Oh man, just got off work. 8.5hr shift on a Friday...
Yesterday I modularised the open-walled structure properly. Tonight I am going to be sculpting some worn wood in Mudbox, then using the sculpt to create a compelling tiling wood texture I can use for the vast majority of the wood in the scene.
First time ever using Zbrush! I used some sculpting videos for advice and made a hi-poly plank. I duplicated, transformed and rotated the plank a few times in Max to make a square area, then used XNormal to bake the hi-poly group down onto a texture for normal and AO. Using the AO map as a starting point I made a specular map.
The diffuse is an extended picture, original source was CGTextures.
@Huw_Dawson Nice wood material you have there. UVs could be done better, but a bigger thing is you shouldn't shy away from adding more geometry, you could bevel some of your edges so they don't feel so sharp (unless you want them to feel sharp). By adding more geo, you won't affect performance.
First time posting really using any forum based website, but this challenge looks awesome! I would loved to get involved, but maybe next month. My first problem is texturing I have no idea how to apart from basics, literately make a UV map and add texture. Does anyone have a tutorial to explain it all to me like AO, displacements, etc.
Also I am not the best artist in the world but love modelling, any advise for that too? haha sorry to bombard with questions straight off the bat
@Robert_H First of all, you should look into PBR, which is a new style (method) of real-tome rendering. And UE4 uses it so I highly recommend looking it up. PBR uses 4 texture maps (albedo or base color, metalic, roughness and normal) and AO map is optional and it is not advised to put any AO info into the albedo or base color, you can put it separately in the engine. Next, you should look into baking normal maps from highpoly meshes, look into cages and things like that (xNormal is really good for baking) Then you should look into Substance Designer and Painter (or Quixel's NDo and dDo for material creation).
> Search those terms and you'll likely get what you need to start off learning.
@EpicBeardMan Thank you! I shall be looking into all of that and hopefully learn a lot of it. If I get far enough I will try this months challenge maybe just a shed or a couple props! Thanks again
@Nigete I definately like your shack better than mine, especially the roof. You have only one table inside though.
@amstl14 Show us your layout too (from above or so). From this angle looks good. I can nitpick about a missing table and an appearing box lid. Maybe the last booth looks a bit small.
I don't know about you guys, but I learnt something today (sculpting to get the ground done).
Next on todo list - trees and plants, lighting and the dreaded texturing.
Should a pile of planks be one object or a bunch of objects?
Should a pile of planks be one object or a bunch of objects?
So this is how I would (and going to) do it:
Look at the one thing, this scene uses repeatedly. That's right: wood planks. They are all over the place. They are used in the roofing, in the walls and on the ground.
It would make sense to create a good variety of planks, relatively simple meshes but some good texturing and sculpting on them. Finish those and have them wrapped on a texture that tiles horizontally and then.. use that toolbox of ready-to-go assets for everything. You can just take your finished wood planks and build your geometry with it, either in your 3D Software or directly in Unreal (although I'd advice against the latter because of performance issues, but then again, I'm not experienced enough with unreal to know how they handle draw calls etc.). You can also do some cool physics stuff that way and you're being modular and efficient with your texture space and draw calls.
Basically started the general blockout. I wont create geometry for each and every object in the scene, as I want to utilize various techniques when creating the actual assets. What I'm doing now basically serves the purpose of identifying the shapes and thinking about the workflows, I'm going to use. I also did a quick export of everything and dumped it into Unreal to get the proportions right.
I'm pretty satisfied with how the entire building overall looks. Obviously I'm going to go in and do fine detail modeling, or I may just texture that through Substance Designer.
Shot of the interior of the building. I left spaces between the planks so I can place small grass growing through to further push its old age.
I built the building at a slant to making it look a bit more dilapidated and falling apart. I think the textures will make it look twice as good.
I added a little something to the ceiling of the building; a sort of attic. It's planks held up by a lip on the sides that will hold various small boxes or whatever I find fits the style. Fishing tackle boxes? Fishing poles?
My work so far. I've only finished what I'm calling Building 01, the others are rough block ins. I'm really satisfied with the work and project so far Would LOVE critiques.
I get weird spacing artifacts when using a couple of brushes, most noticeable when using a square alpha. This shouldn't happen at 1.62mil points for this particular object, at least it doesn't seem to happen when I watch other people using the same brush at similar resolutions.
I get weird spacing artifacts when using a couple of brushes, most noticeable when using a square alpha. This shouldn't happen at 1.62mil points for this particular object, at least it doesn't seem to happen when I watch other people using the same brush at similar resolutions.
