Have you checked out Choco's terrain tutorial...it's very thorough 5 minutes later I just read that you want to use UDK'S terrain editor nevertheless his photoshop part is worth checking out.
Don't know if you overlooked it, but, He added a 1 hour UDK specific tutorial after the demand for it was great. He goes over importing 16 Bit raw Height Maps (I think) from World machine into UDK and setting up materials and terrain layers for vertex painting. It's at the bottom of the video list http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88933
There's another guy on you tube called UDK learning and he uses terresculptor the first 3 videos are on the basics of the Landcape system then the next 10 - 15 videos are using terresculptor sort of like Choco. He is very informative almost to a fault ad-nauseum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOVg-23r5G0
Haha KartoonHead I was thinking the same thing that's why I didn't even bother labeling mine. But it doesn't bother me THAT much. I just scroll down. Also you could say the same about the block-outs they all start blending in after a while.
@ poopsterpappy, Good sir you are correct, i was completely unaware of the UDK section.
Both links look exactly like the things i have been looking for. I've just downloaded world machine as it seems that everyone swears by it for terrain creation.
Thank you very much for your suggestions
..
@ KartoonHead & Scifix,
I had the exact same thoughts once i started dissecting the image. I'm not sure if this helps at all but i knocked this up just now to show how i have been tackling the different levels within the scene...
I have been looking at it like a small symmetrical courtyard. Like an interconnecting grounds area in an RPG.
Looking at it this way has helped me simplify the execution a fair bit.
Lankus, any suggestions on games to look at, I'm thinking W.O.W, L.O.T.R Assasins Creed, Dishonored. Not sure if I want to go hand painted or photo based?
All really good suggestions. I'd look at a few environments from maybe Guild Wars 1 and also the new Elder scrolls online game has a similar style to it.
I'm debating that myself. Think i'll go for a reasonably painted style with some real world texture in there to give it some substance.
Hey guys, finally got started on this yesterday! I did a quick blockout in Maya, layed out a base for my wall texture (I'm gonna try handpainted I think), and got a quick start on some grass.
I also played around with worldmachine a bit.... i was thinking it might be cool to have some distant mountains or something. I know the erosion doesn't really look realistic, so I might try again--it's a low priority at any rate.
I live in the northwest US... I was out biking the other day and just love the tall trees we have here, so I kinda went that direction instead. I may try to alter the architecture a little bit to fit the PNW aesthetic a little better.
Great starts everyone, glad there's so much participation so far!
Done a breakdown today, will attempt the challenge.
going to start with a quick first pass on the tileable materials (clean versions), not aiming on doing alot of complex modelling (unless required) so shaders need to be really good.
@ KittyOwl - Solid Breakdown. Some really nice references.
@ JustinSlick - Awesome block-out. I really like the distant mountain idea, I've been thinking about how i could include some details on the sides of the background structures in some way. I'll have to look into it once the scene's fleshed out.
I look forward to seeing the scene with your choice of tree's in it
@ JustinSlick - Awesome block-out. I really like the distant mountain idea, I've been thinking about how i could include some details on the sides of the background structures in some way. I'll have to look into it once the scene's fleshed out.
I look forward to seeing the scene with your choice of tree's in it
Thanks man! Although, seeing the FOV woes that everybody has had I have a feeling I really misinterpreted the depth of the scene. I think the top view blockout you showed is a lot more accurate than what I've got right now... mine is kinda long and narrow so I think UDK is just gonna stretch the hell out of it. :susp:
Does anyone with more experience know of good camera settings for Maya so that there aren't any huge surprises in UDK?
@stepcil - Are those paint effects/procedural trees or did you do them by hand? They look pretty awesome!!
But i think that could be a good thing in your case. At least maybe a bit anyways. I really like the scale of your blockout, i think it will work well in UDK because of all the interest your trees and mountain will be adding to the higher areas of the shot
I spent some time making a brick texture (zbrush and Photoshop).
Here it is running in Unity:
I'll have to play with the scale and tiling once I have models and everything set. Next steps are to get some actual models to put it on, continue making terrain, and work on the tile-able "path" texture.
