a bit wider. The flat line looks to be a bit higher than half the height. Plus the corners are more smooth. Your version is more the same on top and lower part with straight angles, giving this box-ish look. Not saying this is looking bad, it's just comments if you want to follow closely the ref.
Also don't hesitate to try it with the sculpture. Ornaments are quite subtle in the ref, people look to the sculpture first. I suppose you don't want to attract too much attention to the pedestal when you already got a nice sculpture.
Well, to be honest, i found several variations of similar pedestal, so i'd like to make my own, but so that it's somewhat close to those real ones, but i don't want to directly replicate them, just trying to get them to look somewhat similar design-wise.
Also, i'm not quite sure if i understood your last comment? I did sculpt the details (base mesh in maya, details in ZB), atleast the ornamentts. Or you have something else in mind?
I'll probably go with another pass over textures once i'm done with all the models, to try to improve with farther, since that gold still don't look quite as good as i'd like to when looking from close up.
Ok worked a bit more on it, i think the corners are a tad better now too:
Only the top area for some reason turns out to be much brighter then it should for some reason, will have to check out why....
Also, do you guys mind if i post 2-3 pics of same model per update? I usually tend to do this since i think it's always good to see the model from multiple angles, but it can look like i'm just spamming pictures....?
Hm, guys, maybe just one question. Since (one of) buildings will be the next thing i'll do, i'm just curios if you have any ideas the leaves. Here's what i mean:
What i like a lot, is that it actually has vollume on the roof and i'd like to have that aswell.
So, i guess just using simple decals would look flat. So one other thing is to have maybe asset made of few planes with the leaves, and then just arrange them in the channels (+ maybe decals).
Similar for ground. Maybe decals + assets of leaves where i want them to be piled on the ground. But even then it would be hard not to look too flat.
And then you have different density. AT the center of the road in that reference, it's only here and there, and the farther you get to the side, the more dense the leaves are .
You guys have any other idea how would i approach that?
This is coming together nicely
I love the material on the lions.
The pedestals turned out great, I'd turn up the normal map on the damage decal though.
It looks like someone carefully sandpapered the design away now.
For the leaves, I've never done anything like that yet but my first idea was 2-3 rough 'planes' that follow the surface of the groove with an alpha leaf material on it.That way you get volume, then you can still stick single leaves out of that area.
Those leaves looked pretty big and a single leaf would only cost you 2 tris so you could probably add quite a few.
Well, yes, player will get close enough, but it's not just the distance that matters, it's also from what kind of angle the player will look. Roof has such angle that if i painted leaves onto it, it would be all too obvious.
NomadSoul2501,
Tnx, will think about it. Will probably end up using various things; some sort of decals maybe on the ground + some meshes, and something else on the roof.
Also, very minor update (trying to refine the corners a bit):
Ok, so, i started working on the Gates. Just early WIP:
And just for reference, in the background, you can see reference, how the final gate will look like (model-wise):
Also, for some reason, normal map is much less noticeable in UDK then in maya or rather, in UDK, normal map looks much more flat...am i doing something wrong?
Oh and tweaked a bit lighting, here's how the lions look now:
Hm, i'm having one problem, and i wonder if there's anything that can be done about it.
The problem is lightmap UV set. I mean, it just takes forever to make it properly. Like, i use first uv set and that i otherwise use for diffuse map and stuff, as a base for making lightmap UV. And this part is somewhat fast, but now the problem comes, when i read that not only uvs have to be unique (no overlapping), and especially this - All uvs should be snapped to grid.
Now this wouldn't be such a big problem with very simple mesh, but as you see, this mesh has tons of little pieces. Snapping each and every one of them to the grid just takes so much time it's crazy. But i don't wanna simplify mesh too much, and if i don't snap to grid, i either have to use huge lightmap resolution, or it gets leaking very fast.
So, there surely must be a atleast some sort of trick to reduce the time when you make light map uvs, and especially snapping them to grid. Any ideas?
Well, texturing progress so far. Lightmap uv set took some time, but it's for the most part, atleat for this building, done now.Also, textures will get some more details, but i'd like to have more clean look this time around, so while it will get some dirt and stuff here and there, i'll try to make it subtle.
