Yeah but then you kind of miss out on changes to put in custom details like you see in the lower right where the streaks go around a corner that's been chipped. It's those little imperfections that help sell the material. You might be able to draw that in but its probably easier to sculpt.
noise -> 1 px width -> 2nd uv channel(vertical mapped) -> rttd as diffuse to 1st mapping channel, normal map from sculpt as background, -> smearing around the corners to make it imperfect, then crazybump mixer or rtt again makes the deal almost perfect
We did most of these for FMP using mudbox, retopo in maya and a texturing using photos ref and an AO baking
I would be very very grateful to find a tutorial on how to do these rocks. I don't know why i'm having such a hard time with rocks, but I can't seem to figure out the best way to do it, or find a tutorial i'm happy with.
I would be very very grateful to find a tutorial on how to do these rocks. I don't know why i'm having such a hard time with rocks, but I can't seem to figure out the best way to do it, or find a tutorial i'm happy with.
A good tutorial I find, I friend use it and made a lot of excellent rocks :
His workflow is very simple : made the high poly under mudbox, make a retopo, use the AO map to add details on a basic texture (like we can found on cgtexture).
A good tutorial I find, I friend use it and made a lot of excellent rocks :
His workflow is very simple : made the high poly under mudbox, make a retopo, use the AO map to add details on a basic texture (like we can found on cgtexture).
thanks i found his style of workflow with a few changes suite me much better than some of the others.
Rocks are the hardest thing to do well in 3d. Most games have terrible rocks from what I have seen. I think a big problem is people just go strait to sculpting there rocks which is horrible. Focus on modeling out the big forms and shapes first.
Rocks are the hardest thing to do well in 3d. Most games have terrible rocks from what I have seen. I think a big problem is people just go strait to sculpting there rocks which is horrible. Focus on modeling out the big forms and shapes first.
+1! And, as with everything else, lack of reference. If you absolutely want to get into zbrush right away, make love with the fastMallet brush with super high intensity and a very low focal value.
you know ironically I made a TON of rocks recently if your going for some BIG chunk rocks in a setting of either a FPS mode OR in a Dungeon crawler setting where I did both
my work flow was rather simple
1-MAx, Make a basic Sub D box
2-import box into zbrush (assuming your using 3.5r3)
3- Get some intresting shapes on it (sculpt it using the move and standard and the claytubes brushes)
4-Once you get some intresting shapes its time to make it believable! Up the sub D's Some and make it around sub D 6 or so before you start using the best brushes in there, planar and plannar flatten , these 2 tools are the perfect combinations to making your rock feel more natural and sharp.Remember to sculpt in your BIG forms before you chisel them away in previous sub D levels!
5- Try to not make a Turd, it sounds funny but my 1st rock is a long jaggedy one, looked like a turd until it was layed out in the game engine
6:If you decide to paint within Zbrush Poly paint this bastard and get some REAL dynamic effects in there and use some alphas to really make it pop even more! Saves tons of time when you can see it visually on something such as this and you can avoid seams easier, or even get a BASIC template to work from. But this part is totally optional!
7- From this point you have a few options you can
A: Export a mid poly of you mesh now and poly crunch it
B: Use Zbrush built in tools and poly decimate this sucker to be at the EXACT polys you want
C: Export your mid poly and rebuild a new low poly etc etc
I was told when building these to think about end result not so much as technical know how, in the end a rock is a rock. Its something quick and dirty and used to build a level.Do you really need to worry about Geo? Do you really need topology to be cleaned nicely? Remember this is something used to layout a level so chances are they want a nice rock thats of a certain polycount and to look like a rock, unless if its a special case where its dynamic used or a rock monster or something where its more then a rock, you can have it however as long as the 2 end results are the same A: It looks good B: Works in the level with the level designers choice.
For my method I at first did A and C I made a polycrunched rock originally and then a Zbrush Decimation rock, it saved time to do option C later and retained the shape MUCH nicer then anything else...Could I have rebuilt the rock from scratch? Yea probably? But could I get a rock done in like 1/2 a days time from A-Z From high to low and in game the same way? Probably not. Pick and chose your battles on this. All the Advice given here is right in there own way. Pior brings up good points where mudbox has nice control and my methods I explain Make quick results but not GREAT control. Since your doing more dungeon crawler style rocks You might like the methods I explain .
You can see the results of both the FPS rocks and Dungeon crawler rocks (same ones) shown here
Eclypse: That's not really reverse as I think most makes the highpoly first then the lowpoly, as the shape of the rock may change drasticly during the sculpting phase.
Replies
I would be very very grateful to find a tutorial on how to do these rocks. I don't know why i'm having such a hard time with rocks, but I can't seem to figure out the best way to do it, or find a tutorial i'm happy with.
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A good tutorial I find, I friend use it and made a lot of excellent rocks :
His workflow is very simple : made the high poly under mudbox, make a retopo, use the AO map to add details on a basic texture (like we can found on cgtexture).
thanks i found his style of workflow with a few changes suite me much better than some of the others.
+1! And, as with everything else, lack of reference. If you absolutely want to get into zbrush right away, make love with the fastMallet brush with super high intensity and a very low focal value.
You are so bad ass I love this explination. no wonder I bookmarked this thread.
1. Sculpt the rock in zbrush using dynamesh
2. re-topo
3. unwrap
4. bake normal
I was watching David Lesperance's Gnomon Master Class, and it happens to be an interesting technique that he showed.