Amaghad man! Now this is what I'm talking about! Looks really fucking solid all the way trough! What's your approach for the first image? Dropping down tools in ZB or is it a sculpt all trough?
Damn ! This thread gets sicker everyday, if I was able to see how it will be in 6 months, I'm pretty sure my mind wouldn't handle such an amount of awesomeness
I've been reworking my process for making rocks out of real models with 123dcatch. The results for my second try were way above expectations ! I changed my camera since my last rock, I don't know if this is directly related but the output resulted in a way denser and sharper mesh than my first rock. I'm currenty scanning volcanic rocks which are very rough and full of high frequency details I can't get with 123d catch, but you could easily use a detail map to fake them.
I'll try with another type of rock soon if I found one that is interesting enough.
Too long since I've attempted sculpting a rock. Clicked the first time I had a go at it again surprisingly. Workflows thanks to Strkl and my instructor Jason.
It needs more, it is currently a WIP. I first took a sphere and then made it long and narrow. Then I used the clay tubes brush to build up the shapes, so I could then duplicate the mesh, dynameshing about 7 duplications of it together that gave some sharp intersections towards the base of each formation. Then it was time to refine with trim smooth border, and now I am going to add some cracks once I find out a decent brush for that... probably just use a good alpha or something.
I am also curious, does anyone here use Zremesher to get a lowpoly of their rocks?
I made a base mesh (with terrain around it) in 3ds max, which I then sculpted in zbrush, but it ended up being way too curvy:
-url removed-
(base mesh: -url removed-)
I'm looking to achieve that 'blocky' look that these rocks have in the concept, but so far i've been unable to achieve that.
There are so many tips, different methods and tutorials in this thread that i'm confused where to start properly, is my base mesh even a right way to begin for example?
Currently it's only about the shape, the detailing and texturing are not important, for now.
Here are some of the rocks I did on the project I'm currently working on called "The Witness"
A lot less texture work, but hopefully as much personality!
It's not very special compared to all the lovely rocks in this thread, but I had to contribute something. I have a lot of rocks planned for my current project
This rock has been a huge inspiration for every stylized rock I made this year, feels awesome to see it on this thread !
Also, I just discovered some more awesome stylized rocks from The Witness, thank you sir, you made my day
This rock has been a huge inspiration for every stylized rock I made this year, feels awesome to see it on this thread !
Also, I just discovered some more awesome stylized rocks from The Witness, thank you sir, you made my day
@Jonas Ronnegard : Another pretty solid rock, good job !
There is still something you could improve : the way you put your rocks together. Every single rock you make is perfect, but when it comes to rendering you just put them randomly to form a big shape, and it looks pretty unatural. I think it's too bad you don't take a little more time to render a small environment (add some grass, a little path or something like that) with all the rocks you've made, I'm pretty sure it will blow our minds. :poly121:
I've been pursuing my "scan real rocks" journey. I tried to make a tileable texture out of a real wall.
Once I have a high poly scan of my wall, getting it tileable is easy, just bake a heightmap on a plane and make that heightmap tileable, then displace it, refine your sculpt, bake and you're good to go.
However I also tried to get the base texture (out of the photographs), thus requiring both the diffuse and heightmap to tile. It was a bit tricky and the result wasn't that good. I'm sure that you could get better result by making all the textures out of the high-poly.
Again, the 3d scan is a little bit too "smooth" but my subject was really sharp and noisy. The wall I scanned is made by piling up volcanic rocks which are very hi-freq and noisy. - note that I didn't refine the sculpt, I want to see how far I can go only by scanning things.
Those kind of walls are very common in Hawaii.
As you can see, the end result lacks readability, it's way too noisy.
Sebvhe: Yeah you are right, problem is I'm mostly using one mesh, and mostly it's straight shapes so in order to get some angles I kinda have go out of the realistic realm, but yeah I do want to get a real environment going,and I have started something in unreal 4, but yeah besides work the hours I can put in isn't that much but hope I can get a proper Environment up soon.
Hello there ! @Crazyeyes : That is looking awesome
It's my first time posting in this thread but i love rocks too .
This is one of my decent rocks i made recently:
@Jonas Ronnegard:
Your rock images are currently my top source for awe-inspiring work that I'm studying to improve my own stuff. I'd love to ask you a couple questions!!
1. Your images have an extraordinary amount of edge clarity! How are you achieving such crisp results in your normal maps? Is that all just baked down detail from your sculpted models, or is there additional trickery? What is your workflow for baking normals? (Preferred tools, map resolution, etc)
2. In addition to sharpness, your images always have such wonderfully clear edge shading and highlighting. I'm assuming you are extracting convexity maps and then using them to enhance your textures.... But they don't look like "painted on" highlights (like I tend to get if I go a bit heavy with edge highlighting in the diffuse map). Do you add that detail mainly in the roughness/specular map, the diffuse map, or a combination of the two? Any advice to avoid "mushiness"?
