How to plan cliff packs for game environments? Any good references or breakdowns for other games?
As an environment artist in games this is something that always stumps me: how to plan and structure an asset pack of modular cliffs for big environments (specifically environments with a lot of rocky, big/steep cliffs and cave areas).
This far it's nothing I've really had to do or something I've had the opportunity to see be done too much at work, so it's something I still feel pretty unsure about and the scale of the task intimidates me. But it's something I want to learn and get more comfortable with as I love to create nature environments!
I've played many games where I really like their cliffs (some examples of the top of my head right now: Hogwarts Legacy, Banishers ghost of New Eden, Death Loop, Genshin Impact) and get curious about how they are constructed, like how many assets/variations does the pack consist of, how big is the biggest piece, what's the asset shapes needed to construct these shapes/structures in the environment, what's the general detail level/uniqueness of the pieces, how much is custom (scanned or sculpted etc) mesh vs tiling textures, do they use tesselation or splines etc etc.
And as always with game art there are so many different techniques and ways to approach this, but I'd really love to get more familiar with different workflows to be able to decide what best suits certain cases.
When a cliff pack is well made and well used it gets so hard to just look around the environment and deduce what assets they consist of, and I find that most games don't show any breakdowns of the cliffs (which I totally get as I'm guilty of that too). And if I look at asset packs that one can download/buy online they often don't come with a sample scene, so it's hard to tell how functional the asset pack actually is and if it's a good general reference for how such a pack should be created.
So my question is:
Does anyone have any references or breakdowns of cliff asset packs from games that you found good/interesting? Both realistic and stylized are welcome! Or just any tips or advice in general for how one might approach this?
This far it's nothing I've really had to do or something I've had the opportunity to see be done too much at work, so it's something I still feel pretty unsure about and the scale of the task intimidates me. But it's something I want to learn and get more comfortable with as I love to create nature environments!
I've played many games where I really like their cliffs (some examples of the top of my head right now: Hogwarts Legacy, Banishers ghost of New Eden, Death Loop, Genshin Impact) and get curious about how they are constructed, like how many assets/variations does the pack consist of, how big is the biggest piece, what's the asset shapes needed to construct these shapes/structures in the environment, what's the general detail level/uniqueness of the pieces, how much is custom (scanned or sculpted etc) mesh vs tiling textures, do they use tesselation or splines etc etc.
And as always with game art there are so many different techniques and ways to approach this, but I'd really love to get more familiar with different workflows to be able to decide what best suits certain cases.
When a cliff pack is well made and well used it gets so hard to just look around the environment and deduce what assets they consist of, and I find that most games don't show any breakdowns of the cliffs (which I totally get as I'm guilty of that too). And if I look at asset packs that one can download/buy online they often don't come with a sample scene, so it's hard to tell how functional the asset pack actually is and if it's a good general reference for how such a pack should be created.
So my question is:
Does anyone have any references or breakdowns of cliff asset packs from games that you found good/interesting? Both realistic and stylized are welcome! Or just any tips or advice in general for how one might approach this?
Replies
Halo 4 here http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments
Uncharted 3 examples
https://polycount.com/discussion/98332/uncharted-3-environment-art-dump-anthony-vaccaro/p1
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4965R1
So usually one wants to make a few different size variations to maintain detail level and shape language consistency. Because a rock might be micro details compared to a cliff, but medium shapes compared to a boulder. The boulder would be medium shape on a cliff, and the cliff has its own additional macro details, because it's so big. And what's micro details on a rock is probably just texture noise, while micro details in relation to a huge cliff face might still be geo/normal map.
That's why there's usually a bunch of different rocks in one set, from pebbles to rocks to boulders to cliffs and then even mountains (usually for backdrop), depending on the style and the environment's needs.
A good and consistent way to make cliffs might be splines with procedural systems and materials attached