So I spent the day finding reference: screenshots from Elder Scrolls,WOW, LOTR, etc. Old master paintings , concept art, photo ref of stone, brick ,rock , foliage and a list of hand painted texture tutorial resources. I plan on starting my block-out tomorrow morning. I figure we are all going to be learning from one another so i would like to offer to upload my reference library for this challenge for you guys to benefit from. Let me know if you'r interested and I'll get on it.
That sounds awesome man. I would very much appreciate that. I also aim to upload a few reference photos that i have taken of some castle walls and archways over the years. It's helping me out with the modelling.
Cool... they look good. Just curious, do you plan on baking out leaf cards or taking them in-engine with all the individual leaves?
Aaanyway, I have one more update for the night. Every scene needs some miscellaneous rocks! Dunno if I'll really have any use for the second one, but that's ok.
Here's the first installment of my reference library for this challenge. I just want to say that some of the images may seem unrelated to the concept we are using, but in my mind they are useful for particular purposes. Just take what you want and disregard the rest . I will update it as I go along , I wanted to include more but got stuck playing Skyrim Hope they are useful.
thanks for the reference images folder. those are very useful and they are much better than the images I've found browsing. There are some nice tutorials in there also. Thanks again
Cool... they look good. Just curious, do you plan on baking out leaf cards or taking them in-engine with all the individual leaves?
Aaanyway, I have one more update for the night. Every scene needs some miscellaneous rocks! Dunno if I'll really have any use for the second one, but that's ok.
Could you post the texture for those rocks? That looks amazing.
Could you post the texture for those rocks? That looks amazing.
Thanks a lot!! The textures are pretty gnarly because I have a ton of UV stretching, but I'll upload them later (gotta watch Game of Thrones right now :poly121:)
Here's what I did today working from the base that I showed a couple days ago. I like the shapes, but the normals are kinda mushy and the diffuse is just a solid color overlay at the moment. But it's good enough to use for now while I block stuff out in UDK I think.
I've been blocking things out to get proportions right. The differences in camera does make things tricky. I thing the default field of view for udk is 85 degrees. I set my camera in Max to the same and things look generally correct(maybe?). Also the trees are just stand-ins. I'll be making my own eventually. My next hurdle it to figure out how to handle the terrain.
Agree with cmtanko, 3Dmotive is absolutely fantastic. Beyond the freebies there, the $29 you pay for a month is well worth it considering how much UDK specific material there is on the site.
Hello, wanted to ask you guys couple of things about cryengine.
a. Can i do terrain there or do i have to import geometry and textures from maya ?
b. Can i paint a building wall with 3 different textures ?
c. Since i stil wasn't able to export anything from maya to cryengine, is there a large difference between how a normal map diplays in maya and cryengine ?
Thanks and i really love some of the things a saw here. GL hf !
Btw, here is my progress
First texture for the wall (1k), photo based, normal map done using the nvidia ps filter and hand painted the large volumes.I need one more texture for the wall to hide the repetition and one for the bottom transition and top leaks.
Hello, wanted to ask you guys couple of things about cryengine.
a. Can i do terrain there or do i have to import geometry and textures from maya ?
b. Can i paint a building wall with 3 different textures ?
c. Since i stil wasn't able to export anything from maya to cryengine, is there a large difference between how a normal map diplays in maya and cryengine ?
Thanks and i really love some of the things a saw here. GL hf !
Btw, here is my progress
First texture for the wall (1k), photo based, normal map done using the nvidia ps filter and hand painted the large volumes.I need one more texture for the wall to hide the repetition and one for the bottom transition and top leaks.
A. Yes you can, go to the Terrain modifier and you can be able to paint terrain. You can also import height maps to make the terrain.
b. I dont know about 3 textures? Do you mean 3 textures in max using multiple channels like 1 brick 1 concrete? If so then yes. If you mean vertex painting you can do that I believe with blend layer, you should find a tutorial on that one because you need specific map file name for it.