Marmoset:
UDK (don't mind the lighting and stuff right now, it's just default scene from UDK):
I really like your gold texture so far on those gates, looks really cool. In my personal opinion i could use a little more contrast in that pop. Maybe in the specular lighting.
Everything else looks awesome. I really like that lion statue as well. Cool stuff man, can't wait to see more!
Well, i probably won't be using those gates though, at first, my map was way to large, so i redesigned the map layout so that it's much smaller and something i can finish one day, and instead of big map, i would have small, where i can rather focus on details.
The problem is lightmap UV set. I mean, it just takes forever to make it properly. Like, i use first uv set and that i otherwise use for diffuse map and stuff, as a base for making lightmap UV.
Since ur working in UDK you could use generate lightmap UV's if you open up ur mesh from the content browser. Should be under mesh settings or something. If you check out the UV set with the overlay option it's usually very optimised already, can tinker around with some settings.
Some nice lookin' stuff, this is gonna be great when it's finished. Good luck
Yeah i know about that option, but it's just that manually making them seems to produce so much better result, at least in my case, that auto-uv mapping sort of isn't really an option, at least for meshes that have lots of small pieces.
But, i guess it's ok, i think i'm getting a hand on them, so it's not taking as long as it used to before, and i guess it's worthy if i can reduce the lightmap res and reduce rendering time in the process.....OH well, will have to test more with different settings, maybe i get better results.
Also, i was wondering...there's a small stones/pebbles between the building and the ground...you can see it here:
Just wondering....should i just use a plane there with pebbles texture and maybe parallax map, or is there some better way to do that? Just asking since camera is somewhat from low angle, so if i use just plane, i think it will be all too obvious...
Also, i was wondering...there's a small stones/pebbles between the building and the ground...you can see it here:
Just wondering....should i just use a plane there with pebbles texture and maybe parallax map, or is there some better way to do that? Just asking since camera is somewhat from low angle, so if i use just plane, i think it will be all too obvious...
So, an ideas ?
hey really cool work here- I saw your post awhile back and I have been looking through your stuff back and forth.
For the pebbles, I think you can use a plane but you probably need to add some geometry a little bit to make it pop up a bit with the combination of Parallax mapping. So I think you gonna have to do a bit of experimenting with the type or amount of geometry modeling for that plane to get that look you are looking for in Unreal.
Those lions are badass, keep it up! I love the center piece also so far. Do you think you could provide a tricount of all of the used assets so far? Thanks!
@serriffe ,
Yeah, i think i'll try to use plane and put some extra geometry (not too much though) especially at the edges, since there the parallax is the least effective...will play around and see what works the best.
Lion support, on which it stands, has 2700 tris or so, and the lions have 12.500 and 13.500 tris.
Polycount at some props are still a bit high, and i think i can cut some more polies without any visual difference.....
Oh, and the two roof assets would have much less polygons if it didn't have curved roof, but i since it's central piece, i think it's not too bad.
Though for other roofs, on other buildings, i think i will have straight roof, and only curved at the ends, and that should reduce polycount on them a lot (and that will probably be helpfull, since that roof will probably be instanced a lot).
OK final update for today....tomorrow i'll make few more tweaks, then i'll move to the other assets (creating placeholders for other temple buildings, ground and some vegetation placement), and then when all models are at this level, i'll then go over all of them and finish the textures off....
I think given the complexity of your pieces, having such complex lightmaps is kind of unavoidable, which may be one reason why you see a lot of people make their modular pieces as simple as possible, using normals for the details.
One thing that might save you some time, if you're not already doing it, is to skip laying out lightmap uvs for unseen faces. Not an end all solution, but something to think about.
I ran into a similar situation recently where I had some complex pieces and laying out lightmaps was time crushing, trying to snap everything nicely to the grid. Another thing I try to do since then is to avoid little tiny geometry pieces such as the bars around window panes, and get that detail with normals. The reason being that laying out such a tiny piece in your lightmaps receives such a small resolution that it often times receives a muddy shadow, if not rendered completely black from bleeding.
