Do i model it or use a texture

Rahul_94

Hello everyone, this might be a wrong place to ask this, but i am super confused with this. I am modeling this environment for my portfolio. I am confused where to use substance and where to model the actual surface. For eg. The ground, it can be modeled but it can also be just a plane with a substance(texture) applied to it.

PS : My main focus is to show details and overall environment composition.

Thanks in advance

poopipe

If it affects silhouette,  model it

Obscura

 One consideration point should be silhouette, yes, but in this case, the ground that you pointed at, doesn't change the silhouette if you don't model out the bricks. On such flat surface, you can just use a normal map (maybe in combination with a heightmap for parallax).  Then the level changes, of course you should model out. I have an art piece that is pretty close in structure to this, it has like trims in corners, and the same could be applied here where the steps are for example. Everything else is just flat geometry. The ground has the trims extruded where the surface/material changes - corner, and the edges of the middle metal piece, and everything else is just normal/height:


On this , everything uses tiling textures , the trims uses the same material as the ground, but uvd as a row of bricks, and extruded slightly. Red is flat geometry, green is geometry but still goes with tiling texture.


Now the edges of the steps can actually affect the silhouette in a real case (not a diorama) so there you could model out the bricks a little bit, but then I would have a trim pieces of bricks that can be added at the edges, and that has unevenness in geometry, and the surface inside the covered area (ground) doesn't.



And here is an example from the same scene for an actual stairway, it still goes with the same technique and the brick texture uv on the mesh:

Dash-POWER

Actually you can use both but it depends where your scane will be at the end. If it's going to be just "static" scene rendered in marmoset or if you will record a video from ~2m distances in UE/Unity with fancy non static effects like moving water(flow map), wind, godrays... For generic objects like floors, walls you can use substance and build modular texture atlas for hero assets like the tree or rosette you can model them and use traditional high->low process. At the end you can use some decals for adding additional details like dirt spots, papers on a table... But as I said, depends how far you want to go with details.

Rahul_94

Wow... this has cleared things up for me. Matching the silhouette and also the purpose of the environment is essential. 

Thanks guys, cant wait to start on this environment. Will soon post some WIP’s.

Thanks again