wow are those textures photo source or hand made? they look amazing.do you have any pointers when it comes to texturing rock/stone so I can stop using straight horrid cgtextures all the time? XD
Thanks guys, that's a lot of comments, I'll try my best to answer them.
Oniram: Almost, the dirt one is currently 100% photosourced.:poly121:
mkandersson: with cry-engine you can basically choose any rule for you units. At work we stick with centimeters and I personnally work with a grid snap of 1 meter.
KazeoHin: yeah sorry for the confusion, I'm still waiting for a staff/moderator to change the name of this thread accordingly. I have contacted them, PRETTY PLEASE??:poly122:
Gooner442: yeah you're right about variation and details. I'll do more meshes to dress the walls as I progress thru all this. Some decals here and there, some vcolor blends and it'll look more interesting.:thumbup:
....and is there not such a reliance on using the grid, as in UDK?
Well for this, it all depends what you're trying to tackle as an environment, I could try to make a good answer to this but Minotaur0 explained very well when you should or not use modularity and therefore grid snapping in a level, in a recent interview:
And as of now, the editor may not be as user friendly as the UDK. But you can cross your fingers for a nodal material editor in August.. maybe :P
Snow: textures are photosourced, but not completely as a lot of the informations you see in them comes from the sculpts. Here's a picture of how I layered the rock bricks texture, it might help you or might not but here it is:
Thanks guys! I myself look forward to the next few days I'll spend on it! Here's some basic terrain blocking of the walls and village, and a silhouette of the castle:
I have so much ideas coming through my head when blocking this I'm barely able to canalize them. Also, headache now...
I will replace most of the rounded towers by square ones, because at the moment it look uber-copy-pasta.
Quick dirty update, Didnt work that much last month unfortunately, was on holiday and only had the laptop.
Made progress on the terrain, and the valley is taking shape. The castle is in a very early blockout stage but I expect it to be done by the end of the week.
Looking forward to seeing this develop, I loved that Helms deep stuff. Definitely need to break up the texture and add some dirt but you know that, you work for Crytek!..
Just wanted to ask what is the learning curve for CE3?, I'm not a technical artist so I'm hoping you tell me it's pretty user friendly.... for material creation as well? + the fact that it doesn't have the tutorial library that UDK has.
Much lower, and steady.
As for materials in CE3. Creating them is as hard as pluging texture into slot. And if can read tooltips, it's even easier
And that brick texture is just awesome.
Would be cool, if you would like to make bit more detailed process of getting them. Or that just standard make brick/wall > sculpt > make bigger wall > bake AO > go to photoshop > do other stuff ?
Thanks guys for the quick feedback. Worked the afternoon till now on the castle blockout and started modelling the final mesh, no close up yet this time but when moving the camera around I found this point of view interesting:
- How do you create the trees? Are they hand crafted? Some tips maybe?
- Could you give some info on the water shader? The one you used in the tropical "pirate" scene was also very good.
OccultMonk: I have not yet made trees in this scene but will probably share the workflow when I come to it. The water is the cry-engine default ocean shader.
Oniram: I never polypaint to be honest, having to even more geometry than my sculpt to get a basic diffuse just bothers me. If I want to do 3d paint I'd rather have 3DCoat And yes, I export the model, I dont use the canvas technique as I find it quite limited if I need to bake more than normal map
Update for today, some rock meshes to dress the terrain, and some tests with the terrain's 3D textures (maps a texture perfectly on vertical cliffs)..
Feedback apreciated as always
Edit: I just find the brick too yellow now on this screenshot, gotta fine tune this too
Wait a second. Is the rocks in the clifs meshes? The reason I'm asking is because they seem to be part of the terrain, or is that static mesh as well. Just curious to the transition.
quick question, how does lighting work in CE3, don't mean to hijack the thread, do you need to have lightmaps for everything?
Everything is real-time, all you need to do is bring up the Time Of Day editor and mess around with the parameters and see it updating in real-time. There's no lightmaps in CryEngine.
Man ParoXum, you seem to be the only one around here that got CE3 figured out. I just downloaded the SDK and i cant image coming anywhere with this until i got some documentation up. I wish there was just one tutorial about importing assets into the engine and setting up materials and textures that dosnt assume you are some kind of CE2 pro.
Man ParoXum, you seem to be the only one around here that got CE3 figured out. I just downloaded the SDK and i cant image coming anywhere with this until i got some documentation up. I wish there was just one tutorial about importing assets into the engine and setting up materials and textures that dosnt assume you are some kind of CE2 pro.
Matroskin:Thanks man, coming from you it means alot. I really loved your latest environment!
myles:Trying my best to make things look epic! Decals will come for sure, but for now I'm doing what's possible to have it looking good without. :P
Visceral: Thanks mate, but I can assure you I'm not the only one. There's guys at work that do insane stuff with it. I hope the documentation will arrive soon because I feel sorry for all the people trying the SDK atm..
