Landscape Design Tutorials

Renzatic

Now this is something I'm already halfway sortakinda decent at, but could use some nice tricks and tips to make things that much nicer. Basically, I want to make landscapes about as good as Robert Briscoe, and like I said, I can come sortakinda close. My texturework is actually pretty decent, but my landscapes thus far lack alot of the natural flow and variety he's got in his.

So are there any tutorials out there I can check out? Google mostly nets me automatic procedural stuff or high end sculpting. I want the middle of the road, polygon work with maybe a bit of light sculpting on a low-mid res mesh. Those I can't seem to find. Briscoe's page above has a few basic tutorials, but I'd like something a little more indepth.

Any suggestions?

Vrav

Gotta say, he's good, but I don't really like how blatantly photo-sourced the textures look. I'd probably admire it if played in a game, but the stills look Source engine, which in turn looks very 2004.

As for your goals... why not just think about what you like about his work? The level of detail is nice, but what stands out to me is how he's built the levels, blending and arranging textures and props in an organic way... and as for how to accomplish that, the best 'tutorial' would be to study nature.

Try to soak in physical reference material, or look up scenic photos. Patiently study the patterns in which mountains erode, how plants tend to cluster, and use this subtle knowledge to your advantage when composing a scene - it is usually the unseen subtleties that make something convincing, and it is your job as the artist to observe and control them - or exaggerate them, making the invisible visible.

Sorry for the useless response, just my opinion. Composition is an interesting subject, I would say it is the key to what you're looking for. Why not post some of your work around the forums?

Renzatic

Well, the only thing I've got to show off at the moment is this. The rest of what I've done is experimentation work. Just me goofing around, trying to get a feel for things.

I've been doing everything you've mentioned. I've studied Briscoe's stuff (as you can tell, I really ape his style), I've got tons of nature shots I've been studying, and I've been fairly decent at emulating some of what I see. Now I can do set pieces. A rocky wall? that's fine. A little beach? easy enough. But when I try to do an entire little island, that's when I run into trouble. Right now, I can do the basic shape no problem, but when I start cutting and adding in detail, things start to clash and get hard to manage. 3 loop slices on one side of my little island might end up making something on the other side difficult to do.

What I need is a workflow. How you cut things to get that detail in without messing up the other side of your mesh, and how to bring it all together without overloading yourself with extra edges, or foregoing detail to keep things manageable.

And of course any neat little tricks and tips are always welcome. Something like "this is how you make a cool erosion effect" or other little tidbits.

Sage

dude work in chunks, mesh it together at the end.

You seem to have the basics down. Make large masses then refine. When I make a low poly mountain for example I just edge extrude and layout what the scene should look like. I usually have a clear idea in my head though. It's better to have reference though.

Vrav

Ahh, cool!

I'd say the scene just needs props, like reusable boulders of various size to add geometric variation to the rougher base. Which you probably planned to do already. (:

There is one neat trick posted by Slum in this thread, bit extreme and intended for baking down to normal maps, but could be used at a lesser scale to strew debris about a scene, select which blocks to retopo and RTT anew. But this is just a random thought I'm having - I have never used it, could be terrible advice, haha!

edit: can't seem to find find this little tutorial someone (Peris?) posted about making lowpoly plants, might've been useful for you. It was basically a simple method for getting photosourced plants alpha'd and ready to use. Couldn't have been too complicated anyway, but sorry. Have a few Overgrowth blog posts instead! They are decent methods, I find.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/11/xtreme-plant-optimization/
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/02/modular-tree-assets/

Renzatic

Sage. I'll try to do that. Considering I planned on cutting up the mesh once I was done (I'm doing at least an 8k megatexture, and wanted to split apart the mesh and do it piece by piece so as not to blow up my computer), so in a way, doing it the way I'm used to works in my favor.

Vrav, I've already started my rocks and boulders. And if you can find that tutorial on quick alphas, I'd be so damn grateful. Right now, the only method I know of to get good grass alphas is to paint the things by hand, which is painstaking, tedious, and usually pretty slow. Every other supposedly quick and easy method I've tried doesn't net me nearly as good results. The other tuts will definitely come in handy though. :thumbup:

Thanks for the help so far, folks.

Sage

with vegetation the hardest part is getting the alpha. there is a tutorial worth paying for out there that shows how to "easily" use channels to select and mask out what you want. It's a little involved, but it gives fairly good results. You would just have to adapt it to your needs.

The course name is Photoshop CS2 Channels & Masks
It costs you 20 bucks or 30 if you want to download the exercise files. Also you need to cancel your billing if you go this route. You can always order the dvd.
link is
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=322

It shows all kinds of creative ways to use photoshop to clean up images quickly and extract what you want. It's hours though, like 102

I think the only thing you'll have to worry about is having enough verts to get good lighting, but I think that depends. Just use the cut tool in your software and draw where you need your details. Then once you have everything how you want go in and fix loops so they are neat if you want towards the end. You might want to try 3d coat with voxels since it should give good results quick.

Arrg you are making me want to try some things out. LOL

Renzatic

Sage wrote: »

with vegetation the hardest part is getting the alpha. there is a tutorial worth paying for out there that shows how to "easily" use channels to select and mask out what you want. It's a little involved, but it gives fairly good results. You would just have to adapt it to your needs.

The course name is Photoshop CS2 Channels & Masks
It costs you 20 bucks or 30 if you want to download the exercise files. Also you need to cancel your billing if you go this route. You can always order the dvd.
link is
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=322

It shows all kinds of creative ways to use photoshop to clean up images quickly and extract what you want. It's hours though, like 102

102 hours? Good thing I'm not in any big rush. I'll go ahead and grab it. :P

I think the only thing you'll have to worry about is having enough verts to get good lighting, but I think that depends. Just use the cut tool in your software and draw where you need your details. Then once you have everything how you want go in and fix loops so they are neat if you want towards the end. You might want to try 3d coat with voxels since it should give good results quick.

Well, I'm planning on going a little overboard with the geometry to get some extra detail in since I'm stuck with only using a diffuse for a IdTech 4 megatexture. I'm aiming around the neighborhood of 3000-4000 tris. If I can pull it off, the mesh should easily be dense enough that having enough verts won't be an issue.

And 3Dcoat. I've been goofing around with it since it was suggested to me in my painting thread, and it is a surprisingly versatile tool. Even though I can't put the voxels to good use yet, I do see how they'd be handy for knocking out quick landscapes...even for someone like me who has fairly meager sculpting skills. For now though, I'm sticking to the simpler side of things. Simple color and low poly mesh for the land, and the high poly/baking work for the props. The heavy sculpting can come later once I get a little more used to doing more organic work.