Recreating a Stone Valley
polycounter lvl 12
A few days ago I found a photo lying around in one of my ref folders. I liked the relative simplicity of it and decided to try to recreate it as closely as possible in game.
I will use all bells and whistle available in the BitSquid Tech to try to recreate it, including DX11 tesselation.
So far I have just about completed one of the modular rockwall assets, and just duplicated it in the scene for now. So you'll se some repetition for now, till I finish some more pieces.
Ill try to document my workflow as best I can as I go along.
I have tried to keep a very clean, even meshflow to help with the tesselation and make the UVmapping as easy as possible.
Keeping straight lines in the mesh in the Z-axis(Y in Maya/Modo) allows me to square off the UV chunks,
so that the horizontal lines in my texture stay horizontal, and don't become some wavy mess.
Here it is in game, tried to match the camera angle, but nothing is final.
I will use all bells and whistle available in the BitSquid Tech to try to recreate it, including DX11 tesselation.
So far I have just about completed one of the modular rockwall assets, and just duplicated it in the scene for now. So you'll se some repetition for now, till I finish some more pieces.
Ill try to document my workflow as best I can as I go along.
I have tried to keep a very clean, even meshflow to help with the tesselation and make the UVmapping as easy as possible.
Keeping straight lines in the mesh in the Z-axis(Y in Maya/Modo) allows me to square off the UV chunks,
so that the horizontal lines in my texture stay horizontal, and don't become some wavy mess.
Here it is in game, tried to match the camera angle, but nothing is final.
Replies
looking forward to updates on this.
Might want to take a look at your ground mesh and texture, if you're trying to replicate the reference. In the ref the ground is considerably smoother, and it looks to be made of clay and bedrock, or something similar.
Keep it up.
It's a nice piece but it's a shame there isn't much to work with in that reference. Maybe add your own twist? You know it reminds me of that desert level from Jedi Academy with the crashed spaceship. Perhaps consider adding a crashed spaceship or plane? Maybe some rising smoke in the distance?
Or are you just doing this as a simple scene for practice? Either way you've done some good planning.
All in good time my good sir
@Deady
yeah the ground texture is just something I threw on for now so I dont have to look at a completely white ground
@habboi
We will see, maybe once I feel the scene is as close to the photo that I can make it, I will add some extra visual "flair"
That Bitsquid engine looks impressive aswell.
Both in the texture blending and in geometry "curvyness".
Looks really cool so far
shadows should have soft edges, and less dark. the ambience from the scene should lighten up the intensity of the shadows a bit.
the floor should have a blended or painted texture to break up the tiling, just to make it a bit more like the reference.
the bottom of the cliff should blend in a bit better with the ground, so that its not just a hard stop of material.
other than that its looking really great.
Seriously though, looking real nice so far. I've just made something similar to this and this totally blows mine away, damn. Must try harder
I also agree with glottis8 about adding more types of rocks and stuff. Perhaps where the ground meets the cliffside?
I lol'd
Great start to this scene though.
Nah, but both you art work and the engine looks fantastic! You know if their's any plans of releasing a editor for us mortals? :poly142:
I almost 100% of the time make my textures from scratch in Zbrush, using very little photos, except for reference.
Would be there any interest in tutorials about how I make my textures? Feels kinda pointless to do that these days, with PhilipsKs tutorials available
Indeed, I have just duplicated the 2 sections I have for now, more uniqueness to come
Hey Pixel,
Fantastic job! Can you explain how you resolved the translation from the ground to your meshes? Vertex Blend?
This is fantastic work and you should definitely put together a tut or guide!
I would love to see your texture tutorial. Everyone has a different style and process. Perhaps you could do a tutorial on texture blending and vertex blending.
Ill do that
@kaburan
It is a heightmap based blend, using the vertex alpha to blend between the two textures
@sltrOlsson
I cant say for sure about any plans for public use of the editor, I would have to ask my boss
Just out of curiosity, would this scene work in a say...xbox 360/ps3 game, or are there too many pollies and whatnot?
Well if you turn off the tesselation it would work just fine
if you mean that the shadows are too dark, then I agree, but I don´t see much wrong with the actual stone in the shadow?
Yeah, like someone pored oil over it
You have a shot on the just the rock you made? With textures that is
I haven´t done any new textures for the scene since I asked if I should do any tuts
But Ill try to do one on the stone plates shown earlier in the thread, for a start
When you say you are blending between the ground and the mountain with vertex painting and a height map what do you mean? Are you using height map to mask out the vertex paint? I saw something similar to this in the UDK GDC scene (I think), but they were using an RGB mask. Do you lerp the height map by the vertex paint outputs?
Someone more schooled in the technical aspects need to answer that.. but I think you are pretty spot on.