SkyIslands [WIP Thread]
polycounter lvl 7
Hi there!
here´s a scene I´m currently working on. It´s still pretty rough but the general idea is to create an environment following the idea of floating islands, taking major influence from games such as Skyward Sword, Windwaker and Gigantic.
This is going to be a WIP thread so I try my best to post costant updates! Also feedback is highly appreciated as I´m really trying to kick myself out of my comfort zone with this one to learn and ultimatly grow as much as possible 
Replies
Keep it up! I cant wait
ant1fact is right with his assumption. You just overlay a so called curvature map on top of your albedo that you can calculate with the baker of your choice or what I did just use Knald to directly grab it from the normal map which is a lot faster and so far I haven´t encountered any major downsides that could outweight the huge time saver.
Thanks for all the kind words everyone!
I REALLY dig those trees.
@Zalek4 Thanks, man. Don´t get too comfy with those trees though as they are really just place holders :´D
Here´s what I´ve been up to today:
I want to have some smooth energy beams between the islands to be able to introduce another major colour to the scene. Those are planned to be the holes on the side from which they emit from. So far I tend more to the second shape as it seems to be much more readable.
Themes playing in my head right now.
This is looking great btw.
that´s a great reference! Mind sharing what game this is?
I´ve been fiddeling around with the idea of "energy" emiters a bit more and decided to set them up as a modular set to keep things flexibel and efficient.
HPs are done, LP/bake/texture tomorrow, the shader on thursday and aim to have something to show on friday/early saturday. Time is a bit tight on workdays unfortunatly but I´ll try my best to keep constant updates coming.
Excellent work! Have you played around with making the light emitting boulders vertical columns and have those floating rocks orbiting at varying heights of the light column?
A great game with the sort of art direction you seem to be pushing for, you should also play it! Great source of inspiration and a jrpg classic.
With a slight delay but here it goes:
Setting up and playing around with those energy emitters was my main objective this week. Other than that I worked on the transition between the sky and ocean plane and invested some time into post processing and optimisation.
Next step will be to get rid of those foliage placeholders.
I´m going to be out of town for the next couple of days so there will be a slight delay in updates.Question tho: did you sculpted each big island ? or you just "coated" the ground with rocks ?
Cheers!
had some things to take care of in the past two weeks so there´s not much to show unfortunatly but here´s what I got done:
>Created a couple more tree/root sculpts.
>Created a 2*1 tiling bark texture.
>Worked on the overall colour. Took out a bit of the blue and darkened the green a bit.
>Added shadows to the floating islands to make them feel more grounded in the world.
>Added a function to the rock material that gives the floating rocks a hovering movement.
Still heavily WIP but I´m starting to feel comfortable with where the scene is going, hoping to be able to wrap it up soon. Topics to tackle in the next week:
-polishing asset placements and colour values
-Addition of some form of structures
-Possible rework of the central mountain peak
-Tweaking shaders
Getting closer to the finish line, I would be really thankful to hear some more feedback considering colour and composition if things are on the right track.
Trims:
Generic floor tiles:
Flat cement to later vertex paint over some spots to break up repetition
you could also add something in the background in the sky like a silhouetted large bird or something.
Hey, the setup mesh wise is pretty straight forward with a couple of planes put together and a custom normal orientation to make it shade spherical. Maybe it´s the material? I´ll prepare a little wrapup on how it works today evening. Maybe this will be of use for you
@allmighty_thunder
Interesting idea, I´ll give it a shot later when the scene is completly assembled.
@mcgillchris
Thanks! Glad to hear it works.
The whole thing is pretty slim with the key idea to only use a completly white base texture with a mask that resembles foliage shapes.
Colour and Global Overlay:
Base colour with a global tint map multiplied in wordspace to break up bigger areas with some value differences (erosion flows on grass etc.).
Fresnel:
Use the fresnel node to mask a second colour on top that dynamically reacts to the view angle.
Subsurface:
Control over the third colour within the subsurface range that gives me control on what colour and strength the shadows should have.
Emissive:
Further control to crush harsh shadows.
Wind:
Basic vertex position offset that I might later replace with a custom and more sophisticated node network if I see the need for it.
Normal orientation:
completly flat normal value mulitplied with a "TwoSidedSign" to eliminate weird shading behaviour that occur when a lot of planes are intersecting.
Surface Parameters:
Basic values for Metalness/Roughness/Specular that I haven´t given much attention yet.
I exposed most values to be able to quickly iterate the shading behaviour.
Having everything on sliders with only a masked white base texture, colour variation can be achieved in seconds:
Base Colour: Basic Colour of the whole material
Fresnel: Radial overlay Colour.
Subsurface Colour: Shadow and overall blend colour.
There are a couple of problems still present that I will look into soon:
-Look for ways to achieve a smoother shading. (Lower contrast on the shadows in the leafs)
-See if I can get it to work with a baked environment. (fully dynamic for now)
-Improve blend network to have more control over the colour.
Thanks! That´s really encouraging to hear you mentioning breath of the wild and Zelda in general as it is one of the main inspirations, hoping to reach the level of atmosphere they pour ot of every pixel.
Another one:
Broken version of the bricks.
sliders controlling a wide range of behaviours on the fly. (height contrast, tint, normal strength etc.)
Sure, there´s not a lot of magic behind it though honestly. The main logic is nicely displayed in the UE4 docs with some simple tweaks added by me to the whole thing on each input:
@cupsster
Let me know if those shots work for you.
Speaking of gumroad: At some point maybe but I would feel uncomfortable selling just this one shader. Maybe I´ll put together a little package at some point