Ideas on how to model this bridge?

Irraka

Picture related I want to make this scene but I wanted to ask what you guys think the best way to approach the bridge and wall would be. Should I just make a blockout and take it to zbrush and just use sorta sculpt it from there or should I make like 10-20 single bricks, sculpt those and them assemble them by hand to form a bridge.

icegodofhungary

Depends on how much mesh detail you want and your other restrictions.

If you put that detail into a texture, then you could just do a tiling texture for the "wall" parts. A strip of a trim texture for the arches. Then a unique texture for the stairs. Then maybe another tiling for the path. Combine the path tiling and the arch strip into one texture.

If you wanted a super detailed mesh, you could sculpt your bricks, stairs, and path pieces. Assemble it into a highpoly. Merge w/ dynamesh. Clean it up. Then keep a copy for your highpoly. Decimate it for lowpoly. Unwrap the decimation. Bake the high to the low and do a painter pass using smart materials. You may run into issues with polycount for the highpoly though. So it might be wise to break it up into pieces. You could also create a "midpoly" version of the bricks rather than full on highpoly. This helps when you have lots of bricks or pieces and all the detail won't fully transfer to texture anyways.

I would say the tiling + trim way would give you the best texel density for your buck. You could even combine that with a couple unique meshes, like turn the arches into uniquely textured models, and some bricks to help sell the look.

Eric Chadwick

Solid advice.

Reminds me of this piece. I've restored all the broken images with Polycount-hosted versions, worth preserving! Anyhow hope this helps you.
https://polycount.com/discussion/91066/pirate-castle-udk/p1

Eric Chadwick

Also in a similar vein:
https://polycount.com/discussion/88996/my-work-at-pi/p1

Irraka

Awesome advice guys. Yeah I think I'll make it a tile texture and add some unique trip on the top as well as the bottom pieces.

slosh

Yea tiling with unique pieces on the top and bottom and also plug in some along the tiling texture to have pieces sticking out. 

Irraka

What do you guys think so far?
I have to say texturing is still my weakest strength so far. Still learning substance painter. 



Here is the bake from Zbrush

slosh

I think you need a lot more variation in ur brick shapes.  The reference image has so much more randomness in size and shapes of the bricks.

Irraka

slosh said:

I think you need a lot more variation in ur brick shapes.  The reference image has so much more randomness in size and shapes of the bricks.

Yeah im just worried about gaps. How will the bake look if I have a bunch of holes between the stones?


What do you think of this? I'll trim down the sides of some and narrow a couple of them out to make them thinner when I sculpt.

icegodofhungary

It's not that your sculpting is bad or anything. It's just that you're sculpting your idea of what bricks are rather than the bricks/slabs you see in the miniature. Look at their shape, how they vary. Try to replicate what you see, not what you think you see. Some of those slabs are nearly round, at least on the x/y plane. The faces are very uneven and have odd angles. The height of each slab varies a lot. Just keep trying to replicate that look.

Gaps are okay. There are some serious gaps in the miniature. You could always throw in some grout if you're worried about bottoming out in the normal map. Like this:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aD39L

Or something like this:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9axxL

Or

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LerK0

Just take it slow, really observe, take it one rock at a time. Also start a thread in the 3D critique section to get feedback as you go:

https://polycount.com/categories/3d-art-showcase-critiques