Temple Interior
Hola 
So I'm starting up a new project, a temple interior with an earthy/cave-like feel. It's going to be a lush environment with waterfalls running through it and a lot of ornamental details.. I have a proxy model of the whole scene, that a friend of mine is concepting over presently. Hoping to have the concept by next week, until then, I've started on a couple of tiled textures that I may or may not use.
Textures were made 100% in zBrush
So I'm starting up a new project, a temple interior with an earthy/cave-like feel. It's going to be a lush environment with waterfalls running through it and a lot of ornamental details.. I have a proxy model of the whole scene, that a friend of mine is concepting over presently. Hoping to have the concept by next week, until then, I've started on a couple of tiled textures that I may or may not use.
Textures were made 100% in zBrush
Replies
Firstly create a new document in zBrush and set the dimensions to 2048x2048. Then import a plane and frame it to fit the full size of the screen. With edit mode deselected, you can tile the plane simply by holding the '`' button and dragging. Using the simple brush tool, sketch out the layout of the pattern that you want continuing to tile as needed. Now to actually sculpt out the texture, you'll have to reproject the sculpt onto a new plane so that you can take it into edit mode and use the sculpting tools as normal.
To do that, select the MRGBZ grabber tool (click simple brush, a menu should pop up) and drag across the screen. It'll give you 2 maps, a displacement map in the alpha and a color map. Create a new document now and reimport a new plane. Subdivide the plane as needed, take it into edit mode, and mask by alpha using the alpha that the grabber gave you. Then go to the deformation menu and offset on the z-Axis by about -8 or so. Then you can sculpt at the plane like normal. Once you start getting to the edges though, you will have to repeat the tiling, mrgbz grabber, and reprojecting. Just keep doing that until the whole plane is sculpted though.
For coloring, a lot of the work is done via masks. Play around with the masking by ambient occlusion and cavity to get the details in. Then use alphas...lots of them
When you're done, you can export the normal and diffuse map straight out of zBrush
here is his youtube channel with the tutorials
http://www.youtube.com/user/rooz3d#p/a/u/2/devMGgy6HRk
cant wait to see this scene evolve from the blockout stage!
Pixelmasher - I actually never saw those videos, but I did see his post on zBrush central for the art of uncharted thread. He does a very brief explanation there. I do reference Uncharted a lot though, I am a huge fan of Naughty Dog
New texture that I was working on since this morning. I doubt this one will be used though, too clean for one. That and the fact my concept artist told me there are no bricks in the environment tehehe.... so this is now a practice throwaway piece.
Added to the wiki. A breakdown with more pics would be great if you have the time.
http://wiki.polycount.com/Digital%20Sculpting#Tiled_Sculpting
So before we begin, you will need to create a simple square plane in any 3D package, and export this as an obj. The number of subdivisions doesn't matter. Also be sure to gather reference for the texture you will be making, you will also likely be using some of these photos for doing the diffuse later on.
So. Step 1.
Open up zBrush and create a new document.
a. Make sure the 'pro' option is disabled under the document menu.
b. Resize document to your preferred dimensions (I always just use 2048x2048 )and hit crop.
c. Import the plane obj that you created.
d. Click and drag the zoom button until you can view the entire document.
e. Enable edit mode and click the 'frame' button on the right toolbar. This option will only be available in edit mode.
Step 2 -
a. Change material to 'flat color'
b. Select simple brush
c. Turn off Zadd and turn on RGB mode, change brush type to Freehand
d. Sketch the layout of texture you are creating. Hold '`' and drag to tile the texture
You should mainly be concerning yourself with the composition of the texture in this sketch. Layout shapes in a way that nothing stands out too prominently and so that it properly tiles.
((Alternate method, instead of sketching the layout in rgb, you can also just sketch/sculpt a layout by keeping zadd on, turning off rgb, and using the 'bump brush' in the 2d tools menu. It looks a lot rougher, but so long as you can read it, it may save a little bit of time.))
e. After sketch is laid out, click simplebrush until another tools
menu pops up. Select mRGBZ grabber. Drag over the entire document.
mRGBZ grabber will provide you 2 maps in alpha and texture slots. The texture in the alpha map will act as a displacement map that we will use later. For now all we want is the texture map.
