Stone Steps Modelling Question

zekio309

Hello All,

I am trying to recreate this picture for my portfolio:



the question I have is how would you recommend I recreate the stairs...
1. model out the stairs in a spiral pattern?
2. model each step seperately and place them accordingly?

Currently Ive started a basic stair piece in zbrush as shown below:



Any good ideas on how to give it the look of moss growing on it and having it look moist on the moss?

thanks again for any help

JedTheKrampus

I'd recommend that you see how far you can go modeling those the "old school" way without a sculpting program. You'll be able to get more texture resolution out of the steps if most of them aren't uniquely UV'd, plus you'll be able to work faster and iterate more on each step if you're mostly polymodeling rather than sculpting.

zekio309

Thank you for the response JedTheKrampus.

I figured it would be best to start in Zbrush but I suppose I should focus more on getting a good strong poly Base first. I will try to post a picture once I get a base down.

should I keep these kind of posts under the portfolio forum or just go from here?

still a little new to polycount.

Again thanks for the feedback

Eric Chadwick

If you're asking about technique, this is a good section. If you're asking for style critique, the Showcase & Critique is a better place. But you can mix the two in Showcase as well.

Here are some stone steps I made, might give you some ideas.
http://ericchadwick.com/img/farmhouse_stairs.jpg

A test scene made by duplicating and rotating the stairs in UDK.


The moss is a separate tiling texture, and I used vertex color to add it to the rock. We have some good resources here about how to do that.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/MultiTexture

We also have some good tutorials here about how to make stones.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting#Rock_and_Stone

zekio309

Thank you for the links EricChadwick,

I will be definitly checking out the multitexture and rock links because I really want to sell that wet moss on the rocks.