May I ask what your lightmap resolutions are at currently? what resolution is too high for a lightmap? I watched a tutorial that said you should rarely go to 1k in size, but it may have been a dated tutorial.
Well, i know i'm a bit stubborn like that, but want to focus on making the thing look good, without compromising the details....I already did some of the things some guys here suggested (how to reduce the polycount on roof, and that worked great, the biger problem was like all those wooden parts, that aren't connected to each other, and are basically just a box...not much you can do there to simplify it.
Though, i do think there are maybe some things that could fasten the workflow...like, dunno, maybe having of of those wooden bars below the roof, (light map) uv mapped, and then select uvs on next bar, and just offset it for certain amouth, without having to snap each individually....
You have good point about geometry that isn't seen.
And yeah if you mean those green windows pieces...i'm thinking of removing them and replacing it with the normal map simply to avoid jagged faces, since they are all very close together and with lightmap and all, when you go aways, it starts to look a bit messy. So i guess i'll replace that part with normal map instead.
Hm, light map res....well, if you see my breakdown of assets a little above....most of those assets have 256px light map, and some of the smallest ones 128. Seems to be sort of ok, only walls are a bit problematic, but i'm not sure if it isn't just becaue of bad AO settings, didn't play yet too much with it.
And yeah 1k light map takes a whole lot of time to render, so at least from my experience, you have to be a bit careful with res of that size...
Just a little progress...just importing template assets for rest of the buildings for the moment.....hopefully there will be more progress in next days...
Replies
Anyhow, i could use a little help with some of you more experienced artists here.
I'm starting to work on second model, the support that the lion stands on. So, first things first, let me post reference:
So, the thing is, since i have two lions, and those are already symetrical, both lions stands on support stone, and i kinda don't want to make those symetrical aswell.
Now, i would like it to be as unique as possible, but i'm also not sure if it's good idea to completely map it uniquely; it would take a lot of texture space, but it would look very unique all around.
Also, while i do not plan to reuse on other areas those stone blocks, there is always possibility that i may change my mind, if i find out that it would indeed be good for some other types of smaller support stones. In that case, with unique mapping, it will be hard to reuse it.
However, if i make it too modular, i'm not sure if it is really worthy + it's harder to achieve unique look like on the reference (one corner is chipped off, the other is just barely, the 3rd one is not at all, etc).
So, i was thinking of breaking it up like on that image you usee. I would first break it like you see with different colors, then maybe make 2 or 3 variations of each, depanding how complex i want it to be, and then i could modularly put those together. This would also allow me to be modular and make other types of asset with those meshes, but it would still give me atleat SOME level of "unique" look, even if not maybe as much as i would like to.
Or should i just sculpt the hell out of it (wich sounds very fun aswell) in once piece?
Anyway, would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on this subject.
http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Using+Decals+for+Destroyed+Structures
In any case I would go with using trims to construct the pedestal rather than outright sculpting.
Yeah, seems like that would be the best case for the most part. Would you suggest something similar even for the top area (the large flat surface on top of which the lion stands)?
So, this would mean i would have to have 2 meshes with two different materials, inside one asset in udk, but i'm not really sure how to do that. Is that even possible with UDK?
Or is there more elegant solution to it?
As for the decals, you would they would be on pieces of geometry floating over the surface of your mesh. For best effect you would cut into your mesh where you want the damage, and duplicate a piece of the geometry and apply the decal material and setup your UVs accordingly. You would also then need to offset the decal geometry a bit from the mesh to avoid z-fighting.
When you export to UDK, you export everything as 1 static mesh, and in UDK you should have more than 1 material id to apply your material to, when you select one it highlights the applicable area in blue.
I'm not sure about the four rectangles though, they really look out of place to me. They don't look bad themselves but I don't think they fit the base very well, it's very obvious that they're cutting right through details, doesn't look real to me. I think it would look better without those, and use less texture space too.
Keep it up.
Also....well reference is somewhat box-ish, but i do plan to make it a bit less so, by add damage and such, and if i move the four pieces that you mention more inside or remove it, the silhouette should be a bit less boxy i think.
OK tnx for your comment, will see what i can do!
