Methods for creating huge cliffs (low poly)

Oro

Hello all,

So I browsed the tech talk for this subject but only found this http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=154654 which wasn't really answered and the link posted had died.

I am trying to create cliffs with character that I can re-use via scaling/rotating to place around the 'boundaries' of my scene.

I have come across a few ways of approaching it but I'm not sure which is the better.

I have linked two ways I was thinking of going about it and the scene I am creating. I would also be interested in knowing if the examples I have given would be classed as bad geometry.

Any advice on this is more than welcome.

EDIT: Added sketch-work, might help you see what I'm trying to achieve, very rough sketch sorry.

loggie24

My first thoughts would be 2 high-res tileables with blending to minimalize repetitiveness. Sculpting and creating unique UV wouldn't fare well with huge assets. If you have any possibility to use something like a unified detail map like we have in CRYENGINE it could work though. Would need to know more about the engine you are using.

Eric Chadwick

Some ideas here, should help.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting#Rock_and_Stone
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

Oro

@Eric Thank you

@loggie At the moment Im just building in Maya but will be moving it into UE4 most likely (this is a personal project). I will also be attempting vertex painting/(texture blending?) but this is my first time with it and so am reading up etc. I planned to use this method for the custom terrain (ground) and have cliffs surrounding it. I want them to be very stylized/cartoon and I will be hand painting them, there seem to be so many ways of making cliffs I'm lost in my options. I would also prefer to avoid sculpting as I find it much hard to create a stylized looked, and am simply not as confident in it.

I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to maybe hand-paint a tileable cliff texture first, put it on a plane, place edges and play with the verts to match to textures recesses and extrusions?

Eric Chadwick

Oro wrote: »

I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to maybe hand-paint a tileable cliff texture first, put it on a plane, place edges and play with the verts to match to textures recesses and extrusions?

That's certainly do-able. In my experience though, it's often better to sculpt a full cliff surface, as a large rock with all sides sculpted. Then you can rotate the finished asset multiple ways when placing it in the level, which hides the repetition better than using a single extruded texture.

Sculpting in a stylized way is a bit harder, as you probably want a specific painterly style. Requires you to think like a painter. Some examples:

Fanny Vergne:
http://fafart.blogspot.fr/p/tutorial.html
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125737

Also see Arif Pribadi's tutorial
http://arifcreations.com/blog/2012/01/21/tileable-rock-texture-in-zbrush/