The rocks look nice but each of them use/needs a special texture or u did them so that share each only one?
Most of the large environments usually need tileable textures applied on several rock shapes to save texture load and so optimization .
The rocks look nice but each of them use/needs a special texture or u did them so that share each only one?
Most of the large environments usually need tileable textures applied on several rock shapes to save texture load and so optimization .
Yes, of course in a game or real time environment you should use tileable texture, and in general, the small amount texture as possible.
You could use tileable texture applied onto meshes in addition to you terrain, (this is very well done in Skyrim), with some good shader it can be really neat, but in my opinion, you really need a very good shader work behind this...Uncharted 3 does this very well also
But you could also choose to add some meshes (not to much, say like 2 or 3) around you world, scaling them, rotating them to add a lot of variation...If each rock use a specific texture, it will of course add some batch & drawcalls, but you'll gain much more visual quality
There's also the posibility of using, say like one normal map for a specific rock model, giving you some nice and detailed shape, and using the terrain tileable texture for diffuse...But you could get really much more quality by sacrifing some drawcalls by using a specific diffuse instead, in the end it's all about you work philosophy and hardware and engine limitations
Of course this is depending so much on the environment you're working on
For limited levels scenes, perhaps with contained environment I guess its ok .
In Uncharted 3 though most of the work actually used a lot of reused textures and wise tilting on the uvmapping , and of course herolike pieces that take most of the scenery attention .
But mine was not a critique , its just that I see a lot of people focus on making nice rocks , with sculpts and ad hoc texture, but not many or actually didn't see anyone focus on working on tileable texture to apply on multiple rock shapes in order to achieve the most realistic look ... I think its more difficult when you have to work with limited resources.
While what you are saying is absolutely correct and a good way to create rocks, it is definitely not out of the question is to build even large exterior spaces using custom mesh rocks. When I worked on Darksiders 2, it was our primary method of building rock faces, cliffs, and caves. It is not as optimized as using the tiling textures but can often create more interesting rock facades, because of the custom bake. And these areas can be optimized by bringing the rock meshes back into max and deleting unnecessary faces. I think some of the best results can be achieved by using a combination of both custom baked rocks and tileables. I am working on Warframe now and we have used both methods to good effect. And really it depends on what platform and engine you are using as some such as unreal do not suffer performance from heavy mesh, while others do. Not to mention the if you are developing for mobile or next Generation.
I cant figure out how to export the model from zbrush with the mask as vertex colour/polypaint.
1. I mask my rock by peaks/valleys or cavity.
2. I invert the mask and polypaint the entire model
3. I export the obj (are there any settings i should find to include vertex colour data?)
4. Into Xnormal, blank white map when i do the vertex col bake.
Ive opened the model in blender and i can assure it has no vertex colours.
Tried googl'ing around for this one, but im not coming up with much.
Hi, first of all I didn't abandonned this thread, I'll continue soon
Phrygian10 : Everything you're doing is fine, it just a step 4, before baking, make sure you've unchecked "Ignore per vertex color" in the highpoly tab, to the far right (it's a bit hidden)
You can't see the high poly's vertex color in max or another software, because zbrush handles vertex color in a very peculiar way
Great tutorial! I'm going to give this a try.
I saw that you said to keep the pebbles/ tiny rock as seperate geo, but I only saw you had one subtool. How did you mask out the tiny pebbles? I probably missed something
@iciban thanks! When You have separated geometry within one subtool, to mask only a part of geometry its easy (but it Can be tricky at first) :use the transpose tool (W) and while holding ctrl click and drag on the part You want yo mask, and then drag onto another part of the mesh(subtool), and then release!
Its where You release your cursor wich is important, tell me if it isgiving You trouble, ill make a vid
Great tutorial! I'm going to give this a try.
I saw that you said to keep the pebbles/ tiny rock as seperate geo, but I only saw you had one subtool. How did you mask out the tiny pebbles? I probably missed something
Cool it totally works! big thanks! also where do you get ur alphas? I've found different kinds of alphas online, but I wasn't able to achieve the look you have on your vid.
Cool it totally works! big thanks! also where do you get ur alphas? I've found different kinds of alphas online, but I wasn't able to achieve the look you have on your vid.
You may wanna try to drop your tools on the 2.5D canvas instead, at least for a first pass. It's easier since the canvas can be tiled. Maybe you know that already, but if you hold tiled key (on an american keyboard, it's "
Something else you can avoid is the black lines in your zgrabs. This is the solution
Drop your tiling tool on your 2*2k canvas and center it. Leave edit mode by pressing "T"
Render with the "best" option in the renderer.
Pick the "MRGBZgrabber" from the 2.5D section of "Tools"
In the tools settings (modifiers), turn off "Auto Crop"
Drag you "selection" over the rendered canvas and export.
(if you want to change material or color, choose the SimpleBrush and turn of Zadd but leave Mrgb on. Pick you material and the paint your canvas with the new material.)
Oh my, sorry I thought i commented That ! Yes I dont have problem with the border now using this method, I didnt know this trick then ^^
You Can also check "best" in the render setting to avoid some border zbrush creates
Wow, I am so glad I stumbled onto this thread, I have learned a ton from you. Thank you so much.
I am curious what kind of alpha you are using with your trim brush. It is obviously custom, any suggestions on what kind of alphas work well with the trim border and which don't. I have played around with a few of my own, but they never get as high quality of effect as yours.
