Diorama: Forest Scene [many images]

Ulrick

Hi all !

I'm making some new stuff for my real-time portfolio and I had the idea to realize "dioramas" (like Warhammer Golden Daemon scenes, ...) to constrain my work in a precise space and give it a pretty cool look

There are some WIP images, followed by the final result.

01: The Plint and early test of normal mapping, sculpting, and the CGFXs
(from Brice, look at this thread )






02: The 4 tileable terrain maps, blended with the TerrainBland CGFX on vertices color:











03: The first assets and the placement + On vertices AO tests









04: Trees and final placement

Ulrick

And the Final Result:



Some close up:







and a TurnTable: HERE

The scene polycount is around 57K triangles.

Softwares used: Maya 8.5 - Unfold3D 4.0 - Photoshop CS2 - Mudbox 2009 - 3DCoat - CrazyBump 1.0

- Maya viewport rendering - 2 CGFX (from Brice Vandemoortele)
- 4 blended-on-vertices tileable maps on the terrain
- Ambient Occlusion baked and set on vertices


I know there still are some mistakes, like tha AO on the trees planes or I could ahve baked lightmaps for a better render, ...


Comments are welcome !

OBlastradiusO

Thats awesome!

Andreas

Nice scene, I always like to see game foliage. Way too heavy tri's wise though.

LEViATHAN

Textures look blurry in the final renders. :shifty:
Tree branches look flat.
What is the base supposed to be? It looks boring and out of place.

fortheweekend_

that looks awesome!, ive always loved the diorama approach to displaying work.

kio

nice work - and cool idea with the diorama.

i would reconsider the lighting of your final picture - its all black, gray and dull

why not add some lightmaps instead of the vertex lighting which doenst work all too good - try some nice 3point lighting with nice contrasting colours.

adam

LEViATHAN wrote: »

Textures look blurry in the final renders. :shifty:
Tree branches look flat.
What is the base supposed to be? It looks boring and out of place.

Try reading the OP before kicking the front door open and blurting out your criticisms.

On-topic: Awesome peace. I think it should get some proper lighting and some depth on the tree leaves. As well, whats the triangle count without the base? You mentioned this is for a real-time portfolio; 52,000 triangles for this is too steep.

Could you show the wires for us?

Otherwise cool peace for sure!

Ulrick

Hey thanks all for the comments.

For the lighting in general, I think I'm gonna simply try a render in a real-time engine...
I'll do some wireframe snapshots tonight !

(but keep in mind the wire is made to use the vertices color set (for the blend or AO))

aniceto

niiiiice! I look forward to the final final
even a simple light setup will go a long way

SHEPEIRO

really nice, a few sharper edges in the rocks just to contrast with the softness IMO

Andreas

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

really nice, a few sharper edges in the rocks just to contrast with the softness IMO

Yeah,I agree with this. I'd also love to see some really nice different lighting setups.

Matroskin

great job, one more reference for me now!
Thanks for breakdown.

malcolm

Awesome piece love the diarama styles! Where did you get the terrain shader that blends textures based on vertex colours I would love to try it!

ChaosEidolon

sweet! I must admit, im a bit of a whore for dioramas...

I like the delicate placement of the foliage around the rocks. The only thing that I notice is that the leaves of the trees look a little flat and unfinished in the final. Might be that all they need is a bit more contrast and color variation to break up the flatness of the polyplanes. Just a nitpick though...otherwise its great.

...oh, and wheres the obligatory hidden woodland animal?

ColinRobertson

Really beautiful work Ulrick, and nice use of the CGFX shader. I have a few crits; the tree leaves look too much like cards, try to minimize that by shaping polygons with the leaves texture and you should get much better results. Also, it would be nice to see a bit more specularity, but only a tiny bit as it looks very natural as it is! For example, it would be awesome to see a smattering of highlights coming off the leaves to give them more volume (which might be hard until you reshape the polys there). If you can, a sub surface effect on the backside of the leaves would be hot. It would also be nice to see some shadows on the ground from the light coming through the trees. I really like how you have a few falling leaves, it really adds to the atmosphere. You could push it even further if you wanted with some dust particles in the sunny areas...