Something to keep in mind also, the images that mRGBZ grabber will give you will always be upside down. In some textures it doesn't matter, but if there's a distinct top side to your texture, you will have to export the texture and flip it in photoshop, then reimport.
Step 3-
a. Create new document and import the plane obj again. Go into edit mode.
b. Subdivide plane, making sure the smooth option is unchecked
c. Go into the Texture Map menu and select the texture that you got from the mRGBZ grabber.
And now we start sculpting!
There's definitely a number of ways to approach sculpting the texture and it will ultimately be up to you to find the methods and tools that work best for you. Personally, for hard surfaces, I do 90% of my sculpting manually with a square malletfast brush and hpolish. I only add alpha details at the end.
Keep in mind though while sculpting this texture, do not sculpt all the way to the edges. Doing so will create seams when you try to tile. Also a tip when sculpting with the texture on, just block in all of the shapes that you sketched first. Then turn the texture off before sculpting. Having the texture on will get in the way of seeing the details of the sculpt.
At this stage I'm just blocking out the sketch that I had before, trying to push in some of those crevices and pop out the high points. I'm not really concerned with details yet. I've turned the texture off at this point so that it doesn't get in the way. Tools used: MalletFast and hPolish
Continue sculpting until most of the middle is blocked out. Now to tile and reproject this onto a new plane, you pretty much just repeat the process that we used to transfer the sketch. First resize the document to 2048x2048, and crop the document. Zoom out and frame the tool to the whole document. Deselect edit mode, hold '`', and tile the tool.
Select the mRGBZ grabber tool and drag across the whole image. All we need for now is the image that the grabber gives in the Alpha slot. Remember that these textures are always vertically flipped, so you may have to flip it back if needed.
Once you have the alpha saved from the mRGBZ grab, create a new document and create/import a new plane. Go into edit mode and subdivide the geometry as needed. With the alpha selected in the alpha slot, click mask by alpha under the masking menu.
Deselect the ViewMask option under masking so that you can properly see the depth of the deformation that you will apply. Under the deformation menu, set the offset axis to 'z' (you will also have to deselect the 'x' axis). Offset the tool by a negative value to recreate the sculpt you had on the new plane. Once it's to a depth that you like, make sure you clear the mask, then begin sculpting again.
You will likely have to repeat the last few steps several times to get the whole texture sculpted evenly and seamlessly.
More to come soon...
a few questions:
why don't you use the plane3D tool and subdivide it with smooth turned off (Smt)? since its UVed entirely to the 0-1 range i don't understand the necessity to import another mesh.
couldn't you paint the layout in photoshop with the potential aid of underlying rock textures as guides and just import that as a texture?
another note: there are flip options in the texture menu which might save you the flipping of the textures later on.
looking forward to updates on this
don't forget to record the sculpting process. You could probably upload the ZMovie and share that if you aren't comfortable with movie editing.
i'll definitely have to play around a bit with the malletfast and hpolish - not a combination ive used so far.
As for the photoshop layout, you could definitely do that, it's just a matter of preference on how you want to layout the texture. I like to make mine from scratch, usually combining elements that I see in several textures. For that personally I feel the zBrush tiling is more intuitive than the offset in photoshop.
As for the movie, I've never used ZMovie so I'll have to look up the details of it. I sort of already started sculpting, but I do the same thing throughout the whole texture any ways.
Thanks for pointing those out though!
PixelMasher - I have never used wrap mode before so I don't know how it works. I googled it up real quick to see and it's something that I'll have to play around with to answer for sure. The examples I saw of it didn't look as good for organic tileable textures, but I won't really know until I fiddle around with it. If someone else has experience with it though, I'm interested in learning the method
progress is looking good
I see, well guess i can just try it directly.
Thanks man
Thanks alot!
Thanks alot!