For the box-ish comment, it's only if you want to follow the ref for proportions. It seems to me the top part in the ref is smaller/thinner than the lower part, and the lower part a bit wider. The flat line looks to be a bit higher than half the height. Plus the corners are more smooth. Your version is more the same on top and lower part with straight angles, giving this box-ish look. Not saying this is looking bad, it's just comments if you want to follow closely the ref.
Also don't hesitate to try it with the sculpture. Ornaments are quite subtle in the ref, people look to the sculpture first. I suppose you don't want to attract too much attention to the pedestal when you already got a nice sculpture.
Also, i'm not quite sure if i understood your last comment? I did sculpt the details (base mesh in maya, details in ZB), atleast the ornamentts. Or you have something else in mind?
Anyhow, tnx a lot!
I'll probably go with another pass over textures once i'm done with all the models, to try to improve with farther, since that gold still don't look quite as good as i'd like to when looking from close up.
Only the top area for some reason turns out to be much brighter then it should for some reason, will have to check out why....
Also, do you guys mind if i post 2-3 pics of same model per update? I usually tend to do this since i think it's always good to see the model from multiple angles, but it can look like i'm just spamming pictures....?
Hm, guys, maybe just one question. Since (one of) buildings will be the next thing i'll do, i'm just curios if you have any ideas the leaves. Here's what i mean:
What i like a lot, is that it actually has vollume on the roof and i'd like to have that aswell.
So, i guess just using simple decals would look flat. So one other thing is to have maybe asset made of few planes with the leaves, and then just arrange them in the channels (+ maybe decals).
Similar for ground. Maybe decals + assets of leaves where i want them to be piled on the ground. But even then it would be hard not to look too flat.
And then you have different density. AT the center of the road in that reference, it's only here and there, and the farther you get to the side, the more dense the leaves are .
You guys have any other idea how would i approach that?
I love the material on the lions.
The pedestals turned out great, I'd turn up the normal map on the damage decal though.
It looks like someone carefully sandpapered the design away now.
For the leaves, I've never done anything like that yet but my first idea was 2-3 rough 'planes' that follow the surface of the groove with an alpha leaf material on it.That way you get volume, then you can still stick single leaves out of that area.
Those leaves looked pretty big and a single leaf would only cost you 2 tris so you could probably add quite a few.
Well, yes, player will get close enough, but it's not just the distance that matters, it's also from what kind of angle the player will look. Roof has such angle that if i painted leaves onto it, it would be all too obvious.
NomadSoul2501,
Tnx, will think about it. Will probably end up using various things; some sort of decals maybe on the ground + some meshes, and something else on the roof.
Also, very minor update (trying to refine the corners a bit):
And just for reference, in the background, you can see reference, how the final gate will look like (model-wise):
Also, for some reason, normal map is much less noticeable in UDK then in maya or rather, in UDK, normal map looks much more flat...am i doing something wrong?
Oh and tweaked a bit lighting, here's how the lions look now:
Hm, i'm having one problem, and i wonder if there's anything that can be done about it.
The problem is lightmap UV set. I mean, it just takes forever to make it properly. Like, i use first uv set and that i otherwise use for diffuse map and stuff, as a base for making lightmap UV. And this part is somewhat fast, but now the problem comes, when i read that not only uvs have to be unique (no overlapping), and especially this - All uvs should be snapped to grid.
Now this wouldn't be such a big problem with very simple mesh, but as you see, this mesh has tons of little pieces. Snapping each and every one of them to the grid just takes so much time it's crazy. But i don't wanna simplify mesh too much, and if i don't snap to grid, i either have to use huge lightmap resolution, or it gets leaking very fast.
So, there surely must be a atleast some sort of trick to reduce the time when you make light map uvs, and especially snapping them to grid. Any ideas?
And a little progress on new building....
Marmoset:
UDK (don't mind the lighting and stuff right now, it's just default scene from UDK):
I really like your gold texture so far on those gates, looks really cool. In my personal opinion i could use a little more contrast in that pop. Maybe in the specular lighting.
Everything else looks awesome. I really like that lion statue as well. Cool stuff man, can't wait to see more!