Thanks much in advance! Can't wait to see more of your awesome work!
@Jonas Ronnegard:
Your rock images are currently my top source for awe-inspiring work that I'm studying to improve my own stuff. I'd love to ask you a couple questions!!
1. Your images have an extraordinary amount of edge clarity! How are you achieving such crisp results in your normal maps? Is that all just baked down detail from your sculpted models, or is there additional trickery? What is your workflow for baking normals? (Preferred tools, map resolution, etc)
2. In addition to sharpness, your images always have such wonderfully clear edge shading and highlighting. I'm assuming you are extracting convexity maps and then using them to enhance your textures.... But they don't look like "painted on" highlights (like I tend to get if I go a bit heavy with edge highlighting in the diffuse map). Do you add that detail mainly in the roughness/specular map, the diffuse map, or a combination of the two? Any advice to avoid "mushiness"?
Thanks much in advance! Can't wait to see more of your awesome work!
-eaa
I too am curious. Extremely high detail, and I can see no obvious geo crashing. Do tell!
Been trying to get better at making rocks lately and here's today's doodle.
Still not happy with how featureless they are turning out but I'm starting to get a workflow down at least!
I feel you are using your rocks at a bigger scale than they are supposed to be ...
You should consider making a few more of those rocks (sculpt only) and then merge them to create a bigger rock that will look better (and less smooth) at that scale
I have had trouble making "feature-less" rocks, but recently I've been finding my sculpts look alot better and rockier/easier to make by making multiple subobjects/subtools of basic rock shapes, scaling/rotating/positioning them together in zbrush until there's some interesting forms happening, and then dynameshing them together as one whole piece before I continue sculpting.
I find it helps alot getting started with the various irregular angles of rocks rather than sculpting it completely out of a subd box/sphere. Also messing around with the planar/mallet/orb brush*(custom brush found easily online)/dynamic trim/hpolish brushes and square/sphere alphas helps too.
@ Brygelsmack, as previously stated he used Trim Smooth Border, square alpha and focal shift almost at -100. I'm sure hes using other techniques as well, I'd be interested in his workflow. Its most likely more than one rock as well, so don't look at it as one huge mesh, but as more than one mesh.
I would look more on texturing pass, than the sculpting. Becuase he's propably using tools as armykillswitch mention. Texturing is still mystery to solve here
Hi really sorry I havent been able to create any tutorial yet, as ArmyKillswitch says I used mainly the smooth border brush for that one.
Also I think I have said before that it's one modular rock used several times, not one mesh,
as for the textures, it was just quickly created in DDO and I think the main
mood setter is the lighting and presentation, I'm not saying it's all that good, but it's what sets the tone in this picture, getting the contrast right and also not under or over sharpen the image
Oh man I found a tiny chunk of time to do a little doodle! I love all you guys for keeping this thread alive and posting awesome work as well as giving fantastic critique KISSES TO EVERYONE!!!!
Replies
And adding some rocks of mine
Alien stone artefact
Amaghad man! Now this is what I'm talking about! Looks really fucking solid all the way trough! What's your approach for the first image? Dropping down tools in ZB or is it a sculpt all trough?
You texture in ZB as well?
I've been reworking my process for making rocks out of real models with 123dcatch. The results for my second try were way above expectations ! I changed my camera since my last rock, I don't know if this is directly related but the output resulted in a way denser and sharper mesh than my first rock. I'm currenty scanning volcanic rocks which are very rough and full of high frequency details I can't get with 123d catch, but you could easily use a detail map to fake them.
I'll try with another type of rock soon if I found one that is interesting enough.
This is the real rock :
This is the model in Marmoset:
Here's something of mine:
It needs more, it is currently a WIP. I first took a sphere and then made it long and narrow. Then I used the clay tubes brush to build up the shapes, so I could then duplicate the mesh, dynameshing about 7 duplications of it together that gave some sharp intersections towards the base of each formation. Then it was time to refine with trim smooth border, and now I am going to add some cracks once I find out a decent brush for that... probably just use a good alpha or something.
I am also curious, does anyone here use Zremesher to get a lowpoly of their rocks?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9vTRvSZMWIM/UCBrdjoIDNI/AAAAAAAAAUs/7Klc-UVieY8/s1600/indar_highlands.jpg
I made a base mesh (with terrain around it) in 3ds max, which I then sculpted in zbrush, but it ended up being way too curvy:
-url removed-
(base mesh: -url removed-)
I'm looking to achieve that 'blocky' look that these rocks have in the concept, but so far i've been unable to achieve that.
