World Machine for High Quality Alphas
polycounter lvl 6
Hi Guys,
Since using World Machine for the past year, I've discovered how powerful it can be for generating alphas. Not for terrain, but for environmental surface details.
Typically it's thought of for terrain generation. Indeed, it does a good job at that. But digging deeper you'll find it's a powerful procedural noise generator with noise control options far beyond that of Substance Designer.
I recorded two short videos that explain a nice procedural crack maker node I created inside World Machine. It's rendered out then applied to a plane in ZBrush to show the detail. I could've subdivided the plane a little more but you get the idea.
I use alphas generated from World Machine to help make ZBrush stuff like this:
Try it Out
- The macro requires World Machine. The demo is available here: http://www.world-machine.com/download.php. This version will only render up to 512x512, but that should be adequate resolution for a ZBrush or Mudbox alpha.
- The Crack Maker Macro is available here. After you install World Machine and run it, a World Machine Documents folder is created in your Documents folder (Mac not supported). Save the macro to the Documents/World Machine Documents/Macros folder and access it via the instructions in the video.
- The biggest downside to World Machine noise generation is that the result is never seamless. Not a huge deal, but I've bugged the author about this and he's mentioned it's on the to-do list.
- If Substance Designer would revamp their standard perlin and voronoi noise generators to have deep controls similar to WM, that would be incredibly powerful... hint hint.
Since using World Machine for the past year, I've discovered how powerful it can be for generating alphas. Not for terrain, but for environmental surface details.
Typically it's thought of for terrain generation. Indeed, it does a good job at that. But digging deeper you'll find it's a powerful procedural noise generator with noise control options far beyond that of Substance Designer.
I recorded two short videos that explain a nice procedural crack maker node I created inside World Machine. It's rendered out then applied to a plane in ZBrush to show the detail. I could've subdivided the plane a little more but you get the idea.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Mx9XMnLBg"]World Machine to Zbrush Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXJv6W00lIc"]World Machine to Zbrush Part 2 - YouTube[/ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Mx9XMnLBg"]World Machine to Zbrush Part 1 - YouTube[/ame][ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXJv6W00lIc"]World Machine to Zbrush Part 2 - YouTube[/ame]
I use alphas generated from World Machine to help make ZBrush stuff like this:
Try it Out
- The macro requires World Machine. The demo is available here: http://www.world-machine.com/download.php. This version will only render up to 512x512, but that should be adequate resolution for a ZBrush or Mudbox alpha.
- The Crack Maker Macro is available here. After you install World Machine and run it, a World Machine Documents folder is created in your Documents folder (Mac not supported). Save the macro to the Documents/World Machine Documents/Macros folder and access it via the instructions in the video.
- The biggest downside to World Machine noise generation is that the result is never seamless. Not a huge deal, but I've bugged the author about this and he's mentioned it's on the to-do list.
- If Substance Designer would revamp their standard perlin and voronoi noise generators to have deep controls similar to WM, that would be incredibly powerful... hint hint.
Replies
Thanks!