Any idea why this is happening?
Do you have the same square size in your model ?
Avoid rectangle when you divide un zbrush.
Rago @ That wood looks pretty interesting - lots of details. I don't think the reference called for this type of wood though but I think it looks great to do it in your own style. Should turn out looking nice.
I haven't updated my work in a while so I thought I'd post something. Not sure if I'll get to do everything that it's in the scene in time.
Been working on the wood lately. A lot of it is just placeholder textures and blockouts. I've only really worked into the shack that's closest to the camera so far. And I will redo the texture on the barrels later. I thought it would be a good idea to make the wood look a little wet since this is an environment in a swampy area and those areas tend to get plenty of rain sporadically.
I get weird spacing artifacts when using a couple of brushes, most noticeable when using a square alpha. This shouldn't happen at 1.62mil points for this particular object, at least it doesn't seem to happen when I watch other people using the same brush at similar resolutions.
Any idea why this is happening?
try to zremesh the box before sculpting on it. Then divide it .
@mettigel Looking good! I like the attention to detail you are putting in your props!
@Devon M Nice progress looks about ready for texturing. Check the height on your roof I think the pillars are putting it up a little too high proportionately . In the concept the 3 main pieces of the building are all at distinctly separate heights.
@Cloudydays Textures are looking really promising. I like your idea about the moisture of the area affecting the wood! I'll take that into account as I refine my own textures
A quick update on my piece. I've really been using this project to get familiar with Unity and the whole process of sticking my artwork into a game engine. Textures are still very rough but I wanted to get everything generally in place. My intent is to go with a very low poly and mostly diffuse/handpainted style.
Love the fact you're streaming. Please keep it up, I'll be watching
Just got Internet back after moving to another city. Everything is ready, I'll be picking up work again and also try to give some input to the other stuff you guys ahve been doing. Just wanted to check back in quickly.
I get weird spacing artifacts when using a couple of brushes, most noticeable when using a square alpha. This shouldn't happen at 1.62mil points for this particular object, at least it doesn't seem to happen when I watch other people using the same brush at similar resolutions.
Any idea why this is happening?
Maybe check the Stroke menu, lazy mouse sub menu. There you have a Lazy Step slider, maybe the value is too high, put it somewhere like 0.1 or 0.025. If lazy mouse is not activated, you can activate it and maybe it will orrect the problem with a good lazy step value.
The standard brush kinda has the same problem, the lazy radius is set to 1 so you don't feel the lazy mouse, but the step value is too high.
Hey guys! I'm not home and so I'm using a laptop that doesn't handle UE4 (core M and onboard GPU) so I did what I could and when I got tired I just assigned some materials basically taking the textures from cgtextures.. Also couldn't even use crazybump and whatnot so it does look a bit shabby xD Some UV issues still (easy to correct but I don't want atm) and the whole feel is completely wrong since I can't play around with fog and the lightning gets the computer REALLY slow
But anyhow, here's my quick attemp at it. I guess September's challenge is arriving so I'll have some fun but still I wanted to finish this one, I might return with more progress.
Notice: There will not be a Monthly Noob Challenge for the Month of September due to my busy schedule this month. I have school fast approaching and I need time to prepare for that as well as handle some other tasks. I will see you all in October for the continuation of the challenge. :]
Replies
Yesterday I modularised the open-walled structure properly. Tonight I am going to be sculpting some worn wood in Mudbox, then using the sculpt to create a compelling tiling wood texture I can use for the vast majority of the wood in the scene.
Texturing all this will be my greatest challenge....
My block-in for the night. Slowly getting at it
First time ever using Zbrush! I used some sculpting videos for advice and made a hi-poly plank. I duplicated, transformed and rotated the plank a few times in Max to make a square area, then used XNormal to bake the hi-poly group down onto a texture for normal and AO. Using the AO map as a starting point I made a specular map.
The diffuse is an extended picture, original source was CGTextures.
SUPER happy how this has turned out.
Let Unity bake some lighting data. I like the effect so I'll probably stick with it as long as it doesn't crash my GPU with all the lightmaps.
Cheers!
First time posting really using any forum based website, but this challenge looks awesome! I would loved to get involved, but maybe next month. My first problem is texturing I have no idea how to apart from basics, literately make a UV map and add texture. Does anyone have a tutorial to explain it all to me like AO, displacements, etc.
Also I am not the best artist in the world but love modelling, any advise for that too? haha sorry to bombard with questions straight off the bat
> Search those terms and you'll likely get what you need to start off learning.
Cheers!
