[CE] Beach diorama
polycounter lvl 13
Starting a thread for my new scene, which is inspired by this concept:
I haven't done much yet, just blocked out the small scene and put some basic materials on. I've also done a first rock, which didn't turn out perfect but will hopefully work as a prop in the back of the scene. The rest of the rocks will be flatter at the top like in the concept. I will probably be doing a few iterations of rocks so I have a few to choose from. Also a good opportunity to try the new dDo. (:
Only the rock in the upper corner is mine, the rest are placeholders.
Lots of work left but it's gonna be fun. Here's what I have so far:
Since you can't do 3D water in CE (as far as I know), I'm planning to do a rocky outer wall, I think that's going to work just as well.
Feedback always appreciated!
I haven't done much yet, just blocked out the small scene and put some basic materials on. I've also done a first rock, which didn't turn out perfect but will hopefully work as a prop in the back of the scene. The rest of the rocks will be flatter at the top like in the concept. I will probably be doing a few iterations of rocks so I have a few to choose from. Also a good opportunity to try the new dDo. (:
Only the rock in the upper corner is mine, the rest are placeholders.
Lots of work left but it's gonna be fun. Here's what I have so far:
Since you can't do 3D water in CE (as far as I know), I'm planning to do a rocky outer wall, I think that's going to work just as well.
Feedback always appreciated!
Replies
rock diffuse is very good, but moss looks very soft.
How did you made water pool ?
One for the land and the other one for the water. The water one would have a water shader applied. It seems to me like it would work perfectly fine, unless for whatever reason it can't be done in CE, I haven't used it so I wouldn't know.
Looks cool btw! Good luck with it
The water is simply a WaterVolume. I added a bit of direction to it so it flows towards the beach. Also just added a bit of fog to fake depth.
Before
After
ed_3D: Yes, I've tried that and multiple other ways to stay as true to the concept as possible (particles converted to geometry for use in CE, vertex deformation for the water, use a water shader for a mesh (that crashes the editor), use fog for depth and watervolume for surface, etc). But I simply can't find a way to get good looking moving water so I settled with this. The beach is geometry though, like in your pic. I'm going to sculpt a few textures and blend them together using vertex colors.
This^
The concept looks really cool because of that "cut" through the sand and water.
Kind of like Scott's dioramas, they wouldn't be nearly as cool if they didn't have broken wood and piping sticking out of the sides.
Awesome ref though, looking forward to this developing. Looking nice so far.
Gannon: You're definitely right. I'll keep that in mind for the next few rocks. I'm probably making a few smaller ones I can use all around the scene as well.
You should just be able to use a gradient for opacity/transparency on a secondary UV channel. As for the material, use animated normals or displacement if you want it to be realtime. If not, maybe sculpt and bake the waves.
Maybe it can't be done in CE3. Perhaps an expert will chime in and help achieve the desired effect
Otherwise you might as well just not cut anything off and do a full beach scene instead.
But that's just my opinion! Your way with the rocks surrounding it sounds cool too, good luck with how ever you decide to do it
ed_3D: Maybe you're right. Personally I like the idea of having a 1 minute long clip of the scene with some cozy ambient sounds and a few shots of the environment, and I'm afraid static water would feel off-putting.
I remember seeing a script on here for Maya where you could modify shapes using curves. That could be used to make cool waves if I end up using geometry like you guys are suggesting. Can't remember what it was called though.
Thanks for the ideas and feedback everyone. (:
You could use a collection of meshes(with vertex alpha) to fake the depth and movement. I set it up really fast with two default cubes in engine and two materials. One uses the Vertex Deformation option the Illum shader comes with, while the other is still. With a little tweaking, vertex alpha(kind of like s6 showed), I think this could be an option.
Another method uses the actual WaterVolume shader for the vertex deformation, movement, foam, depth, etc. The major issue with this is the separation from the deformed plane and the fog plane. You can see what I mean with the black lines, of course it's not always that bad since it's in motion. Having the volume surrounded by something hides it too.
I hate to use my stuff as an example too, but I think using the WaterVolume, combined with particles and extra planes, is a good option. Two gifs here: In motion and individual pieces
Hope these give you some ideas :thumbup:
As for the second approach, leleuxart, I'm not quite sure how that is different from what I have? I won't help me get the water "3D", so to speak.
Moving on, I've done some more work. I have sculpted 6 different rocks in several sizes that I can scale and rotate around to make some formations. I was struggling a little bit to get the sharpness of the edges like in the reference right, but at the same time I think too sharp will cause some ugly aliasing. Either way, I think I can make it look cool with some patches of grass growing through the cracks and at the bottom, so I will get started on that next. There's one more rock shape I want to make, but I'm getting a little sick of rocks atm.