C. The shouldnt be, it should be the exact same based on your normal.
Well, here's my blockout. I probably shouldn't have modeled the terrain as one contiguous mesh but I did get a good understanding as to what I wanted my navigation and flow would be. Took some liberties with what we don't see in the concept art. Still have to tidy it up a bit and work on elevation scales. Took it into UDK already and felt pretty good about the scale and F.O.V. Next time I'm gonna nail that down early on :poly122:...too much fighting between UDK and Max. Using Mat id's for quick selections and to get straight visually where what stops and what begins.
Hey Justin,Any observations on my blockout, really want c+c, thanks
I noticed some things, the cicle building in the top right is too close to the wall and it looks small, the concept has the building big and at a distance. The right wall corner that connects to the gate is a little off of the concept.
There is no land in front of the hole in the wall, you currently have terrain there.
From the perspective of your screenshot I noticed that the left wall is not as close to the tree as in the concept, and I dont think you can see a pathway on the left side in the concept.
I would sujest fixing these if you are going for a 1:1 concept match, either way I think it looks good.
Definitely going to take a look at those things. Ideally I would like to get a 1:1 but I don't think my skill set is there yet. Particularly nailing down the correct FOV. BTW, was it a mistake to model the terrain as one contiguous mesh. I mean is it going to be inefficient to uv and such? Thanks for the input
Definitely going to take a look at those things. Ideally I would like to get a 1:1 but I don't think my skill set is there yet. Particularly nailing down the correct FOV. BTW, was it a mistake to model the terrain as one contiguous mesh. I mean is it going to be inefficient to uv and such? Thanks for the input
You should never dog your skills like that, I do the same which im trying to fix, but it just brings the negative out and you get the idea of I cant do that because im not skilled enough if you know what I mean.
As for the terrain it depends. I believe you are using UDK so you could blend textures easily by painting them. Did you model it out in max or maya? Or are you using the terrain UDK gives you?
I would go into zbrush or mudbox and possibly sculpt a height map to use, or just use the built in terrain editor to get the correct look.
As for UVing it you shouldnt have much of a problem as long as the texture tiles correctly, if it does just post your results back here and I think its safe to say we (polycounters) would be glad to help.
I'm just wondering how most of you guys go about doing your blockouts? This is my first time doing an environment at the same FOV and angle as a concept. I'm having some trouble getting my head around it at the moment.
Hey guys, I'm joining the fun! I really like the concept and it's a nice opportunity to learn more about foliage.
poopsterspappy - Thanks for putting this together, very useful stuff in there!
MdK - I like to start the blockout straight in engine so i know how proportions / fov / angle etc. will look like in the end. Just to get it halfway close to the concept, you can always change the angle / camera later.
I don't even know how to properly use solids / bsp at all, but boxes and cylinders are good enough for basic proportions. This is how my blockout looks like:
Then I export the solids to max as a rough guideline and start modeling.
The trees are just placeholders from cryengine sdk for now.
Everything looks like it's coming along nicely for everyone.
airage: I like the idea of blocking in engine. It seems like it would make life easier when it comes to getting your terrain to work nicely with your architectural parts. And you know what your field of view is going to be. I'm using UDK, and am still pretty green at it. I've never tried exporting bsp geometry, but I think I'm going to look into it for next time.
I'll join this one too (and even post my WIPs this time :poly136:). As I'm not very experienced with terrain, foliage and plants in general, I hope this will be the chance to improve my skills.
Here is my lowpoly so far, screenshot from UDK:
I haven't started with the organic stuff yet, as I'm going to run some tests first...
Replies
Re-worked my dimensions. I think it's a lot closer now.
The concept scene is surprisingly smaller than how i had originally interpreted it...
Gonna work on the terrain for the rest of the day. Hopefully start making some assets tomorrow.
This is my blocking.
Have you checked out Choco's terrain tutorial...it's very thorough
Still! like you said, some extremely helpful tips on terrain texture map development.
