Uncharted 2's Tile-able textures created in zbrush by

synergy11

I have been experimenting with creating tile-able textures in zbrush and have had some great success thanks to these forums.

However I have found that these types of shapes in the following screenshots are confusing me as to how to set it up. Rock shapes and repeating patterns like bricks are easier to setup.

Example 1:

(Concerning the top texture)
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171916

Example 2:

(Concerning the top texture)
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171938

And this last one just for fun! Whoaa. aha
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171940


And here's the thread just in-case you are living under a rock.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=79141&page=5&pp=15

Any solutions appreciated! Thanks.

Chris

m4dcow

For the ornamental stuff, I would assume some sort of alpha is generated and then used to stamp the elements in, and then beat them up a bit having each look relatively unique.

As for the vines I have no clue.

I know one of their texture artists did a video where he does a texture for a cliff face.
http://www.youtube.com/user/rooz3d

It's a pretty cool workflow, and maybe a way that vines could be done. So polypaint a few vine variations, and then start placing and manipulating them using the tilde method.

passerby

for the stone im pretty sure they just made a stamp in PS for the patterns than applied it to stones sculpted in zbrush, set a morph target than beat it to hell with hard surface brushes (mallet fast, trim dynamic) than used the morph brush to bring back any lost detail from the stamp that is wanted.

and for the vines i really dont know.

they might have just started with interweaving splines and made them in to polygons, than exported to zbrush and did a remesh all and project all, to make it one mesh than sculpted and polypainted away.

paulsvoboda

Earlier on in the thread Behrooz gives a pretty good explanation and video. Different from the one m4dcow posted. Here's the thread and the video:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showpost.php?p=660353&postcount=142
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTRTTOgTAM[/ame]

dtschultz

m4dcow wrote: »

For the ornamental stuff, I would assume some sort of alpha is generated and then used to stamp the elements in, and then beat them up a bit having each look relatively unique.

As for the vines I have no clue.

I know one of their texture artists did a video where he does a texture for a cliff face.
http://www.youtube.com/user/rooz3d

It's a pretty cool workflow, and maybe a way that vines could be done. So polypaint a few vine variations, and then start placing and manipulating them using the tilde method.

Damn! Thanks for that video. I wish I had found this a few weeks ago. THis is basically the same thing I had figured out last week. The only thing I found to be a little hard to figure out is the clone brush. When you clone from a source that is a different height than the one you are cloning to it pulls up that area and can create some really weird forms.

passerby

@dtschultz that one was actually the the polycount wiki http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting.

dtschultz

passerby wrote: »

@dtschultz that one was actually the the polycount wiki http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting.

Hah! Of course. I should have checked there.

cryrid

I'm guessing the vines would be the same principal, just instead of using cubes for bricks you can form them out quickly with zspheres. Just shape them out, move/transpose into position, drop to the canvas, and ~ the thing until you see it's seam. Then add a new vine that twists around/overlaps to hide the seam, drop and repeat?

Either that or just keep using a lot of zspheres / zsketch to form out a mess of vines (don't worry about tiling seamlessly at this stage). Drop to the canvas, offset it until you see all the seams, convert it to an alpha or displacement*, and apply it back to a new planar tool (*you could probably even skip that step, just draw out the new tool and use matchmaker, zproject, etc to transfer the detail to it). Then you can just spend a few minutes sculpting out the seams.

passerby

cryrid wrote: »

I'm guessing the vines would be the same principal, just instead of using cubes for bricks you can form them out quickly with zspheres. Just shape them out, move/transpose into position, drop to the canvas, and ~ the thing until you see it's seam. Then add a new vine that twists around/overlaps to hide the seam, drop and repeat?

Either that or just keep using a lot of zspheres / zsketch to form out a mess of vines (don't worry about tiling seamlessly at this stage). Drop to the canvas, offset it until you see all the seams, convert it to an alpha or displacement*, and apply it back to a new planar tool (*you could probably even skip that step, just draw out the new tool and use matchmaker, zproject, etc to transfer the detail to it). Then you can just spend a few minutes sculpting out the seams.

hmm ya i always forget about the zspheres and zsketching i tend to always make a base mesh first.

cryrid

Basemesh cylinders should be fine too. Just grab the move brush and have at it until you get a tangle. Intersecting them to create branches probably wouldn't even be a problem if it just gets projected onto a plane with the plan to smooth over and resculpt some areas.

synergy11

Good ideas on the possible vines workflow.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171916

But what about the texture on the top?

I want to create a base mesh for those shapes including the regular bricks on the bottom half of the texture.

But I can't figure out how to set the top shapes up to tile?

The bricks I got.

Ugh Its melting my mind.

Any ideas?

Or do you think those top shapes were completely sculpted in zbrush? I doubt it.

cryrid

The bricks on top with the carvings? If so then they are still bricks so the base mesh can be the same procedure, just with some extra sculpting (just like in real life). Push or pull those areas (either mask + deform, or projection master + layer brush) to create the relief you want, then attack the edges with the mallet fast and trim dynamic brushes.

passerby

cryrid wrote: »

The bricks on top with the carvings? If so then they are still bricks so the base mesh can be the same procedure, just with some extra sculpting (just like in real life). Push or pull those areas (either mask + deform, or projection master + layer brush) to create the relief you want, then attack the edges with the mallet fast and trim dynamic brushes.

i find it helps to set a morph target after you get the stamp in the brick.

that way if you go overboard with the fast mallet or trim you can just morph it back where you want the orgianl pattern more clear.


