Tileable Dirt & Pebbles Texture

josh_lynch

Final Render:




(ORIGINAL POST)

Hey all! Started working on a tiling soil and pebbles texture.

My goals for this project are....

1. Go out and take reference photos. Understand the subject im working with.
2. Achieve a photo real look and proper PBR set up.
3. Use photos as a base for sculpt.
4. Work as much in ZBrush as possible once my heightmap is created.
5. Render out in Marmoset 2.

With that photo real look in mind I went out this weekend and took photos for reference, as well as gathered reference online. Decided to go for a dirt that has movement, not a compact dirt. As well, I want to have a variety of pebbles and other debris throughout the texture to offset the dirt and move the eye around.

Reference Images



Progress Render

This first pass render is using a normal map, height map, and a flat albedo color.



Look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

Thanks.

rogelio

excellent way to work! It already looks like Dirt.

This is what I try to explain to a lot of people your most important passes are PBR settings and Normals. I already know this will look good at the end due to a well planned workflow.

JamieRIOT

Looking forward to how this turns out. Been reading up a little on PBR lately myself, it's definitely the way forward for realism in games.

josh_lynch

@ESFGames- Thanks! Textures will be coming soon enough .

@rogelio- Glad you like the workflow and that you think the read is there already!

@JamieRIOT- Cool!

Updates- Added more stones and varied the size of some stones. I also sunk more of them into the dirt to give them a more grounded and believable feel. As well, I added a first pass of twigs to the dirt.

Progress Render

Klockwork

Lookin' pretty good, Big Red! Make sure and vary up the sizes of your grass blades like in the upper right reference photo and watch how you cap off your blades of grass - right now they're rounded tubes, but you might want to fray the ends a little and vary up the thickness so they feel more dead and broken.

Awesome start man!

josh_lynch

@Klockwork- Thanks for the feedback! What do you think of the grass blades now?

This passs I added more defined twigs and wood debris, as well as some blades of grass.

Next pass I am going to do a little more debris rough up the stones that are there. As well as do first pass on diffuse.

luge

its looking pretty good so far, nice roughness and yet soft to break up the noise, good depth and variation in debris. and you said you'll be doing work on the diffuse? welp, I can't wait to see it.

luthyn

Looking amazing so far . Have you thought about adding in some height variation to the overall texture to make some parts sink in and some parts rise up? Just a thought. Keep going, I can't wait to see how this ends up!

josh_lynch

@luge- Thank you for the kind words.

@luthyn- I think you will see with this updated pass that their is more height variation now that the AO map is plugged in.

Additional debris added to the tile. Diffuse and spec pass. Looking at the photo ref I have everything is pretty bland with a lot of dirt or dust on top of it so I tried to keep that feel.

Look forward to thoughts.

luge

would love to see a bit more color to it, maybe make some stones a little more dark blue, and maybe add some drying up grass as well. but thats just my opinion. it looks great right now.

josh_lynch

Added more contrast and definition to the stones via albedo and roughness. Updated lighting.

Sebvhe

Looks really good !

However you should either add a few weeds or make the dirt look more dry/arid like your reference images.

rogelio

Yep looks great I agree with Sebvhe this looks more moist than the arid ref. Great process this thread should be put in the wiki to show a good process of making textures for PBR.

narticus

So which slots are you using in Marmoset? Just starting to learn about PBR myself. Is it just Displacement, Normal, Microsurface, and Albedo?

josh_lynch

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Really appreciate it.

@Sebvhe- I desaturated the dirt and brightened it a bit.

@rogelio- Wow thanks for the kind words. That would be awesome if this ended up in the Wiki.

@narticus- I am usingg Displacement, Normal, Albedo, Microsurface/Roughness, and Reflectivity.

Here is my latest render and breakdowns.

luge

its still looking kinda wet right now. not as much as before.

Rurouni Strife

I personally prefer a tad more brush. Not much, just a handfull more. Right now I see it as a bit of a boring composition.

On the technical side, looks good...did you bake some cavity into your diffuse map? Can't tell. As far as the Roughness and Spec Color go, I think the color is ok. The roughness of the dirt might be able to go darker? It does feel a bit wet tho that might be your lighting setup.

Great work overall. Presentation is also top notch!

LANKUS MAXIMUS

Awesome.

josh_lynch

So I have tweaked the albedo and roughness. The roughness is nearly black. I pulled a lot of saturation out of the abledo.

luge

its looking better. aside from that, i don't really have a comment.

josh_lynch

@Rurouni Strife- Thanks for the kind words. As far as your question I took the "Volume" layer from nDo2 Diffuse bake set and I clamped it and threw it in a mask as an adjustment layer to get color variation. I tried really hard to not just throw overlay maps, but instead use them in a way that affected colors across the albedo.

Thanks for all the feedback. I really wanted this thread at be a shared learning experience when I set out doing it. If you guys have any questions on how I did something please let me know.

josh_lynch

Adjusted albedo and lighting and reduced AO map strength in Marmo.

Joltya

Cool texture! I kind of want to know more about the background you used in these images though. Did you just make a backplate and add the shadow in photoshop or were you using some kind of cyc wall?

DWalker

The cylinder is nice, but it would be easier to spot obvious patterns in the tiles on a flat plane.

Dave Jr

After reading quixels write up on PBR... I had a few questions... then I saw this thread and your texture breakdown solved all of them - thank you and great texture

josh_lynch

@JoltZero- The background is something I have been using for a while, its a series of adjustment layers to give some movement and undulation to the surface. The shadow was baked out in Marmo and comped in.

@DWalker- When creating a texture I am checking tiling and consistency on a regular basis, both in ZBrush and in Photoshop. The cylinder is for presentation purposes for my portfolio to keep a consistent look.

@Dave Jr- Really glad you found help with this thread! Cant wait to see what you come up with.

Eric Chadwick

Added to the wiki. We don't have much on PBR yet, but here it is.
http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryRendering#Physically_Based_Rendering_.28PBR.29

Good texture Josh.