--Tomb of the Iron Horse-- (Artstation Wild West Challenge) --Image Heavy--
polycounter lvl 8
Hi Polycount,
I've finished my entry for the Artstation Wild West Challenge and I thought it'd be nice to share it here with a bit of the breakdown. This was done in roughly 3, maybe 4 weeks. It was a great experience and I'd be happy to answer any questions or receive any tips for future projects
Full resolution + videos: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OLPKv
Full submission blog, with more detailed breakdowns: https://www.artstation.com/contests/wild-west/challenges/41/submissions/32068
Thanks!
-Dominique
Warning:
Low res images below (as per Polycount rules), follow link for high res.
Breakdowns below.
Thanks for checking the post out
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/dominiquebuttiens
I've finished my entry for the Artstation Wild West Challenge and I thought it'd be nice to share it here with a bit of the breakdown. This was done in roughly 3, maybe 4 weeks. It was a great experience and I'd be happy to answer any questions or receive any tips for future projects
Full resolution + videos: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OLPKv
Full submission blog, with more detailed breakdowns: https://www.artstation.com/contests/wild-west/challenges/41/submissions/32068
Thanks!
-Dominique
Warning:
Low res images below (as per Polycount rules), follow link for high res.
Breakdowns below.
Thanks for checking the post out
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/dominiquebuttiens
Replies
But I have a question about the locomotive. How do you achvieved the texture?
I am pretty new to this advanced trimsheet/tileable texture stuff and I am interessted in how you did this.
I am right, when I say the main textures are tileable? You have multiple tileable textures, which are blended by generated shader masks?
But what about these fine details around the edges? Are these bitmap masks? And the soft edges. Beveled edges with weightes normals, or comes there a general normalmap into play? A lot of questions
Thanks and good luck!
Good luck!
You guys are way too kind!
I'm honestly just happy that I managed to finish the submission somewhat in a short amount of time
Hi!
So there are a few answers to your questions!
Yes to almost everything
I basically treated the locomotive as a piece of the environment rather than a prop.
Meaning it's a combination of whatever worked best for the individual pieces.
Most of the locomotive is a tiling texture (image below) with, as you guessed, weighted normals. To break it up I use 2 shader 'tricks', one being a commonly known and used one: vertex paint. I blend in rust and polished/painted metal, based on the same mask of the trimsheet (I just export it separately from Substance Painter). Another way to do it is by making tileable textures and giving the individual objects you want to texture a color mask. You then use the RGBA channels to distinguish between the materials. (You'd still need a normal map separately if you work like that). I have to admit though, for the challenge I did it quite rushed and lazy, it's not exactly as I describe it. But I recommend that more than my rushed work here :P
The 2nd shader trick I managed is quite easy in Unreal. I basically used a slope node that uses the world position with a gradient to project sand/dirt on top of the meshes. (can't recall the exact name but it's easy enough to find) The result from that I blend with a random noisy mask to break up the soft edge and create some randomness in the sand/dirt.
Disclaimer: I added more details to this texture in the empty space, I just had this slightly older screenshot lying around.
Now I said 'most' is a tileable texture, for a few of the key elements that I had planned to really put in the camera/player's face, like story elements, I made a unique normal bake and mask. The key elements in this case were the wheels and front of the locomotive. I won't lie, this was also partially because I just wanted to have fun with those and make a highpoly
I hope this was somewhat helpful, I'm in a bit of a hurry atm so I might have typed some stuff without being too clear...
Would it be interesting if I did like an in-depth tutorial on this you reckon? Like a full breakdown on the locomotive and texturing like this?
Thanks for the comments everyone!
-Dominique
The important part for me was, that the locomotive itself has no normal map, just weighted normals and this is pretty cool! To break the 'uniformness', you added key parts with dedicated textures.
Do you mind to show us a wireframe of the locomotive? I am interested in the edges and how much resolution do you set.
But yeah, I would be interessted in a full breakdown of the locomotive. I am buiding actually a tropical/ alien/ winter scene with a crashed spaceship in the back and this would help me doing this. But don't feel be forced. I think I got the general idea behind it, so just you know.
Anyway - thanks for your help and keep up the good work!
And I'll try to find some time after that to do bigger, better breakdowns
It just takes time to write/record it all properly, I'll see what I can do over the weekend ^^
It's just the WAYWO threads that have a limit, for easier browsing.
Great work!
Thanks!
Thank you
I've been a bit under the weather so apologies for the delay, but I've just released the first tutorial surrounding this project!
You can read up on it here https://www.artstation.com/dominiquebuttiens/blog/QGw6/free-tutorial-crisp-and-detailed-ue4-renders
It's a tutorial about Crisp and Detail Renders in UE4.
Cheers!
-Dominique