@amstl14 Show us your layout too (from above or so). From this angle looks good. I can nitpick about a missing table and an appearing box lid. Maybe the last booth looks a bit small.
@mettigel Looks really neat.
As to how I'm doing:
I don't know about you guys, but I learnt something today (sculpting to get the ground done).
Next on todo list - trees and plants, lighting and the dreaded texturing.
Should a pile of planks be one object or a bunch of objects?
So this is how I would (and going to) do it:
Look at the one thing, this scene uses repeatedly. That's right: wood planks. They are all over the place. They are used in the roofing, in the walls and on the ground.
It would make sense to create a good variety of planks, relatively simple meshes but some good texturing and sculpting on them. Finish those and have them wrapped on a texture that tiles horizontally and then.. use that toolbox of ready-to-go assets for everything. You can just take your finished wood planks and build your geometry with it, either in your 3D Software or directly in Unreal (although I'd advice against the latter because of performance issues, but then again, I'm not experienced enough with unreal to know how they handle draw calls etc.). You can also do some cool physics stuff that way and you're being modular and efficient with your texture space and draw calls.
Basically started the general blockout. I wont create geometry for each and every object in the scene, as I want to utilize various techniques when creating the actual assets. What I'm doing now basically serves the purpose of identifying the shapes and thinking about the workflows, I'm going to use. I also did a quick export of everything and dumped it into Unreal to get the proportions right.
@mettigel, the roughness values on your props seem a bit too low, i.e. the wood and the tires are way too shiny :P
I'm pretty satisfied with how the entire building overall looks. Obviously I'm going to go in and do fine detail modeling, or I may just texture that through Substance Designer.
Shot of the interior of the building. I left spaces between the planks so I can place small grass growing through to further push its old age.
I built the building at a slant to making it look a bit more dilapidated and falling apart. I think the textures will make it look twice as good.
I added a little something to the ceiling of the building; a sort of attic. It's planks held up by a lip on the sides that will hold various small boxes or whatever I find fits the style. Fishing tackle boxes? Fishing poles?
My work so far. I've only finished what I'm calling Building 01, the others are rough block ins. I'm really satisfied with the work and project so far
I get weird spacing artifacts when using a couple of brushes, most noticeable when using a square alpha. This shouldn't happen at 1.62mil points for this particular object, at least it doesn't seem to happen when I watch other people using the same brush at similar resolutions.
Any idea why this is happening?
Nice stuff out there,
I'll begin this challenge a little bit late but here we go !
Do you have the same square size in your model ?
Avoid rectangle when you divide un zbrush.
I haven't updated my work in a while so I thought I'd post something. Not sure if I'll get to do everything that it's in the scene in time.
Been working on the wood lately. A lot of it is just placeholder textures and blockouts. I've only really worked into the shack that's closest to the camera so far. And I will redo the texture on the barrels later. I thought it would be a good idea to make the wood look a little wet since this is an environment in a swampy area and those areas tend to get plenty of rain sporadically.
@Devon M Nice progress looks about ready for texturing. Check the height on your roof I think the pillars are putting it up a little too high proportionately . In the concept the 3 main pieces of the building are all at distinctly separate heights.
@Cloudydays Textures are looking really promising. I like your idea about the moisture of the area affecting the wood! I'll take that into account as I refine my own textures
A quick update on my piece. I've really been using this project to get familiar with Unity and the whole process of sticking my artwork into a game engine. Textures are still very rough but I wanted to get everything generally in place. My intent is to go with a very low poly and mostly diffuse/handpainted style.
Love the fact you're streaming. Please keep it up, I'll be watching
Just got Internet back after moving to another city. Everything is ready, I'll be picking up work again and also try to give some input to the other stuff you guys ahve been doing. Just wanted to check back in quickly.
Maybe check the Stroke menu, lazy mouse sub menu. There you have a Lazy Step slider, maybe the value is too high, put it somewhere like 0.1 or 0.025. If lazy mouse is not activated, you can activate it and maybe it will orrect the problem with a good lazy step value.
The standard brush kinda has the same problem, the lazy radius is set to 1 so you don't feel the lazy mouse, but the step value is too high.
Damn. I'm not sure I can do this but I AM going to try.
But anyhow, here's my quick attemp at it. I guess September's challenge is arriving so I'll have some fun but still I wanted to finish this one, I might return with more progress.
Maybe wait for the guy who start this thread to post the new September challenge ?
Yes, I second this.
This gives us an opportunity to spend more time on the august challenge and actually finish something. I'm fine with it
For me, this is great motivation and pratice.
http://www.twitch.tv/dvids/