whats the best way to model texture a flint wall?

AlexLegg

I want to model and texture a flint stone wall. I want to produce a high poly wall in Mudbox and then then a low poly in Max. The wall will be an individual object, so it will not make use of modular pieces or textures.

But I'm unsure how to go about it. So I wondered if anyone out there could tell me how they would go about it?

Here's an image of a wall to help:

http://yfrog.com/0nx7ej


I can think of several methods but I'm unsure which one is best/most efficient:

A) Make several detailed bricks (max/mudbox), then arrange these to make a wall and bake out maps. then make the colour map afterwards in PS using a photos.

Or take the photo and make the texture first, then use this a displacment map in MB, perhaps sculpting a little over the top.


The issue with A is that there is a lot of colour variation in flint and it could be troublesome and time consuming to make the photo based texture afterwards, I'd have to individually line a photo of a rock with each modelled one.

But the issue with B is that the photo (even adjusted in PS) will probably not produce as good as a 3D result as A, and the texture maybe stretched in places. However I will have very well lined up tetxure and normal map.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Alex

Ben Apuna

I would probably go with option A. using this script for the rocks.

Then bake those suckers out normal + AO + an alpha of only the rocks.

Finally paint the diffuse(and spec?) colors in PS using the alpha texture to help with selection/masking, rather than using a photo based approach.

EDIT:

Or you could use photos and the clone stamp to get your colors, just kill the lighting information with the high pass filter first.

Eric Chadwick

Some of these tuts should help
http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting

Ghostscape

I don't do that much sculpting, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'd do this:

1) Make several base-mesh rocks, and duplicate them until you have your wall spaced out roughly.
2) Add a plane that will act as the mortar/concrete that holds the stones in place
3) Sculpt
4) Export rocks as one mesh, plane as another
5) Set diffuse of rocks to Red, Plane to Green, bake to plane/low-rez mesh in Max, rendering out a lighting, normal, and diffuse pass.
6) Load up diffuse into texture, go to the photoshop channels palette, load the red channel of the diffuse map as a selection, use as a mask as rocks, load green channel as selection and use as mortar

Like I said, I do very little sculpting, so I couldn't walk you through the particulars of exporting each mesh separately, but this is how I'd do it (and have done it in Max only without bothering to sculpt).

When you bake out a diffuse mask like that it makes doing a color map that matches your different materials trivial.

AlexLegg

Thanks guys,

Eric I think I have been through most of those tuts, it left me with too many choices!

Ghostscape, thats exactly what I had in mind!

I've had other feedback suggesting that B is a much better option though!

I guess both could be as good, I just have to choose one and go for it.