Loving the brightened skylight. Is all the foliage static/baked or do you have some of it set to moveable? I have having a heck of a time getting the lighting on my foliage to look right. I am currently using the foliage shader and it looks ok. Just wondering what you lighting setup is.
Everything is fully dynamic in the scene Its just a very simple vegetation shader with a few color tweak options.
John Baxter Thanks! Cool! I would want to live near one as well! I have distance field shadows and AO in the scene but not sure Iv'e heard about DFGI yet, I can look it up
Here are some new images, if nothing big needs to be changed I think this will be the final one
Some buffer samples, detail, base color, spec and roughness
The assets that were used to create the scene, the moss is painted with vertex paint in- editor. There are also color variation tweaks for everything so from these I could create brown variants and so on all from a single base asset.
Here all the assets are just thrown into a starter level and I splashed the 3 different terrain materials around just to show them, nothing fancy
I like the lighter shadows, but some of the vegetation like the ferns seems self-illuminating now, detaching them from the scene. I'd rather go with more indirect light if that's possible.
I wasnt able to get GI working at all for some reason, I tuned down the distancefield AO a lot since it made most of the canopys black, but when I did that some of the plants in some angles got more translucent and appear a little less grounded but I kinda liked the overall feeling so I went with it. I can see if I can bring back a little of it
Its acutally a rowan tree, We have a lot of them here in Sweden and they tend to grow all around in in the forests so I kind of went with it for a filler tree
But they are similar.
The bark was just a really quick sculpt and I was mostly after just forms, not worrying about detail really.
I did the major shapes with the standard brush then went in with the clay buildup with a square alpha, refined some crevices with the ORB crack brush and dam standard.
The bark structure is just really quickly sculpted with the flake brush with a square and noisy alpha
Really nice work on this scene.... everything looks really nicely done...
My main critique would be to have more colour variation on leaves, dried edges with yellowish and brownish tones... that could help to connect a little bit more, ground and ferns and minor plants... i think some general gradients will help on the leaves reading, specially on ferns
So far, one of the best forest scenes i have seen... excellent job!
@_Kratos_ Thanks! I'll see if I get arouund to it another time maybe Or implement it in future projects, starting to move on from this project but I will fix some smaller stuff this weekend
@macoll Thanks! Nothing I can really talk about unfortunately without being at risk for some corporate flame :P
@pixelpatron there are some basic asset/ library breakdown further up the page but I till try to add some more in depth breakdowns as well when I have the time
@Arkaria Thanks a lot! Yeah I'm going to tweak the bird song track to fade in and out more so that it doesnt feel like theres a bird sitting on the camera...
Thanks!
Made an attempt to ground everything a little more again and updated the images
Too bad the tree canopy's get a little too dark for my personal taste but I think that overall it all blends together better, no way of controlling the distance field AO based on height, which would have been kind of nice for this situation
Now I will focus on trying to reduce compression damage to my video and then call this one done
This looks fantastic! I lived in the redwoods along the north coast of California for several years, and this captures the feel very well.
I do have one critique, though:
At the moment, everything looks very yellow and there are very few of the bright highlights that are actually hitting white. I think this is a case where the lighting and post processing are producing some weird tones that should be fairly easy to fix.
I did a quick levels adjustment to show you what I'm talking about. You may not want to go quite as cool as these examples, but I think moving the lighting and post processing to a more cool scheme will help the image quality considerably.
Thanks! its funny, I actually just realized that myself and found that I had forgotten an old scene tint that was quite yellow from some time ago and I swapped it towards blue but keeping the more yellow-y sunlight as it was.
I just re-uploaded the images Maybe its a little too yellow still? Maybe trying to boost the highlights in post could help as well
I see your trunk has unique detail, but is obviously quite tall. Do you blend these with a tiling bark texture, and if so do you mind sharing your approach to this?
Yes, it is a uniquely sculpted base thats then blended with a tiling texture using vertex color that I paint where I want the tiling texture to blend in. I do this step inside Maya so its already done when I import it in-engine.
I blend all the different texture maps with the vertex color Hope that helps!
Yes, it is a uniquely sculpted base thats then blended with a tiling texture using vertex color that I paint where I want the tiling texture to blend in. I do this step inside Maya so its already done when I import it in-engine.
I blend all the different texture maps with the vertex color Hope that helps!
So do you UV map the base in such a way that the higher part flares out so it tiles from 0-1 like the following image:
Is the texel density difference be a big deal?
Or do you do multiple UV sets, or something else?
Sorry if I'm being thick, I have to tackle some trees soon, and just figuring out which workflow to use for the bases.
Can you post a breakdown of your tree process? I'm more visual I'm trying to imagine how the sculpted bark details don't end up clashing with the bark details from the tiling texture.
For the trees I'm currently making, I just planned on using a tiling texture and displacement map. Then using vert painting to blend in moss n stuffs. Your method sounds much more creative!
Yes, thats pretty much my setup, although I think I didnt actually tile it 100%, I was a little bit lazy and the seam kind of disappeared along with the rest of it, but I can post a full breakdown of the tree later when I'm at my computer
Yes, thats pretty much my setup, although I think I didnt actually tile it 100%, I was a little bit lazy and the seam kind of disappeared along with the rest of it, but I can post a full breakdown of the tree later when I'm at my computer
Hehe, thanks!
Thanks man, good to know I was on the right track.
Looking forward to the breakdown :thumbup: Vegetation is something I want to get better at and would like to tackle a forest environment or something similar in the near future.