Thanks for the recommendation
Don't know if you overlooked it, but, He added a 1 hour UDK specific tutorial after the demand for it was great. He goes over importing 16 Bit raw Height Maps (I think) from World machine into UDK and setting up materials and terrain layers for vertex painting. It's at the bottom of the video list http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88933
There's another guy on you tube called UDK learning and he uses terresculptor the first 3 videos are on the basics of the Landcape system then the next 10 - 15 videos are using terresculptor sort of like Choco. He is very informative almost to a fault ad-nauseum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOVg-23r5G0
Both links look exactly like the things i have been looking for. I've just downloaded world machine as it seems that everyone swears by it for terrain creation.
Thank you very much for your suggestions
..
@ KartoonHead & Scifix,
I had the exact same thoughts once i started dissecting the image. I'm not sure if this helps at all but i knocked this up just now to show how i have been tackling the different levels within the scene...
I have been looking at it like a small symmetrical courtyard. Like an interconnecting grounds area in an RPG.
Looking at it this way has helped me simplify the execution a fair bit.
Hope my madness helps.
I'm debating that myself. Think i'll go for a reasonably painted style with some real world texture in there to give it some substance.
Maybe a 75% painted to 25% photo... hhmmm.
I also played around with worldmachine a bit.... i was thinking it might be cool to have some distant mountains or something. I know the erosion doesn't really look realistic, so I might try again--it's a low priority at any rate.
I live in the northwest US... I was out biking the other day and just love the tall trees we have here, so I kinda went that direction instead. I may try to alter the architecture a little bit to fit the PNW aesthetic a little better.
Great starts everyone, glad there's so much participation so far!
going to start with a quick first pass on the tileable materials (clean versions), not aiming on doing alot of complex modelling (unless required) so shaders need to be really good.
@ JustinSlick - Awesome block-out. I really like the distant mountain idea, I've been thinking about how i could include some details on the sides of the background structures in some way. I'll have to look into it once the scene's fleshed out.
I look forward to seeing the scene with your choice of tree's in it
Thanks man! Although, seeing the FOV woes that everybody has had I have a feeling I really misinterpreted the depth of the scene. I think the top view blockout you showed is a lot more accurate than what I've got right now... mine is kinda long and narrow so I think UDK is just gonna stretch the hell out of it. :susp:
Does anyone with more experience know of good camera settings for Maya so that there aren't any huge surprises in UDK?
@stepcil - Are those paint effects/procedural trees or did you do them by hand? They look pretty awesome!!
But i think that could be a good thing in your case. At least maybe a bit anyways. I really like the scale of your blockout, i think it will work well in UDK because of all the interest your trees and mountain will be adding to the higher areas of the shot
Here it is running in Unity:
I'll have to play with the scale and tiling once I have models and everything set. Next steps are to get some actual models to put it on, continue making terrain, and work on the tile-able "path" texture.
needs some refinement and detail, but generally i like it so far. hope my HDD doesnt die again
So I spent the day finding reference: screenshots from Elder Scrolls,WOW, LOTR, etc. Old master paintings , concept art, photo ref of stone, brick ,rock , foliage and a list of hand painted texture tutorial resources. I plan on starting my block-out tomorrow morning. I figure we are all going to be learning from one another so i would like to offer to upload my reference library for this challenge for you guys to benefit from. Let me know if you'r interested and I'll get on it.
Cool... they look good. Just curious, do you plan on baking out leaf cards or taking them in-engine with all the individual leaves?
Aaanyway, I have one more update for the night. Every scene needs some miscellaneous rocks! Dunno if I'll really have any use for the second one, but that's ok.
Here's the first installment of my reference library for this challenge. I just want to say that some of the images may seem unrelated to the concept we are using, but in my mind they are useful for particular purposes. Just take what you want and disregard the rest . I will update it as I go along , I wanted to include more but got stuck playing Skyrim
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lh4xte5lb0lwqnh/Challenge.rar?v=0rw-g
P.S the Old master lighting folder is empty I will add it tomorrow
Could you post the texture for those rocks? That looks amazing.
I also update the mesh for the arch, will bring it to Zbrush to sculpt it a little bit.
