Cave Entrance
Hi, everyone
This is my first project working with sculpting and game engine software. I have some very rudimentary knowledge of 3D rendering as an intermediate level user of Rhino3D and a novice user of Vray. I'm going with a cave scene to train, pick up general skills and hopefully find what part of the process I want to eventually fine-tune. Any comment helps, thanks!
HELLO, THE BULK OF THE TEXT BEYOND THIS POINT IS MOSTLY SELF-REFLECTING DIARY TYPE TEXT. IT HELPS ME LEARN MORE ABOUT MY PROJECT AND IDEAS TO DO THIS. IT ALSO HELPS ME FOCUS ON ARTICULATING MY THOUGHTS MORE CLEARLY KNOWING IT'S OUT IN THE OPEN. I HOPE IT'S NOT TOO DISRUPTIVE AND PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FOLLOW MY THOUGHTS, THAT WOULD ALSO BE VERY COOL.
I'd like to introduce myself to anyone interested. I'm a graduate of an undergrad architecture program and well, "it wasn't right for me". I started saving some money droning away at an office. I wasn't unhappy but it was kind of depressing. I had no drive or interest working and learning in the industry - I was stagnant. In retrospect, no job at the bottom of the ladder is probably all that great haha. Alas, I felt in my bones that architecture was the wrong path. I did some solo travel trying to escape this insecurity. It worked but I eventually had to come back. Although, maybe my travels blew out the dense air in my head because I felt relaxed. And in my haze of tranquility I acknowledged my passion for visual storytelling in the cg realm. Now, I am testing the truth of this epiphany by training. let's see if I have the mettle.
I am starting my training with a cave scene. I feel that cave scenes are wonderful opportunities to be hyper-atmospheric. I'd say it has something to do with that light swallowing darkness and the often wondrous scenery around it.
These are some of the photos I've been pouring over for visual reference.
Here are some assets I created in Zbrush. Retopology was done with zremesher or dynamesh. The UV maps were done in 3D coat and then I baked the textures from the hi-res .obj to the retopod lo-res .obj with Topogun 2.
I wanted to get a higher level of texture clarity near the entrance of the cave because the player would potentially wander through it. I couldn't think of a proper way to do this however. Instead what I did was cut the UVs so that the area around the entrance has its own UV islands (i think thats what they are called) and inflated them on the UV (sheet?) which is why they appear red in 3D coat to indicate compression? I applied the rock color texture over the UV islands and then blurred at the edges to make the seam less apparent. This felt like a very shoddy solution. I tried texture painting in Zbrush but the results turned out looking very blurry.
I'm currently using Marmoset Toolbag to quickly test out my texture maps. the lighting presets are very nice. Would love to learn how to control lighting in UE4 to simulate similar conditions. the texture maps seem to render more crisply too. Or is it the spec and gloss settings? hmmm.
Blocking in pieces in UE4. I would have started with a concept sketch but I was far too eager to get started in 3D. trees are typical free models from speedtree just for blocking purposes.
I feel my control of texture. normal etc. maps is most unwieldy. I'll definitely continue lessons here for my next step. I'm very interested in some workflow insight on texturing objects with multiple surface types. For example this rock face in the video game Ryse: The Son of Rome (A beautifully realized world). I can just slightly grasp how such textures could be made. I am thinking within Zbrush, create a separate sub tool and apply mossy texture on that and then overlay it on the base rock sub-tool and texture the two separately. I am very unconfident that this is the best or even standard way of approaching this challenge. I am certain it has more to do with specular maps and texture painting techniques. I will have to expand my knowledge on those two topics.
These two skills are important to me at the moment because I am beginning to think about the interface between each asset in the scene. I think it's a good idea to be keenly attentive to the way objects seam into each other.
This is my first project working with sculpting and game engine software. I have some very rudimentary knowledge of 3D rendering as an intermediate level user of Rhino3D and a novice user of Vray. I'm going with a cave scene to train, pick up general skills and hopefully find what part of the process I want to eventually fine-tune. Any comment helps, thanks!
HELLO, THE BULK OF THE TEXT BEYOND THIS POINT IS MOSTLY SELF-REFLECTING DIARY TYPE TEXT. IT HELPS ME LEARN MORE ABOUT MY PROJECT AND IDEAS TO DO THIS. IT ALSO HELPS ME FOCUS ON ARTICULATING MY THOUGHTS MORE CLEARLY KNOWING IT'S OUT IN THE OPEN. I HOPE IT'S NOT TOO DISRUPTIVE AND PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FOLLOW MY THOUGHTS, THAT WOULD ALSO BE VERY COOL.
I'd like to introduce myself to anyone interested. I'm a graduate of an undergrad architecture program and well, "it wasn't right for me". I started saving some money droning away at an office. I wasn't unhappy but it was kind of depressing. I had no drive or interest working and learning in the industry - I was stagnant. In retrospect, no job at the bottom of the ladder is probably all that great haha. Alas, I felt in my bones that architecture was the wrong path. I did some solo travel trying to escape this insecurity. It worked but I eventually had to come back. Although, maybe my travels blew out the dense air in my head because I felt relaxed. And in my haze of tranquility I acknowledged my passion for visual storytelling in the cg realm. Now, I am testing the truth of this epiphany by training. let's see if I have the mettle.
I am starting my training with a cave scene. I feel that cave scenes are wonderful opportunities to be hyper-atmospheric. I'd say it has something to do with that light swallowing darkness and the often wondrous scenery around it.
These are some of the photos I've been pouring over for visual reference.
Here are some assets I created in Zbrush. Retopology was done with zremesher or dynamesh. The UV maps were done in 3D coat and then I baked the textures from the hi-res .obj to the retopod lo-res .obj with Topogun 2.
I wanted to get a higher level of texture clarity near the entrance of the cave because the player would potentially wander through it. I couldn't think of a proper way to do this however. Instead what I did was cut the UVs so that the area around the entrance has its own UV islands (i think thats what they are called) and inflated them on the UV (sheet?) which is why they appear red in 3D coat to indicate compression? I applied the rock color texture over the UV islands and then blurred at the edges to make the seam less apparent. This felt like a very shoddy solution. I tried texture painting in Zbrush but the results turned out looking very blurry.
I'm currently using Marmoset Toolbag to quickly test out my texture maps. the lighting presets are very nice. Would love to learn how to control lighting in UE4 to simulate similar conditions. the texture maps seem to render more crisply too. Or is it the spec and gloss settings? hmmm.
Blocking in pieces in UE4. I would have started with a concept sketch but I was far too eager to get started in 3D. trees are typical free models from speedtree just for blocking purposes.
I feel my control of texture. normal etc. maps is most unwieldy. I'll definitely continue lessons here for my next step. I'm very interested in some workflow insight on texturing objects with multiple surface types. For example this rock face in the video game Ryse: The Son of Rome (A beautifully realized world). I can just slightly grasp how such textures could be made. I am thinking within Zbrush, create a separate sub tool and apply mossy texture on that and then overlay it on the base rock sub-tool and texture the two separately. I am very unconfident that this is the best or even standard way of approaching this challenge. I am certain it has more to do with specular maps and texture painting techniques. I will have to expand my knowledge on those two topics.
These two skills are important to me at the moment because I am beginning to think about the interface between each asset in the scene. I think it's a good idea to be keenly attentive to the way objects seam into each other.
Replies
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130038