Oh, and also the base... the texture is pretty dull. A more distinct wood grain would with a good spec map would go a long way.

I know thats a lot, but dont get me wrong, I really love it! I even saved it to my inspiration image folder! Great work!

killingpeople

Really nice

whats_true

What s great idea for a environment piece. Could do a whole series of these.

Saidin311

This'd be a cool idea for a mini challenge. An environment Diorama.

I like the presentation, not sure why it requires 57,000 tri's. I love the terrain textures they really blend nicely!

pestibug

well, the tri business has been stated, so I just say what I think. And I think it's a wonderful piece. Very nice mood going on there sir!

odium

Just for my own learning, how did you go about making your rocks? I cant see any seams, or stretching, so you must of done something good. Any tips?

vik

Very nice and cool idea too

JDinges

Very nice and pleasing. Love the diorama idea too.

Ulrick

To All: Thanx for your comments & advices.
I know the foliage is still a problem, I'll try to do better shapes in the future, or if I had time to work on it again.
I'm trying to render it in Unreal Engine 3, just to have a pretty cool lightset and shadows...

To Saidin311: The topology is quite dense to have well-balanced AO, baked on vertices... I know foliage or even the terrain could be much more light in edge cutting if I had some SSAO (like in Stacraft 2) or something else...

To Odium: It's quite simple, there's the worlflow for the rocks:
Basic shape in Maya > Sculpting in Mudbox > UVs on LowRes of Mudbox in Unfold3D > Painting in 3D with 3DCoat (or Mudbox 2009) > Normal mapping is a blend with the Mudbox baking and the diffuse conversion in CrazyBump...

3DCoat makes no seams, it even works quite well with the mipmapping...

killingpeople

wip_16.jpg is a nice shot, I love how the wood on the fence looks in it. Meaty.

imb3nt

incredible stuff! very inspiring. :thumbup: :thumbup:

BradMyers82

Awesome work dude, and its really cool to see this built brick by brick so to speak. The only thing I am not completely sold on are the leaves on the trees. I'm no environment artist and I have never created 3d trees myself, but I can clearly see that the leaves are planes with alphas. I guess the trees leaves just look too cg to me while the rest looks so realistic. Is there any sort of detailing on the individual leaves or AO bake? If not, adding some might make them look less flat. Or maybe its just the lighting like others have mentioned?
Anyways, its really good job you have done here and a minor detail that would make the whole piece perfect in my eyes. Nice work!

vj_box

To add something to what brad said,you just need to place some proper alpha planes which kinda shapes up the tree in a more nice manner.Right now,yes it does look like a distant tree model which might not do any good for near visibility. You obviously need not place unique leaves,which is very tedious and also shoots up the poly budget.Instead you just have to go for a realistic placement of the poly planes and choose the best texture with good view angle.

Vj

ryanH

this is looking great. i really like the idea as well.

i think maybe adding some color would help. like orange flowers maybe. just so its not all green and brown.

zacko9000

Awesome scene. The lighting effect on the ground is pretty badass. Are these all real-time renders? I went to the site you mentioned to check out the free shader, but after looking at the tutorial on the site I don't really understand how to implement that shader in maya. If you have the time could you PM me and maybe share some of your tips. Thanks in advance.

Ulrick

Thanx for all your comments or critics (and sorry to react only one month later...).

I know the 2 major problems are: lighting (wich is simply not present, just AO) and the trees' alpha planes... For this one, I'll really try to make it better next time ^^

Zacko: In maya, you have to set the cgxf plugin on first (Plugin manager), then it will appears in the Maya common shaders, and you'll just have to link the .cgfx file on your hard disk...

Pope Adam

I dont have any crits for you at this point, since I haven't read the whole thread yet... but

just wanted to say that I think your diorama is very successful here and i like it quite a lot. it's a cool fresh idea. do more of 'em! :P cool!