[WIP] Cave work - Before and After

Jacob Lubinski

I thought it would be fun to show the progression of my work on caves. This cave evolved over about a year, and it is still in progress. I'm still working out new and fun ways to do rocks. Both scenes are running in Unreal Engine. I made everything from the ground up. The first is my attempt at using vertex painted materials, and the second is the progression to now. 

Then

Now

Jacob Lubinski

Here's a video.

teodar23

There is some weird reflection happening on the walls. Might want to check your normalmap green channel and see if it needs inverting. If thats not it you might want to look into using bent normals so that you dont get that effect. Also could be an issue with the mesh normals...
The color (albedo) looks very bland and procedural. Maybe blend it with an actual rock texture to give it that natural look.
The cave ceiling doesnt look right. It seems that the cave was "built" not dug.

Jacob Lubinski

Happy new year everyone!

Jacob Lubinski

teodar23 said:

There is some weird reflection happening on the walls. Might want to check your normalmap green channel and see if it needs inverting. If thats not it you might want to look into using bent normals so that you dont get that effect. Also could be an issue with the mesh normals...
The color (albedo) looks very bland and procedural. Maybe blend it with an actual rock texture to give it that natural look.
The cave ceiling doesnt look right. It seems that the cave was "built" not dug.

Hi!

Yeah the normals are good. What's happening is due to the reflection captures. I'll tidy that up. 

I have a "CheapContrast" node attached to the materials to control how much variation there is in the Base Color. I may have gone overboard and made them a little too bland in an attempt to let the lighting do the work. I'll play with it. It is almost never a good idea to blend a real rock texture (unless barely noticeable), that would basically fight the normal map and roughness and look bad. The only time it's ok is if it's a scan and made to match the normals. 

I agree about the ceiling. I'll play with it. Don't have a ton of time to work on this, but I'll improve it and have something to show soon. 

Jacob Lubinski

Here's the update. This is pretty much as far as I'm gonna go with it. Once I do a video I'm not gonna go back.