Next step watch some foliage tutorial. :poly121:
Thanks a lot!! The textures are pretty gnarly because I have a ton of UV stretching, but I'll upload them later (gotta watch Game of Thrones right now :poly121:)
Here's what I did today working from the base that I showed a couple days ago. I like the shapes, but the normals are kinda mushy and the diffuse is just a solid color overlay at the moment. But it's good enough to use for now while I block stuff out in UDK I think.
3DBuzz has a lot of free UDK training as well if you have other questions beyond mesh importing.
a. Can i do terrain there or do i have to import geometry and textures from maya ?
b. Can i paint a building wall with 3 different textures ?
c. Since i stil wasn't able to export anything from maya to cryengine, is there a large difference between how a normal map diplays in maya and cryengine ?
Thanks and i really love some of the things a saw here. GL hf !
Btw, here is my progress
First texture for the wall (1k), photo based, normal map done using the nvidia ps filter and hand painted the large volumes.I need one more texture for the wall to hide the repetition and one for the bottom transition and top leaks.
Have a good one !
A. Yes you can, go to the Terrain modifier and you can be able to paint terrain. You can also import height maps to make the terrain.
b. I dont know about 3 textures? Do you mean 3 textures in max using multiple channels like 1 brick 1 concrete? If so then yes. If you mean vertex painting you can do that I believe with blend layer, you should find a tutorial on that one because you need specific map file name for it.
C. The shouldnt be, it should be the exact same based on your normal.
We're only five days in! Jump in, there aren't really that many assets in this one! :thumbup:
I noticed some things, the cicle building in the top right is too close to the wall and it looks small, the concept has the building big and at a distance. The right wall corner that connects to the gate is a little off of the concept.
There is no land in front of the hole in the wall, you currently have terrain there.
From the perspective of your screenshot I noticed that the left wall is not as close to the tree as in the concept, and I dont think you can see a pathway on the left side in the concept.
I would sujest fixing these if you are going for a 1:1 concept match, either way I think it looks good.
You should never dog your skills like that, I do the same which im trying to fix, but it just brings the negative out and you get the idea of I cant do that because im not skilled enough if you know what I mean.
As for the terrain it depends. I believe you are using UDK so you could blend textures easily by painting them. Did you model it out in max or maya? Or are you using the terrain UDK gives you?
I would go into zbrush or mudbox and possibly sculpt a height map to use, or just use the built in terrain editor to get the correct look.
As for UVing it you shouldnt have much of a problem as long as the texture tiles correctly, if it does just post your results back here and I think its safe to say we (polycounters) would be glad to help.
Good luck!
This one is pretty cool and depending on your level of development could be quite useful.It's a a tad dated but still a whole lot of relevant information:
http://students.autodesk.com/ama/orig/Curriculum/ADA2011/Library.html
This one takes time to load but can be downloaded as a PDF. Cheers PPappy
http://gdcvault.com/play/1012449/Uncharted-2-Art
poopsterspappy - Thanks for putting this together, very useful stuff in there!
MdK - I like to start the blockout straight in engine so i know how proportions / fov / angle etc. will look like in the end. Just to get it halfway close to the concept, you can always change the angle / camera later.
I don't even know how to properly use solids / bsp at all, but boxes and cylinders are good enough for basic proportions. This is how my blockout looks like:
Then I export the solids to max as a rough guideline and start modeling.
The trees are just placeholders from cryengine sdk for now.
airage: I like the idea of blocking in engine. It seems like it would make life easier when it comes to getting your terrain to work nicely with your architectural parts. And you know what your field of view is going to be. I'm using UDK, and am still pretty green at it. I've never tried exporting bsp geometry, but I think I'm going to look into it for next time.
I'll join this one too (and even post my WIPs this time :poly136:). As I'm not very experienced with terrain, foliage and plants in general, I hope this will be the chance to improve my skills.
Here is my lowpoly so far, screenshot from UDK:
I haven't started with the organic stuff yet, as I'm going to run some tests first...
C&C are always welcome!
BTW does anyone have any good foilage tutorials/links? i have no idea how to approach it...