I think the biggest thing to remember when making rocks, and pretty much anything else, is to focus on the really big shapes. It's obvious but I think some peeps let it go over their heads! It's actually a very simple sculpt, with a very efficient / balanced amount of hard edges and bulky shapes, and an even amount of crevices going around.
Muuuuch better bro, I'm loving it.
Also, they look a bit metallic. 'Might wanna fiddle with the spec or something. (or maybe that's just the shader)
Edit 2: By the way, how did you explode your geometry? Took a grabdoc within ZBrush to make a height map and used that on a high density plane? Nevermind, you're using Mudbox and upon examination I don't think your wall is tileable. Hah :poly128:
Edit 46: Did you just slap a planar texture on top of it?
I've noticed that the Xoliul shader tends to make things look slightly metallic. I actually have no spec on those rocks. Might be my lights.
And yeah, it is indeed done in Mudbox, and no! I doesn't tile. I was just doing a quick sculpt. Basically, I just wanted to practice my planar sculpting.
Basically, I "drew" (small sized sculpt brush) small lines along a flat plane to determine the general shape of the rocks.
Next step, I used the freeze tool to isolate the areas around each rock, like this: (blue means it is frozen, or "masked")
Basically, this allows me to build up my shapes with the Foamy brush much more easily:
The next step is getting that planar look. My favorite brush ever, the Scape brush. Now, you'll notice it probably WON'T give you the result you want, but there's a neat little trick that very few people know about! In the Scrape brush's Advanced settings, on the right, you want to UNCHECK "Update Plane".
Doing this will allow you to get clean, crisp planar edges. Make sure you make your brush pretty big to get decent results!
The rest is just refining your shapes to get the result you want! Once you're done the rocks that haven't been frozen, freeze them, and unfreeze the incomplete areas. Make sure you keep the surrounding rocks frozen, because Having "Update Plane" unchecked will completely mess up the surrounding stuff if your brush is too big.
The fun thing about mudbox is that there is a Normal Map viewport viewer. Meaning, I didn't bake ANYTHING. I just took a screenshot of the viewport in Normal Map mode, and bam. This only works for small textures though. Anything under 1024. Unless you have a ridiculously awesome monitor with some insane resolution.
As for making the low poly mesh, I simply applied my texture on a plane in Max. Then used the Cut tool to cut in the geometry around the shapes of each rock. Then I pulled out the shapes and there you have it. Low poly mesh, easier than retopo!
Like it has been said many times before, BUILD YOUR SHAPES FIRST. I went crazy fast here, and didn't take the time to properly do anything the way I normally would. I just wanted to get a point accross, and hopefully you guys understand!
I hope this helps! If you have any questions, just ask!
Ace: I can get similar results using the normal spray, default settings. This is about two minutes of scribbling on a very generic rock-like base, first try using the technique:
The trick seems to be using only light or heavy pressure. I did have some strange things happen when I went in between.
Hehe, I used the Move brush [mostly at the beginning to get the forms], Clay brush [both as is,and with a fairly hard edged alpha on], trim dynamic/hpolish, then just stamped on some alphas at the end, and later [not in the pic you posted] I added a little noise to rough it up some more.
Ahh well, I guess thst's par for the course with projections though, you want the geometry you're painting on to be facing you for the best results, I keep that in mind and mask off extreme angles roughly while I'm polypainting.
You know, after detailing so much, why not use the Relax Defomation in ZB to relax the mesh? It will still keep the detail, but will even out the polies, but then again, I could be totally talking out of my ass.
The fun thing about mudbox is that there is a Normal Map viewport viewer. Meaning, I didn't bake ANYTHING. I just took a screenshot of the viewport in Normal Map mode, and bam. This only works for small textures though. Anything under 1024. Unless you have a ridiculously awesome monitor with some insane resolution.
*cough* Go to render -> Save screen Image and use 4x resolution...
Basemesh - Sculptris - Meshlab was the workflow for this, it's a bit primitive as a toolset but a fun exercise nevertheless. The lowpoly has about 1500 tris.
The sculpting took about three hours, Sculptris has similar flatten brushes as ZBrush, though not as complicated of course. I didn't want to go ZBrush-highpoly as the little program has problems with anything over a million, but a good form was all I wanted (ZBrush is a monolith I just have to tackle at some point though)
I tried unique tex, with no overlaps, but it just wasn't sharp enough without being huge so I went with a tilemap + vertexpaint as an AO of sorts. I guess I could use that vertexpaint as a mask and put two tiling textures into it next, for moss. There's no normalmap as of yet.