On the news, I completely re-sculpted the rock texture. I wasn't tiling well and the style was not what I had in mind. I now use a wind erosion canyon-like rock. :poly142:
Other than that, castle still not textured, but I hope to have that done by the end of next week. I started modelling the cliffs instead of using terrain for the playable areas and the result looks promising :P
Also threw a quick fallen rock mesh on the terrain using the vegetation painter:
Still room for optimization on this mesh (vertex color display):
i looked at those screens and screamed with the intensity that rivals that of the voices of all of the citizens of Aalderan, followed by "that's beautiful" (and a great silence). outstanding!
Everything is real-time, all you need to do is bring up the Time Of Day editor and mess around with the parameters and see it updating in real-time. There's no lightmaps in CryEngine.
Cry Engine 2 had baked ambient lighting, for terrain at least. CE 3 doesn't have that anymore?
Edit: Checked it does indeed still have it. Under calculate surface texture there's an option to calculate terrain sky accessibility.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you go about making that rock wall mesh? Did you sculpt in zbrush and then retopo? Or did you just model it?
It looks very good, and that's why I'm asking this haha
I tried to record the process this morning using camstudio but video didnt play in the end so I'm finally going to explain you with text:
Step by step,
-Use a spline to create your cliff path.
-Drop a sweep modifier on it, use angle profile, then from there extrude the top polygons, align them Z if your cliff path is a slope.
-Make cuts into your cliff, for me I try to cut in a layered way
-Use connect to refine and add control loops
-Use push & pull brush to push inward one loop every now and then.
-Reapeat until it's uniformly done across all the mesh
-Chamfer the hardest edges, more refining yet.
That's it, I have again three or four other meshes to do in the same style, so I will try to record the process if camstudio want.
Anyone a good video recorder for 3dsmax/timelapse?
That looks so much better, the rock texture kicks ass.
My only gripe with the scene currently is the excessive amounts of "supports" under the wall trims, they look very repetitive. I'd cut their count by 75% or so personally. Other than that, I can't wait to see more progress!
I see what you mean Minotaur0, but this is based off pictures I gathered from existing castles machicoulis. I will see in the long run if it's still that much distracting.
Okay, good news, I succeeded doing a timelapse! This one is 16 minutes long and will go through the process of modelling a layered rock mesh from start to engine.
There's no voice over and it might be a bit fast but the you can clearly see the important stuff in it as I described in the previous message. @The Nasal Abyss: Hope that'll help
so i found something i kinda dont like. the brick size for the walls of the castle seem to not match the size of the bricks on the bridges. i dont know if that was intentional but i think it may be aesthetically better for them to be the same size yeah?
Ah, I thought you did the terrain in CE3 (not the cliffs), video looks like you must have done it in zbrush or something.
I did the terrain in CE3, what you see in the video is the same terrain, put back into max. But decimated before-hand.
@Oniram: yeah that was intentional since those meshes are upto 100 meter tall, to minimize repetition a bit. Please warn me if this is still shocking when I will come with the blend shader for the bricks (supposedly clean brick > worn brick)
Replies
Thanks for the answer
Oniram: Almost, the dirt one is currently 100% photosourced.:poly121:
mkandersson: with cry-engine you can basically choose any rule for you units. At work we stick with centimeters and I personnally work with a grid snap of 1 meter.
KazeoHin: yeah sorry for the confusion, I'm still waiting for a staff/moderator to change the name of this thread accordingly. I have contacted them, PRETTY PLEASE??:poly122:
Gooner442: yeah you're right about variation and details. I'll do more meshes to dress the walls as I progress thru all this. Some decals here and there, some vcolor blends and it'll look more interesting.:thumbup:
Well for this, it all depends what you're trying to tackle as an environment, I could try to make a good answer to this but Minotaur0 explained very well when you should or not use modularity and therefore grid snapping in a level, in a recent interview:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86907&highlight=minotaur0
And as of now, the editor may not be as user friendly as the UDK. But you can cross your fingers for a nodal material editor in August.. maybe :P
Snow: textures are photosourced, but not completely as a lot of the informations you see in them comes from the sculpts. Here's a picture of how I layered the rock bricks texture, it might help you or might not but here it is:
Take that, verticality!
Thanks for showcasing the tech tool, these people need to see what it can do!
Also, subscribed!
I have so much ideas coming through my head when blocking this I'm barely able to canalize them. Also, headache now...
I will replace most of the rounded towers by square ones, because at the moment it look uber-copy-pasta.
Any feedback appreciated.
Made progress on the terrain, and the valley is taking shape. The castle is in a very early blockout stage but I expect it to be done by the end of the week.
Much lower, and steady.
As for materials in CE3. Creating them is as hard as pluging texture into slot. And if can read tooltips, it's even easier
And that brick texture is just awesome.