Wow, I am so glad I stumbled onto this thread, I have learned a ton from you. Thank you so much.
I am curious what kind of alpha you are using with your trim brush. It is obviously custom, any suggestions on what kind of alphas work well with the trim border and which don't. I have played around with a few of my own, but they never get as high quality of effect as yours.
Thanks for the kind words
For the good brush to use with Trim brush, I like alpha wich are really like one big block (without a lot of "holes" in the center", but with some noise on the edges. My favorite is actually this one !
Hey this tut is awesome! thanks for taking the time to do these videos, what normal map material did you use in Zbrush to capture that tiling rock texture? It didn't look like the defaultRGB material in Zbrush. Thanks!
Replies
also, I'm uploading my rocks on P3D for fun,
and here's a quick scene using the 2 first rock
And don't forget to check out the pack itself if you have time, I'll update it from time to time with another rocks !
Most of the large environments usually need tileable textures applied on several rock shapes to save texture load and so optimization .
Yes, of course in a game or real time environment you should use tileable texture, and in general, the small amount texture as possible.
You could use tileable texture applied onto meshes in addition to you terrain, (this is very well done in Skyrim), with some good shader it can be really neat, but in my opinion, you really need a very good shader work behind this...Uncharted 3 does this very well also
But you could also choose to add some meshes (not to much, say like 2 or 3) around you world, scaling them, rotating them to add a lot of variation...If each rock use a specific texture, it will of course add some batch & drawcalls, but you'll gain much more visual quality
There's also the posibility of using, say like one normal map for a specific rock model, giving you some nice and detailed shape, and using the terrain tileable texture for diffuse...But you could get really much more quality by sacrifing some drawcalls by using a specific diffuse instead, in the end it's all about you work philosophy and hardware and engine limitations
Of course this is depending so much on the environment you're working on
In Uncharted 3 though most of the work actually used a lot of reused textures and wise tilting on the uvmapping , and of course herolike pieces that take most of the scenery attention .
But mine was not a critique , its just that I see a lot of people focus on making nice rocks , with sculpts and ad hoc texture, but not many or actually didn't see anyone focus on working on tileable texture to apply on multiple rock shapes in order to achieve the most realistic look ... I think its more difficult when you have to work with limited resources.
While what you are saying is absolutely correct and a good way to create rocks, it is definitely not out of the question is to build even large exterior spaces using custom mesh rocks. When I worked on Darksiders 2, it was our primary method of building rock faces, cliffs, and caves. It is not as optimized as using the tiling textures but can often create more interesting rock facades, because of the custom bake. And these areas can be optimized by bringing the rock meshes back into max and deleting unnecessary faces. I think some of the best results can be achieved by using a combination of both custom baked rocks and tileables. I am working on Warframe now and we have used both methods to good effect. And really it depends on what platform and engine you are using as some such as unreal do not suffer performance from heavy mesh, while others do. Not to mention the if you are developing for mobile or next Generation.
A quick update, to let you know that I updated the pack !
http://u3d.as/content/alex-s-/rock-pack-01/5Er
1. I mask my rock by peaks/valleys or cavity.
2. I invert the mask and polypaint the entire model
3. I export the obj (are there any settings i should find to include vertex colour data?)
4. Into Xnormal, blank white map when i do the vertex col bake.
Ive opened the model in blender and i can assure it has no vertex colours.
Tried googl'ing around for this one, but im not coming up with much.
Cheers for the awesome thread
Phrygian10 : Everything you're doing is fine, it just a step 4, before baking, make sure you've unchecked "Ignore per vertex color" in the highpoly tab, to the far right (it's a bit hidden)
You can't see the high poly's vertex color in max or another software, because zbrush handles vertex color in a very peculiar way
I saw that you said to keep the pebbles/ tiny rock as seperate geo, but I only saw you had one subtool. How did you mask out the tiny pebbles? I probably missed something
Keep rockin it...ahhh yeah rock puns!
@Autocon thanks, I admire your work a lot !
@iciban thanks! When You have separated geometry within one subtool, to mask only a part of geometry its easy (but it Can be tricky at first) :use the transpose tool (W) and while holding ctrl click and drag on the part You want yo mask, and then drag onto another part of the mesh(subtool), and then release!
Its where You release your cursor wich is important, tell me if it isgiving You trouble, ill make a vid
I replied juste above this message
There is a huge library of alpha here http://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/alpha/
(I don't understand why there isn't more of these included with zbrush because they're awesome)
My favorite one is this one !
I hope to be able to share some other stuff next time
hi, In the video I give the link,
you can find them on the zbrush website under the rock section !
http://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/alpha/
I do 2.5D for tileable texture sometimes, but when I really want full control, even if it's a bit more pain a prefer staying in 3D ^^
You Can also check "best" in the render setting to avoid some border zbrush creates
I am curious what kind of alpha you are using with your trim brush. It is obviously custom, any suggestions on what kind of alphas work well with the trim border and which don't. I have played around with a few of my own, but they never get as high quality of effect as yours.
Thanks for the kind words
For the good brush to use with Trim brush, I like alpha wich are really like one big block (without a lot of "holes" in the center", but with some noise on the edges. My favorite is actually this one !
Here is the link https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46909260/SW_RocksandCracks_46.PSD
(It's can be found on the zbrush website also)
giving up there free time to teach something!
http://download.pixologic01.com/download.php?f=/library/matcap/digitaldecoy/al_normal_map.zip