Let me know what you think, I feel like an underdog with my toolset
Nope, this was done in Max, but you can do it in UED for instance. It's basically giving vertices color information that is then multiplied with the texture (I guess you could use different blending modes too, depends on the engine)
bugo would quite easily be the biggest tutorial teaser ever! would love to see you try and get that tutorial done or any rock tutorial for that matter .
bugo would quite easily be the biggest tutorial teaser ever! would love to see you try and get that tutorial done or any rock tutorial for that matter .
There's that script I just posted if it helps you, I still couldn't get that time to do a video if that's what you are requesting. Sorry, some day!
Awesome stuff dude! also what brush did you use to sort of flatten the rocks and get those hard edges? Ive tried using plannar brush but it works in a really weird way and odd angles and i cant get my head around it!
I like the MalletFast brush but it doesnt give me results that are anywhere near as good as that...
Awesome stuff dude! also what brush did you use to sort of flatten the rocks and get those hard edges? Ive tried using plannar brush but it works in a really weird way and odd angles and i cant get my head around it!
I like the MalletFast brush but it doesnt give me results that are anywhere near as good as that...
Just a quick sculpt I did to test out some of the techniques listed in this thread. Thanks to all that contributed. I found this information to be incredibly helpful.
I started with a base made from boxes in max and followed with a remesh all in zbrush to get things started. In the future when sculpting rock formations or walls similar to this I think I will keep the base meshes as individual polygroups. As one mesh its a little too easy to unintentionally move polys next to the individual rock you are trying to sculpt.
looks great nico, if you don't mind me pushing you a bit more I would use some trim smooth border in some parts to get the rock formation even harder edges and to take out the blobbyness
well, I could, for some reason it crashes my zbrush. I'll try again later.
I tried recording a rock sculpt I was doing at work... it kept crashing my Zbrush then deleted the saved mov file... >.>
I think something external (ie Fraps) might be better...
The one thing I am noticing with mostly everyone's rocks here (cept Bugo's) is that they are too carefully carved out. Rocks are nature, nature is messy! Just go nuts and go with the flow of the crevasses and cracks. Be like water would do to wear away at rock.
Anyway You can get some really nice results with TrimSmoothBorder. I've been using it for the last 2 months now on my rock sculpts. Base of clay tubes and then finish with trimSmoothBorder.
When I get something to record my zbrush setup I'll have a go at recording one at home.
That'd be great Anuxinamoon! Love to see your process.
Vanity looks good. Don't mean to sound like a grumpy ass, but it's not so much a pimping thread, it's a technical thread, so maybe mention your process and any tricks you may use so others can learn.
Okay I was testing a few ways to record. I did Cam studio tests like 3 times but I couldnt figure out how to get my recorded file.
Ended up testing out the zbrush movie recorder and it worked for once. Seems that short <10 minute recordings don't tax it too much.
So I uploaded my quick sculpt of the quick sphere rock to give you an idea of roughly the process I use to make my rocks. No audio because it late and it was just a test to see if it would work.
It ain't perfect but it might give you some ideas on how to approach rocks.
Replies
I've noticed that the Xoliul shader tends to make things look slightly metallic. I actually have no spec on those rocks. Might be my lights.
And yeah, it is indeed done in Mudbox, and no! I doesn't tile. I was just doing a quick sculpt. Basically, I just wanted to practice my planar sculpting.
Basically, I "drew" (small sized sculpt brush) small lines along a flat plane to determine the general shape of the rocks.
Next step, I used the freeze tool to isolate the areas around each rock, like this: (blue means it is frozen, or "masked")
Basically, this allows me to build up my shapes with the Foamy brush much more easily:
The next step is getting that planar look. My favorite brush ever, the Scape brush. Now, you'll notice it probably WON'T give you the result you want, but there's a neat little trick that very few people know about! In the Scrape brush's Advanced settings, on the right, you want to UNCHECK "Update Plane".
Doing this will allow you to get clean, crisp planar edges. Make sure you make your brush pretty big to get decent results!
The rest is just refining your shapes to get the result you want! Once you're done the rocks that haven't been frozen, freeze them, and unfreeze the incomplete areas. Make sure you keep the surrounding rocks frozen, because Having "Update Plane" unchecked will completely mess up the surrounding stuff if your brush is too big.
The fun thing about mudbox is that there is a Normal Map viewport viewer. Meaning, I didn't bake ANYTHING. I just took a screenshot of the viewport in Normal Map mode, and bam. This only works for small textures though. Anything under 1024. Unless you have a ridiculously awesome monitor with some insane resolution.
