Cliffs/terrain etc.

DEElekgolo

I have always been trying to find new methods but I never got the result I wanted. I am using 3ds max and I need to know what is a good way to model cliffs and terrain. For terrain I mean complicated terrains with rocky bridges and ledges much like in this picture:

And cliffs that have very sharp edges but with an organic flow to it like in this picture:


Usually I would make a box, flip its normals, delete 3 of its top faces and use the shift+drag method and relax everything constantly. And my outcome would end up being very high poly and looks almost nothing like rocks.

Mechadus

I did a project at work recently that had a similar rocky cliff to your bottom image. I roughed it out VERY low poly by starting with a plane, and dragging out edges. I then applied a diffuse / normal map or a rocky wall I made in PS, and cut and added edges where I thought they needed to be till I had the right basic shape. My final product was only around 3000 polys. By adding a normal mapped rock texture early on, I was able to see easily where I needed poly detail, and where the rock texture was good enough on its own.

I also found that building 5-10 big chunks instead of 1 huge object made life much easier. I hid the seams between pieces with foliage or rocky decals. Mine wasnt game spec, but if you have access to it, check out the "Highway 17" levels in HL2 EP1 - they did an awesome job with the rocky cliff faces - I figured mine out by reverse engineering theirs.

-N!

jocose

There was a good thread while ago about this: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=50160

I hope that helps.

DEElekgolo

How would I get that nice layered feel to it?
Like in this picture from halo 3.


The areas on the top is the kind of style I wish to make. What is a good method to make something like that in 3ds max?

ceebee

Take a variety of cubes and skew them? Try to think in simple shapes when doing game-spec environments and then focus on the details with normal maps and textures.

Here's a simple paintover, but it's pretty easy to tell where some of the hard edges are on the geo. This is very simplified though because it's such a small screenshot and hard to tell.



Search for tutorials that focus on box modeling in Max to help.