And while I'm at it, does anyone know if it's possible to make a gradient material in Maya that doesn't depend on UVs? I want to make one to use in PS as texture base.
Sorry for english, hope its clear what I wanted to say.
Cheers.
vertex colors?
scene looks great
Here's a pic. I haven't applied Mr Significant's feedback yet.
I made some grass. Turned out alright for the first try but something I want to is improve color and size variation, especially color because I don't think it looks dry enough for a beach. Will mess around a bit more and also make more patches. Feedback welcome.
Here's a couple of more with a first pass of grass in the scene. I think I got pretty good color variation, where the grass is greener at the bottom and more dry and yellow-ish at the top, but I think I need some more size variation going on, but that's easy in the engine. I will probably do another plant before I move on to the palm trees. C&C welcome as always.
Sorry for the shadows, when I make my own trees I probably won't make as many leaves that occludes the ground.
Great idea, I think I'll do that.
Nothing much for today, I made a puddle decal but it's hard to get the blending right. I want it to reflect the sun, which it does, but... yeah. Any thoughts?
I'll go ahead and sculpt the planks at the front next, shouldn't be as much of a problem.
C&C welcome.
Look more closely at the concept, the wood grain has a lot more splitting on the boat there. Don't be afraid to exaggerate things, and also, don't be afraid to use real life references of old beat up boats of a similar style to truly get a feel for how the wood grain looks as it ages, where sediment might collect, how the wood is likely to split... it will help a lot.
Also, alphas! Make simple, custom alphas and combine them with useful brushes (such as the layer brush) to get the results you want.
Never try to guess things, always use good ref. :thumbup: Seeing the knot on the wood for the side of the boat throws me off as well. Boats like these are made with a series of planks, so the knot make it look strange. Any knots would be localized to a portion of a plank.
I think it would've been easier to build this thing starting from planks, to be honest. Would make the sculpting WAY easier as well.
Edit: Oh damn I didn't know it was you Rex, what happened to your UltimaRage account?
Yes, I've noticed. That's part of what I've been struggling with. I have been looking for tutorials on how to make splinters and old wood, but haven't found anything valuable, so I've been mostly experimenting and looking at other peoples models. Do you have any advice?
Yeah, most of the details are actually initially made with alphas. The cuts is a wood alpha that I spammed all over the mesh, and then used trim dynamic to reduce the amount of it. The wood knot is also mostly an alpha. Good feedback on that btw.
That's what I started to do, but didn't continue with for two reasons. First, if you look closely at the concept you don't really see any plank "borders" where the surface is mostly intact, so it looks more like the boat is carved out from a huge piece of wood. But I agree planks make more sense because thats how boats usually are made.
The second reason is silhouette, with the planks I got an ugly blocky look, which I didn't like at all, as you can see below compared to my current HP. Any ideas how to fix?
Side view of what I started with:
Just subdivide the hull of the smooth ship into planks, and separate them out. You don't actually have to piece it together from individual planks.
http://gsenorway.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/wooden-boat.jpg
For the wood splinters, just get good alphas. Snake hook with a dotted alpha works fantastic for sharp wooden splintery edges too.
I'm stupid, boats are built with planks extending from the front to the end, not with several planks like I did. That should sort out the silhouette. Starting over.
Also do you think a cool look could be achieved by simply making a number of small splinter meshes that I can use across the boat? Sounds like a reasonable technique to me.
Sounds like a good use for the insert mesh brush. Personally I prefer using brushes with alphas, especially with details so small that they will be barely noticeable during a bake. Sounds like too much work for too little result, but this also depends on how big you intend the splinter pieces to be.
Experiment with multiple methods and see which works best for you, and also what helps you achieve the results you want. A lot can be done with a hard square alpha along with a good brush.
Keep the good work!
What do you guys think?
Next up is probably a decal to add some more variation to the sand, I'm thinking a sand decal with pebbles. Then I'll move on to the trees.
C&C very much welcome.
As for the sand, the materials are PBR so I'm not sure what I can do about the concrete look. Any ideas? Also the material is already pretty crazy so I can't actually add more displacement since the beach stones already are POMd.
Thanks for the crits guys.
Edit:
Good call about the color, I can definitely brighten up the sand diffuse.
also it's a shame about the whole 3d water thing... the borders take some of the charm out of the original idea
And yeah I agree about the borders. That's one of the things that caught my attention with this concept.
What do you think?
I made the water rock while I'm figuring out how I'll approach the palm trees. Took another couple of screens while I was at it. Hope you like. (:
Bokeh ftw!