Snowy Mountain - UE4/Substance Designer

Uzziel

Hey there,

I've been working on this as a personal project lately. The idea was to test a workflow by creating a snowy mountain landscape in UE4. I started it during a week end some months ago, then decided to invest some more time to "finish" it.









Here is a video made using matinee and some screenshots from the engine, I hope you'll like it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H67AA82g1KI&vq=hd1080

Cheers!

FreneticPonies

Neat, though I'm not sure how much like snow your textures look. A bit too much like "glistening whiteness" that sticks to slopes way too steep for most snow to stick too. Of course snow is a pretty hard material to get right today anyway, but.

Uzziel

Thanks for the feedback, I guess it's also due to the scene lighting. The "glistening" effect is what I was looking for: frozen snow, not too fresh, more compact and reflective (not saying it's perfect however). Lights tend to increase it in the scene, as when you have a bright sun over frozen snow.

Here are some of the materials made for the scene (snow, ice, rock ground) with other lighting conditions:

snake85027

those textures look great

FreneticPonies

Ahh, there we are.



So my question with this is, is it supposed to be a really, really light snow? Because it doesn't seem like it. And if it isn't why are so man pebbles sticking above the snow? If it's supposed to be partially melted why does it look like fresh fallen snow? Snow generally compacts and buries everything unless it's about a quarter of an inch deep or is part way through melting. Your scene doesn't suggest either, so what threw me is why there's so much gravel or something sitting on top when I'd expect it to look like this

Uzziel

What I had in mind was frozen snow, with some more snow (/ice pellicule due to cold) over it. You're right about small stones, I probably used too much of them. If I do another version I promise to take a look back at the snow. Just to provide you with some of my references (that are quite different from yours), here is the board I used:

Julien Noel

Good job ! This is pretty convicing, nice details and variations in textures!

Anchang-Style

Are you using tessalation / Displacement on the Landscape? If yes are you using a homebrew solutions or did you get the plugin from the marketplace? Because for some reason it doesn't work out of the box (yet?).

TheOneKnownAsMe

I understand the reasoning/idea behind the frozen snow, and I agree with you as far as how it looks and feels. My only critique lies with how that snow sticks to faces of the mountain that are nearly vertical. Snow would never stick there long enough for it to become frozen, it would just slough off once it accumulated enough. Otherwise, everything else looks fantastic in my opinion.

Hausestate

Sorry but this does not look right at all. I'm living in Northern Europe where we see snowy mountains everyday. Your snow has not seen snow at all. And could you tell me what is frozen snow cos never heard about it even tho' I live in the middle of snow. Your "snow" look more like vulcan stone and your scene is like from Mordor.

mats effect

I really like the look of it but I agree the frozen snow does not fit that kind of environment. The snow textures actually look pretty good but I don't think it ever really lies like that over large spaces. It kind of looks like the packed snow we get here sometimes on the roads as its starting to melt and has gotten dirt and stones mixed through it. 

Uzziel

@snake85027 @JulienNoel : thanks!

@Anchang-Style : nothing particular, yes it is tesselation and displacement on the terrain.

@TheOneKnownAsMe : good to know you agree about the snow material
About the snow repartition, I could have indeed let more "rock" parts on vertical slopes. I made my masks before going into UE4 based on the relief but should have thought about it, thanks for the feedbdack!

@Hausestate : the image in the middle of the board is what I have in mind for "frozen snow".

@matseffect : yes, maybe less "frozen snow" (even if I liked the contrast/reflection it adds to the scene ) and less small rocks would have helped, thanks for the feebdack.

EoinOBroin

Very nice work, looks great!

Stavaas

Hausestate said:

And could you tell me what is frozen snow cos never heard about it even tho' I live in the middle of snow.

No offense mate, but I think you should go outside more then. I've lived in Norway my whole life, and I know exactly what Uzziel means when he's talking about frozen snow, because we get that a lot here in Northern Europe.

LaurentiuN

Fantastic mountain dude, i would go there if it was real  

Bedrock

Honestly I'd just ride the "melting snow"  train, you just need to present the scene more spring-ish and less like a place where snow never melts. Meaning: no snow falling, no snow on steeper surfaces, flora placed sporadically, flowing river and less color filters. It really depends on how much more time you want to invest in it thought, I imagine you'd like to be done with this already.. but if it's a portfolio piece I'd keep pushing it.

Uzziel

Thanks for the feedbacks guys!

mrgesy

Its pretty good looking! 
Although I agree that you should have exposed more of the rocky bits from under that snow. Also the shiny sheen on the snow makes it look like its melting. I checked refs online and don't see any mountains with shiny snow.