@synergy11 about the tiling the shape you see cut off on the right side of the image you posted is the same as the one on the other side.

you just need to maintain that, if a brick is being cut off part way by the canvas on one side just be sure to use the same piece on the opposite side.

dtschultz

It's also good to set a morph target before you apply the alpha, so you can quickly add variation and wear to sections of the applied alpha just with the morph brush.

synergy11

But I can't just copy a piece over in zbrush from the left to right side?

Or do you mean I just set up the base mesh that way than when I'm sculpting the sides I'll just turn wrap on?

Thanks.

passerby

synergy11 wrote: »

But I can't just copy a piece over in zbrush from the left to right side?

Or do you mean I just set up the base mesh that way than when I'm sculpting the sides I'll just turn wrap on?

Thanks.

wait are you doing it as once pieace?

What I generally do sculpt a few bricks on all sides and add all the details i want than export it out to maya and arrange all the pieces in maya to the pattern i want, than i make a plane that covers the area i want to use in my texture map.
after all of that i just do a highpoly to low poly bake. from xnormal to get my normal AO and cavity maps and anything else i might want.

the HP being all the bricks and sculpted stuff i brought in and arranged from zbrush and the lp being the flat plane.

what approach are you doing.

though if your base mesh was 1 pieace you could just make it extend past the area you want to use for the texture map and use warp.

synergy11

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone.

Passerby:

I'm not doing it as one piece per say.. What I did is set-up a tiling base mesh in my 3d app. Then I exported as one obj.

But when I import it into zbrush It still auto polygroups each brick. So now I can hide each one and work on it with ease. However I later have to separate into a few sub-tools in order to get more polygons to sculpt and paint on in zbrush.

It's all good though at the end I'll just merge and bake in xnormal onto a plane. No need to decimate bricks in order to brick back into my 3d app to arrange. That method would work ok if I was not using polypaint however.

But ya I see your reason for sculpting each brick/part then arranging in your 3d app. Then you could easily make variations and re-use pieces for other objects. But managing high poly's becomes a pain!

I'll have to try that method next though.

passerby

synergy11 wrote: »

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone.

Passerby:

I'm not doing it as one piece per say.. What I did is set-up a tiling base mesh in my 3d app. Then I exported as one obj.

But when I import it into zbrush It still auto polygroups each brick. So now I can hide each one and work on it with ease. However I later have to separate into a few sub-tools in order to get more polygons to sculpt and paint on in zbrush.

It's all good though at the end I'll just merge and bake in xnormal onto a plane. No need to decimate bricks in order to brick back into my 3d app to arrange. That method would work ok if I was not using polypaint however.

But ya I see your reason for sculpting each brick/part then arranging in your 3d app. Then you could easily make variations and re-use pieces for other objects. But managing high poly's becomes a pain!

I'll have to try that method next though.

ya depending on how many brick the shape i want to do uses i have to use decimate it before bring it back to maya, but the reason why i still do it like this is that it requires less sculpting, for bricks that don't have unique details i only sculpt 2 or 3 of them on all sides than once in maya o rotate them to show different sides to break up repetition.
an other upside to composing it in a 3d package is deformers, i can quickly apply a Bend deformer in maya to make a stone arch.

on other option too if your low on ram and cant handle huge poly counts would be to just make a few sculpted bricks and save them all as seprate ztools than just compose the whole thing on zbrushes canvas. apply the normalrgb mat and save out the doc.

synergy11

Here is my result.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/135/uhohimatool.jpg/


However I am having an issue.

So I started another thread.


http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84917

I really want to maintain my polypaint. However I see no way too using this workflow.

Passerby:

"on other option too if your low on ram and cant handle huge poly counts would be to just make a few sculpted bricks and save them all as seprate ztools than just compose the whole thing on zbrushes canvas. apply the normalrgb mat and save out the doc. "

Would that even be possible to use that workflow to arrange tiling bricks like in my result?

I see how that normalrgb grab would work fine on more random textures. Cuz you can use the tilde key and draw in more subtools to fill the canvas.

....But for bricks....?

I dunno.

cryrid

Would that even be possible to use that workflow to arrange tiling bricks like in my result?

I see how that normalrgb grab would work fine on more random textures.

Easily. In fact I'd say that I've seen it done more often for bricks and tiles than I have anything else.

TDub

If you are trying to make a complex pattern that needs precise scale, i found this solution to work very well.


You can use a blockout mesh, or a fast tiled image source. In this example i just drew a design out really fast and applied it to a plane. Then just place your sculpts and scale them accordingly! hope this helps

Autocon

^ What some of the artists do here for things of this nature.

synergy11

The pic TDub posted is just a template though? None of the elements tile over. Like on the example I am trying to achieve.

?

Am I missing the point?

: )

Thanks for all responses.

TDub

Its the same idea;



As you can see its very easy to get proper scale now. The next step would be to use ~ and pan over to fill in the missing brick for that row.

synergy11

Oh lord.

The gears are starting to turn.

I think I understand now.

Thanks too all.


I will post my results soon!


I get it now. Using this method (as long as you have a "scale" template) you don't really need to worry about grids or being precise in zbrush. As long as you match and are happy with your design. Because it's getting baked to a plane anyways.

Now if you were creating a tiling MESH then it would change because in order for the mesh to be useful in UDK it has to snap to the grid.

I was just being too crazy all along.