Rawk - Journey
polycounter lvl 8
I am at the stage in my project where rocks must be made.
I haven't touched my Zbrush in quite a while, it's now time to restart my rock journey.
Going to try and document these as I come along, maybe if I get somewhere decent it can be an additional guiding tool for others.
Rock 01
So for this one it was claytubes and trim dynamic with the noise generator ontop.
The noise overpowered it, I felt I didn't have enough control with claytubes and trim dynamic.
Rock 02
This one was pretty soon after just using the same brushes with addition to the orb brush (which I did not do justice, it's an awesome brush) more information found here on it: https://vimeo.com/26399689
Orb Brush Download: http://orbart.free.fr/Orb_Cracks.ZBP
Rock 03
So, TrimBorderSmooth is in the lightbox within Zbrush and was the main brush used in this, claytubes for the build up for shapes and TrimBorderSmooth with a square alpha (Nice and harsh) to flatten things down.
This is where I decided I was getting somewhere and went on the hunt for nice reference photos for something close to what I wanted to achieve. Noah Bradley is an artist I follow a fair amount and recently he has been travelling the world taking lots of pictures, anyway, heres his gumroad with thousands of reference photos for free: https://gumroad.com/noahbradley
Also Jonas De Ro has some awesome reference (Higher quality than Noahs but also costs the same as a burger (Which is nothing, so buy it!): https://gumroad.com/jonasdero
Ok so some of the reference:
P.s I use refBoard found here, super quick and easy to make reference boards (Stays ontop of windows).
Soooo
Rock 04
No brush changes with this, trying to get the horizontal lines found in the reference photos, something a little more realistic, a load of the flattening doesn't make a lot of sense, generally not too pleased with it, onwards!
Rock 05
I don't know what happened to rock 5...
Ah, I found it, under another rock.... .. .
Not much to say about this one, I tried to make multiple meshes and stack them all together, not happy with how it was going.
I then remembered... Polycount RAWKS thread, and started to read through it page by page.
http://polycount.com/discussion/125857/rawk-post-any-rocks-you-make-here
Some great stuff in there, not only inspiration but great techniques and free brushes!
Thats were I saw Jonas Ronnegard and his work and this awesome Rawk. < I would love to achieve this.
Jonas has a load of awesome brushes on gumroad too which can be found HERE.
Moving onto
Rock 06
So same brushes as before with the addition on Jonas's stylised brushes (link is above) that were used as a last step, quite a lot more rock like, getting better with the results, large form is almost there, medium form isn't great and small is ok.
Rock 07
Went over the top with the brushes. This is not what I was looking for.
Rock 08
Using the brushes a bit more reserved I ended up with this one, which I was fairly happy with and decided to texture it, not much different with the previous techniques but focused on large, medium and smaller details.
In substance, the textures are a tad too noisey, I seem to do that quite a bit with my work.
Rock 08 In engine
Something in the texture stage needs to change and perhaps some more interesting formations, right now it's super generic.
Rock 09
So this is the rock I did tonight, I am taking it into the texturing phase and trying it out in engine.
I ended up sculpting a basic rock shape, duplicating it and mashing it all together to make more of a formation, perhaps the best so far but still not quite where I want it.
I think the next steps after getting this rock in engine would be to look into using better foundational shapes to use as all of my rocks have started from a sphere.
Completely up to date with my progress, feel free to post ideas, reference, techniques, critiques etc
I haven't touched my Zbrush in quite a while, it's now time to restart my rock journey.
Going to try and document these as I come along, maybe if I get somewhere decent it can be an additional guiding tool for others.
Rock 01
So for this one it was claytubes and trim dynamic with the noise generator ontop.
The noise overpowered it, I felt I didn't have enough control with claytubes and trim dynamic.
Rock 02
This one was pretty soon after just using the same brushes with addition to the orb brush (which I did not do justice, it's an awesome brush) more information found here on it: https://vimeo.com/26399689
Orb Brush Download: http://orbart.free.fr/Orb_Cracks.ZBP
Rock 03
So, TrimBorderSmooth is in the lightbox within Zbrush and was the main brush used in this, claytubes for the build up for shapes and TrimBorderSmooth with a square alpha (Nice and harsh) to flatten things down.
This is where I decided I was getting somewhere and went on the hunt for nice reference photos for something close to what I wanted to achieve. Noah Bradley is an artist I follow a fair amount and recently he has been travelling the world taking lots of pictures, anyway, heres his gumroad with thousands of reference photos for free: https://gumroad.com/noahbradley
Also Jonas De Ro has some awesome reference (Higher quality than Noahs but also costs the same as a burger (Which is nothing, so buy it!): https://gumroad.com/jonasdero
Ok so some of the reference:
P.s I use refBoard found here, super quick and easy to make reference boards (Stays ontop of windows).
Soooo
Rock 04
No brush changes with this, trying to get the horizontal lines found in the reference photos, something a little more realistic, a load of the flattening doesn't make a lot of sense, generally not too pleased with it, onwards!
Rock 05
I don't know what happened to rock 5...
Ah, I found it, under another rock.... .. .
Not much to say about this one, I tried to make multiple meshes and stack them all together, not happy with how it was going.
I then remembered... Polycount RAWKS thread, and started to read through it page by page.
http://polycount.com/discussion/125857/rawk-post-any-rocks-you-make-here
Some great stuff in there, not only inspiration but great techniques and free brushes!
Thats were I saw Jonas Ronnegard and his work and this awesome Rawk. < I would love to achieve this.
Jonas has a load of awesome brushes on gumroad too which can be found HERE.
Moving onto
Rock 06
So same brushes as before with the addition on Jonas's stylised brushes (link is above) that were used as a last step, quite a lot more rock like, getting better with the results, large form is almost there, medium form isn't great and small is ok.
Rock 07
Went over the top with the brushes. This is not what I was looking for.
Rock 08
Using the brushes a bit more reserved I ended up with this one, which I was fairly happy with and decided to texture it, not much different with the previous techniques but focused on large, medium and smaller details.
In substance, the textures are a tad too noisey, I seem to do that quite a bit with my work.
Rock 08 In engine
Something in the texture stage needs to change and perhaps some more interesting formations, right now it's super generic.
Rock 09
So this is the rock I did tonight, I am taking it into the texturing phase and trying it out in engine.
I ended up sculpting a basic rock shape, duplicating it and mashing it all together to make more of a formation, perhaps the best so far but still not quite where I want it.
I think the next steps after getting this rock in engine would be to look into using better foundational shapes to use as all of my rocks have started from a sphere.
Completely up to date with my progress, feel free to post ideas, reference, techniques, critiques etc
Replies
This is it in substance, not entirely sure what to improve on this.
Here it is used all over the place (Only the above rock and a temporary cliff piece)