Would be cool, if you would like to make bit more detailed process of getting them. Or that just standard make brick/wall > sculpt > make bigger wall > bake AO > go to photoshop > do other stuff ?
Looking at your portfolio and this you seem to have quite a thing for old stone fortifications
Got rock. Tiling, Used mainly two brushes, orb's cracks brush and trim dynamic brush. PS finish.
Textures, still not final but good enough imho
Will test some cliff meshes soon, but I hope to texture the castle first.
...as in "this rock makes me hard" %)
keep it up, bro:)
1. do you polypaint?
2. do you texture and bake from a 3d model, or use the canvas in zbrush and export different map passes?
This week. Maybe even today.
- How do you create the trees? Are they hand crafted? Some tips maybe?
- Could you give some info on the water shader? The one you used in the tropical "pirate" scene was also very good.
Oniram: I never polypaint to be honest, having to even more geometry than my sculpt to get a basic diffuse just bothers me. If I want to do 3d paint I'd rather have 3DCoat
Update for today, some rock meshes to dress the terrain, and some tests with the terrain's 3D textures (maps a texture perfectly on vertical cliffs)..
Feedback apreciated as always
Edit: I just find the brick too yellow now on this screenshot, gotta fine tune this too
So you rocks are just a tiling texture applied to UDK sculpted terrain?
You sculpted a flat plane in zbrush for the normal map than made the diffuse in PS? Is that right?
Looks awesome.
It's in CE3, so it would have been terrain sculpted in CE3.
And that sounds about right on how he would have made the rock texture.
Another view I found may be of use:
quick question, how does lighting work in CE3, don't mean to hijack the thread, do you need to have lightmaps for everything?
i'd love to see how you tackle modularity a bit more in depth, ie what pieces make up the scene (i know there's a couple on the first page).
Everything is real-time, all you need to do is bring up the Time Of Day editor and mess around with the parameters and see it updating in real-time. There's no lightmaps in CryEngine.
It cloud be made with voxels, as the CE3 supports it.
HAHA. Exactly how I feel^^ The guy that made Helm's Deep?! Of course I am going to follow this thread xD xD
http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Getting+Started
Go trough it, and other topics. There is everything explained. And even things that you might not know even to ask for.
http://sdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Exporting+Assets
It's very easy.
Looking great tho ParoXum, really epic, though really, what else would we expect?
Great stuff, your LoTR enviro is one of my favs, i guess this will become another one
myles:Trying my best to make things look epic! Decals will come for sure, but for now I'm doing what's possible to have it looking good without. :P
Visceral: Thanks mate, but I can assure you I'm not the only one. There's guys at work that do insane stuff with it. I hope the documentation will arrive soon because I feel sorry for all the people trying the SDK atm..
On the news, I completely re-sculpted the rock texture. I wasn't tiling well and the style was not what I had in mind. I now use a wind erosion canyon-like rock. :poly142:
Other than that, castle still not textured, but I hope to have that done by the end of next week. I started modelling the cliffs instead of using terrain for the playable areas and the result looks promising :P
Also threw a quick fallen rock mesh on the terrain using the vegetation painter:
Still room for optimization on this mesh (vertex color display):
C&C appreciated as always
It looks very good, and that's why I'm asking this haha
Cry Engine 2 had baked ambient lighting, for terrain at least. CE 3 doesn't have that anymore?
Edit: Checked it does indeed still have it. Under calculate surface texture there's an option to calculate terrain sky accessibility.
I tried to record the process this morning using camstudio but video didnt play in the end so I'm finally going to explain you with text:
Step by step,
-Use a spline to create your cliff path.
-Drop a sweep modifier on it, use angle profile, then from there extrude the top polygons, align them Z if your cliff path is a slope.
-Make cuts into your cliff, for me I try to cut in a layered way
-Use connect to refine and add control loops
-Use push & pull brush to push inward one loop every now and then.
-Reapeat until it's uniformly done across all the mesh
-Chamfer the hardest edges, more refining yet.
That's it, I have again three or four other meshes to do in the same style, so I will try to record the process if camstudio want.
Anyone a good video recorder for 3dsmax/timelapse?
My only gripe with the scene currently is the excessive amounts of "supports" under the wall trims, they look very repetitive. I'd cut their count by 75% or so personally. Other than that, I can't wait to see more progress!
Okay, good news, I succeeded doing a timelapse! This one is 16 minutes long and will go through the process of modelling a layered rock mesh from start to engine.
There's no voice over and it might be a bit fast but the you can clearly see the important stuff in it as I described in the previous message.
@The Nasal Abyss: Hope that'll help
[ame]
[ame]
I did the terrain in CE3, what you see in the video is the same terrain, put back into max. But decimated before-hand.
@Oniram: yeah that was intentional since those meshes are upto 100 meter tall, to minimize repetition a bit. Please warn me if this is still shocking when I will come with the blend shader for the bricks (supposedly clean brick > worn brick)