Well, i probably won't be using those gates though, at first, my map was way to large, so i redesigned the map layout so that it's much smaller and something i can finish one day, and instead of big map, i would have small, where i can rather focus on details.
Some nice lookin' stuff, this is gonna be great when it's finished. Good luck
Yeah i know about that option, but it's just that manually making them seems to produce so much better result, at least in my case, that auto-uv mapping sort of isn't really an option, at least for meshes that have lots of small pieces.
But, i guess it's ok, i think i'm getting a hand on them, so it's not taking as long as it used to before, and i guess it's worthy if i can reduce the lightmap res and reduce rendering time in the process.....OH well, will have to test more with different settings, maybe i get better results.
tnx again man!
Also, i was wondering...there's a small stones/pebbles between the building and the ground...you can see it here:
Just wondering....should i just use a plane there with pebbles texture and maybe parallax map, or is there some better way to do that? Just asking since camera is somewhat from low angle, so if i use just plane, i think it will be all too obvious...
So, an ideas ?
hey really cool work here- I saw your post awhile back and I have been looking through your stuff back and forth.
For the pebbles, I think you can use a plane but you probably need to add some geometry a little bit to make it pop up a bit with the combination of Parallax mapping. So I think you gonna have to do a bit of experimenting with the type or amount of geometry modeling for that plane to get that look you are looking for in Unreal.
@serriffe ,
Yeah, i think i'll try to use plane and put some extra geometry (not too much though) especially at the edges, since there the parallax is the least effective...will play around and see what works the best.
@NegevPro,
Lion support, on which it stands, has 2700 tris or so, and the lions have 12.500 and 13.500 tris.
Polycount at some props are still a bit high, and i think i can cut some more polies without any visual difference.....
Oh, and the two roof assets would have much less polygons if it didn't have curved roof, but i since it's central piece, i think it's not too bad.
Though for other roofs, on other buildings, i think i will have straight roof, and only curved at the ends, and that should reduce polycount on them a lot (and that will probably be helpfull, since that roof will probably be instanced a lot).
Well, tnx again!
I think given the complexity of your pieces, having such complex lightmaps is kind of unavoidable, which may be one reason why you see a lot of people make their modular pieces as simple as possible, using normals for the details.
One thing that might save you some time, if you're not already doing it, is to skip laying out lightmap uvs for unseen faces. Not an end all solution, but something to think about.
I ran into a similar situation recently where I had some complex pieces and laying out lightmaps was time crushing, trying to snap everything nicely to the grid. Another thing I try to do since then is to avoid little tiny geometry pieces such as the bars around window panes, and get that detail with normals. The reason being that laying out such a tiny piece in your lightmaps receives such a small resolution that it often times receives a muddy shadow, if not rendered completely black from bleeding.
May I ask what your lightmap resolutions are at currently? what resolution is too high for a lightmap? I watched a tutorial that said you should rarely go to 1k in size, but it may have been a dated tutorial.
Well, i know i'm a bit stubborn like that, but want to focus on making the thing look good, without compromising the details....I already did some of the things some guys here suggested (how to reduce the polycount on roof, and that worked great, the biger problem was like all those wooden parts, that aren't connected to each other, and are basically just a box...not much you can do there to simplify it.
Though, i do think there are maybe some things that could fasten the workflow...like, dunno, maybe having of of those wooden bars below the roof, (light map) uv mapped, and then select uvs on next bar, and just offset it for certain amouth, without having to snap each individually....
You have good point about geometry that isn't seen.
And yeah if you mean those green windows pieces...i'm thinking of removing them and replacing it with the normal map simply to avoid jagged faces, since they are all very close together and with lightmap and all, when you go aways, it starts to look a bit messy. So i guess i'll replace that part with normal map instead.
Hm, light map res....well, if you see my breakdown of assets a little above....most of those assets have 256px light map, and some of the smallest ones 128. Seems to be sort of ok, only walls are a bit problematic, but i'm not sure if it isn't just becaue of bad AO settings, didn't play yet too much with it.
And yeah 1k light map takes a whole lot of time to render, so at least from my experience, you have to be a bit careful with res of that size...
Well, tnx a lot for your sugestions!