There are so many tips, different methods and tutorials in this thread that i'm confused where to start properly, is my base mesh even a right way to begin for example?
Currently it's only about the shape, the detailing and texturing are not important, for now.
Thanks in advance.
A lot less texture work, but hopefully as much personality!
Zbrush:
Ingame:
Nice work everyone, by the way. this thread is amazing!
Here's some of my stuff from The Witness:
Full write-up: http://the-witness.net/news/2013/09/on-the-rocks/
-eaa
You can have the model here, public domain on Open Game Art
http://opengameart.org/content/desert-rock
It's not very special compared to all the lovely rocks in this thread, but I had to contribute something. I have a lot of rocks planned for my current project
Really awesome stuff everyone!
This rock has been a huge inspiration for every stylized rock I made this year, feels awesome to see it on this thread !
Also, I just discovered some more awesome stylized rocks from The Witness, thank you sir, you made my day
Daaaaawww, thanks Sebvhe!
You just made my day too!
here is yet another one
so square alpha and focal shift almost at -100.
I have something like that planned though there aren't really anything special to it.
There is still something you could improve : the way you put your rocks together. Every single rock you make is perfect, but when it comes to rendering you just put them randomly to form a big shape, and it looks pretty unatural. I think it's too bad you don't take a little more time to render a small environment (add some grass, a little path or something like that) with all the rocks you've made, I'm pretty sure it will blow our minds. :poly121:
I've been pursuing my "scan real rocks" journey. I tried to make a tileable texture out of a real wall.
Once I have a high poly scan of my wall, getting it tileable is easy, just bake a heightmap on a plane and make that heightmap tileable, then displace it, refine your sculpt, bake and you're good to go.
However I also tried to get the base texture (out of the photographs), thus requiring both the diffuse and heightmap to tile. It was a bit tricky and the result wasn't that good. I'm sure that you could get better result by making all the textures out of the high-poly.
Again, the 3d scan is a little bit too "smooth" but my subject was really sharp and noisy. The wall I scanned is made by piling up volcanic rocks which are very hi-freq and noisy. - note that I didn't refine the sculpt, I want to see how far I can go only by scanning things.
Those kind of walls are very common in Hawaii.
As you can see, the end result lacks readability, it's way too noisy.
@Crazyeyes : That is looking awesome
It's my first time posting in this thread but i love rocks too .
This is one of my decent rocks i made recently:
Always loved those man! Saved forever!
Baserock in my portfolio.
http://www.artstation.com/artist/ipos888
http://blog.naver.com/wnalstlr777
@Jonas Ronnegard:
Your rock images are currently my top source for awe-inspiring work that I'm studying to improve my own stuff. I'd love to ask you a couple questions!!
1. Your images have an extraordinary amount of edge clarity! How are you achieving such crisp results in your normal maps? Is that all just baked down detail from your sculpted models, or is there additional trickery? What is your workflow for baking normals? (Preferred tools, map resolution, etc)
2. In addition to sharpness, your images always have such wonderfully clear edge shading and highlighting. I'm assuming you are extracting convexity maps and then using them to enhance your textures.... But they don't look like "painted on" highlights (like I tend to get if I go a bit heavy with edge highlighting in the diffuse map). Do you add that detail mainly in the roughness/specular map, the diffuse map, or a combination of the two? Any advice to avoid "mushiness"?
Thanks much in advance! Can't wait to see more of your awesome work!
-eaa
Love the top one.
I too am curious. Extremely high detail, and I can see no obvious geo crashing. Do tell!
goofin' in UE4
Still not happy with how featureless they are turning out but I'm starting to get a workflow down at least!
UE4:
Zbrush:
I feel you are using your rocks at a bigger scale than they are supposed to be ...
You should consider making a few more of those rocks (sculpt only) and then merge them to create a bigger rock that will look better (and less smooth) at that scale
I have had trouble making "feature-less" rocks, but recently I've been finding my sculpts look alot better and rockier/easier to make by making multiple subobjects/subtools of basic rock shapes, scaling/rotating/positioning them together in zbrush until there's some interesting forms happening, and then dynameshing them together as one whole piece before I continue sculpting.
I find it helps alot getting started with the various irregular angles of rocks rather than sculpting it completely out of a subd box/sphere. Also messing around with the planar/mallet/orb brush*(custom brush found easily online)/dynamic trim/hpolish brushes and square/sphere alphas helps too.
I'm going crazy trying to figure out your techniques. Which brushes do you use to get that hard surface look?
*Reminds you of video tutorial...*
Also I think I have said before that it's one modular rock used several times, not one mesh,
as for the textures, it was just quickly created in DDO and I think the main
mood setter is the lighting and presentation, I'm not saying it's all that good, but it's what sets the tone in this picture, getting the contrast right and also not under or over sharpen the image