As for making the low poly mesh, I simply applied my texture on a plane in Max. Then used the Cut tool to cut in the geometry around the shapes of each rock. Then I pulled out the shapes and there you have it. Low poly mesh, easier than retopo!
Like it has been said many times before, BUILD YOUR SHAPES FIRST. I went crazy fast here, and didn't take the time to properly do anything the way I normally would. I just wanted to get a point accross, and hopefully you guys understand!
I hope this helps! If you have any questions, just ask!
-which technique is cleaner? think of poles, which technique produces less poles.
Brilliant technique!
Unless you want your rocks animated, poles don't matter. At all.
?!
How?!
Hehe, I used the Move brush [mostly at the beginning to get the forms], Clay brush [both as is,and with a fairly hard edged alpha on], trim dynamic/hpolish, then just stamped on some alphas at the end, and later [not in the pic you posted] I added a little noise to rough it up some more.
Here's an update
I actually learned a lot from Tristan Tunnel's method
Carry on, please.
It looks very painterly. I would not have guessed photo source.
Mental Radiation, can you possibly go into more detail about your entire process? ehe
Using lightbox to paint on textures is very intuitive though.
*cough* Go to render -> Save screen Image and use 4x resolution...
Haha yeah I thought about that after posting. :P
:poly127:
http://www.zamaanonline.com/images/Zhangjiajie%20National%20Forest%20Park,%20China%202010.jpeg
You can use decimation master from zbrush (i like to make clean retopo in 3dcoat also)
Basemesh - Sculptris - Meshlab was the workflow for this, it's a bit primitive as a toolset but a fun exercise nevertheless. The lowpoly has about 1500 tris.
The sculpting took about three hours, Sculptris has similar flatten brushes as ZBrush, though not as complicated of course. I didn't want to go ZBrush-highpoly as the little program has problems with anything over a million, but a good form was all I wanted (ZBrush is a monolith I just have to tackle at some point though)
I tried unique tex, with no overlaps, but it just wasn't sharp enough without being huge so I went with a tilemap + vertexpaint as an AO of sorts. I guess I could use that vertexpaint as a mask and put two tiling textures into it next, for moss. There's no normalmap as of yet.
Let me know what you think, I feel like an underdog with my toolset
How about those Witcher 2 rocks! Simply amazing texture work.
Nice work Skyway. I like the Unique texture example the best.
EDIT: What is vertex AO?
Was that done in a game engine?
There's a Wiki article about this too http://wiki.polycount.com/AmbientOcclusionVertexColor?action=show&redirect=Ambient-Occlusion+Vertex+Color
[ame]
There's that script I just posted if it helps you, I still couldn't get that time to do a video if that's what you are requesting. Sorry, some day!
I like the MalletFast brush but it doesnt give me results that are anywhere near as good as that...
I would guess hPolish.
Mmhmm! The hPolish and TrimDynamic brushes are a god send for rock sculpters. Not just rocks, but they do certainly seemed catered to it
I started with a base made from boxes in max and followed with a remesh all in zbrush to get things started. In the future when sculpting rock formations or walls similar to this I think I will keep the base meshes as individual polygroups. As one mesh its a little too easy to unintentionally move polys next to the individual rock you are trying to sculpt.
Base in maya -> zbrush -> maya for baking. used hpolish and claytubes brush.
I tried recording a rock sculpt I was doing at work... it kept crashing my Zbrush then deleted the saved mov file... >.>
I think something external (ie Fraps) might be better...
The one thing I am noticing with mostly everyone's rocks here (cept Bugo's) is that they are too carefully carved out. Rocks are nature, nature is messy! Just go nuts and go with the flow of the crevasses and cracks. Be like water would do to wear away at rock.
Anyway You can get some really nice results with TrimSmoothBorder. I've been using it for the last 2 months now on my rock sculpts. Base of clay tubes and then finish with trimSmoothBorder.
When I get something to record my zbrush setup I'll have a go at recording one at home.
Vanity looks good. Don't mean to sound like a grumpy ass, but it's not so much a pimping thread, it's a technical thread, so maybe mention your process and any tricks you may use so others can learn.
Ended up testing out the zbrush movie recorder and it worked for once. Seems that short <10 minute recordings don't tax it too much.
So I uploaded my quick sculpt of the quick sphere rock to give you an idea of roughly the process I use to make my rocks. No audio because it late and it was just a test to see if it would work.
It ain't perfect but it might give you some ideas on how to approach rocks.
May still be processing...
[ame]
Didn't realise you were a fellow aussie