I have a vertical seam in the trees but they are so high up so a player wouldn't really see it anyway and the displacement kind of hides it well. I went with a if its not a problem why spend time on it approach hehe
Here is the new video as well Too bad Youtube puts a crap filter all over it no matter what I do from my side... It kind of ruins the whole thing but oh well...cant do anything about it
Its not much in there to be honest, I used it on some of the deeper crevices of the trunk structure so I wouldn't get any unwanted "slimy" Fresnel going on. It probably works just fine without it but I kinda think it helped a little
I could probably channel pack everything much more efficient but I just kept it simple since its just for fun
Very beautiful work, I would love to walk around in there. I would love to use the DFGI in my own game but am trying to keep it to officially released features so I don't get myself in too much trouble
Replies
This one hits me right in the inspiration. Beautiful work!
Everything is fully dynamic in the scene
John Baxter Thanks! Cool! I would want to live near one as well! I have distance field shadows and AO in the scene but not sure Iv'e heard about DFGI yet, I can look it up
Here are some new images, if nothing big needs to be changed I think this will be the final one
Thanks again for all the great feedback!
Here are some rough breadowns of the scene as well as the "new" video.
More to come
[ame]
Some buffer samples, detail, base color, spec and roughness
The assets that were used to create the scene, the moss is painted with vertex paint in- editor. There are also color variation tweaks for everything so from these I could create brown variants and so on all from a single base asset.
Here all the assets are just thrown into a starter level and I splashed the 3 different terrain materials around just to show them, nothing fancy
Asset breakdown with LOD chains when used.
I wasnt able to get GI working at all for some reason, I tuned down the distancefield AO a lot since it made most of the canopys black, but when I did that some of the plants in some angles got more translucent and appear a little less grounded but I kinda liked the overall feeling so I went with it. I can see if I can bring back a little of it
Amazing work, m8! Stunning
can you tell us a bit about the sculpting process for your Bark?
Brushes and so on...
Great Work!
Its acutally a rowan tree, We have a lot of them here in Sweden and they tend to grow all around in in the forests so I kind of went with it for a filler tree
But they are similar.
The bark was just a really quick sculpt and I was mostly after just forms, not worrying about detail really.
I did the major shapes with the standard brush then went in with the clay buildup with a square alpha, refined some crevices with the ORB crack brush and dam standard.
The bark structure is just really quickly sculpted with the flake brush with a square and noisy alpha
My main critique would be to have more colour variation on leaves, dried edges with yellowish and brownish tones... that could help to connect a little bit more, ground and ferns and minor plants... i think some general gradients will help on the leaves reading, specially on ferns
So far, one of the best forest scenes i have seen... excellent job!
What are your pros/cons about the UE4 compare to the Frosbite Engine ? If you could tell
Cheers.
Agree with the ferns looking a little too light.
Awesome job.
@macoll Thanks! Nothing I can really talk about unfortunately without being at risk for some corporate flame :P
@pixelpatron there are some basic asset/ library breakdown further up the page but I till try to add some more in depth breakdowns as well when I have the time
@Arkaria Thanks a lot! Yeah I'm going to tweak the bird song track to fade in and out more so that it doesnt feel like theres a bird sitting on the camera...
@kernersvillan Thanks!
@JamieRIOT Yeah I'm going to try to fine tune that a little this weekend
@BradMyers82 Thanks!
Made an attempt to ground everything a little more again and updated the images
Too bad the tree canopy's get a little too dark for my personal taste but I think that overall it all blends together better, no way of controlling the distance field AO based on height, which would have been kind of nice for this situation
Now I will focus on trying to reduce compression damage to my video and then call this one done
I do have one critique, though:
At the moment, everything looks very yellow and there are very few of the bright highlights that are actually hitting white. I think this is a case where the lighting and post processing are producing some weird tones that should be fairly easy to fix.
I did a quick levels adjustment to show you what I'm talking about. You may not want to go quite as cool as these examples, but I think moving the lighting and post processing to a more cool scheme will help the image quality considerably.
Original on the left, adjusted on the right.
I just re-uploaded the images
Super solid work! :thumbup:
I see your trunk has unique detail, but is obviously quite tall. Do you blend these with a tiling bark texture, and if so do you mind sharing your approach to this?
Yes, it is a uniquely sculpted base thats then blended with a tiling texture using vertex color that I paint where I want the tiling texture to blend in. I do this step inside Maya so its already done when I import it in-engine.
I blend all the different texture maps with the vertex color
So do you UV map the base in such a way that the higher part flares out so it tiles from 0-1 like the following image:
Is the texel density difference be a big deal?
Or do you do multiple UV sets, or something else?
Sorry if I'm being thick, I have to tackle some trees soon, and just figuring out which workflow to use for the bases.
For the trees I'm currently making, I just planned on using a tiling texture and displacement map. Then using vert painting to blend in moss n stuffs. Your method sounds much more creative!
Hehe, thanks!
Thanks man, good to know I was on the right track.
Here is how I made the trunks.
I have a vertical seam in the trees but they are so high up so a player wouldn't really see it anyway and the displacement kind of hides it well. I went with a if its not a problem why spend time on it approach hehe
[ame]
The fact that this is all real-time lighting, it just astounds me. Absolutely fantastic work!
I've been watching the progress since the start. Pretty awesome piece of art.
I bet after the breakdown everyone tried to go back and find the seam on the trunk haha.
My only question is since you have actually used a Specular map, do you have some details in there as well?
Cheers,
Alireza
Its not much in there to be honest, I used it on some of the deeper crevices of the trunk structure so I wouldn't get any unwanted "slimy" Fresnel going on. It probably works just fine without it but I kinda think it helped a little
I could probably channel pack everything much more efficient but I just kept it simple since its just for fun