given the scale of this thing, for it to not have super low res textures on screen in a full environment, I would recommend making a few tiling textures and then mapping them onto the tree and vertex blending between them.
having this whole thing on a unique texture sheet even a 2048 or 4096 would leave it pretty blurry, or cutting it up into multiple sheets would still be really expensive. with a few blended textures and vertex color to break it up, you could really have a super efficient mesh. naughty dog uses tiling textures for almost all their world building and i remember seeing their trees built that way.
you could sculpt a could nice organic textures on a flat plane with wrap mode and build it like that, I think it would give you really nice crisp results and with your nice evenly divided mesh, you could blend it up really nice as well. just a though, large scale objects are always really tough to figure out how to do.
yeah that's kind of what i'm running into at the moment. I wanted this to be a hero piece, i'm hoping i can squeeze it into a 2048. The scale of the mesh is about as tall as a small tree, maybe that will help out as well? if it turns out blurry i'll def go the tiled texture route.
Hey man, this is coming along. I agree with PixelMasher, there's no way you're going to bake this down to one map and have a texture that looks any good, much less one that picks up any of the details you are putting into it right now. Another way you could bake down some specific details and keep your texture resolution up is to sculpt out some major forms, forget about all the macro bark detail you are adding and focus purely on major forms. Right now the tree isn't very interesting in that regard as it just looks like a bunch of tubes with noise. I'd pull back and start getting in some deep crevices, some holes in the tree, more sinuous details, never going to macro where you are adding noise. In fact, you'd be better off making it pretty clean . Then you can make a low poly of that, bake the normals and apply that to your tree. Then, on the second UV, you unwrap the tree as vertically as possilbe (to maintain direction of a tiling bark texture), and then overly in the material a tiling bark normal and use the correlated tiling diffuse texture and tile that to get some resolution.
That way you keep both the normals (unique detail) from the sculpt but also get some really high res macro detail while not relying too much on the low res normals. You can even overlay an ambient occlusion map (UV channel one) on top of your tiling diffuse.
This isn't the cheapest way to go, but your normals from the sculpt can be relatively low res as the tiling will hide a lot of the smaller shapes but keep the major forms. I'm not sure how this holds up from a technical standpoint, but it gives you some good results for something so large and organic.
thanks a lot paul, that's probably what i'm going to have to do. If anything it was pretty cool practice... or whatever. i'll scratch this and try the other way tomorrow
Organic shit is difficult technically and artistically(unless you are teaandcigarettes), Props to you for trying to tackle something as complex as this scene. I wish you luck sir. I'm interesting in how you will uv this when going with the tiling texture, I have a feeling it will be difficult to maintain that swirling direction of the tree and have the bark texture follow it.
You may want to use a texture that doesn't look like it follows a certain direction. or instead of having the mesh as one piece you could have the swirly parts separated and then unwrap them as you would a tree trunk or branch.
Also it might be a good idea to block out your entire scene, you could find you want to change the shape of this once you see other things around it since it is a hero piece/focal point I'm guessing.
3D Puzzle Bank of China Tower Building Model Card Kit
it is art!Made from Premuim Quality Wood
Architectural Facts Stimulates Creative Learning http://cutt.us/nxlN
Great work Alberto. You've been an inspiration of mine since I first saw this thread posted.
I totally agree with the approach that paulsvoboda suggested. I did something similar in the fantasy cave scene I worked on, and your can get some really nice effects with just two nice tiling textures and some vertex painting. I had no idea that you could use multiple uvs for anything other than lightmapping, so I'm sure that will make it look even better.
I know one technique I've used for getting the texture to flow along with a certain direction is to make a plain ol' cylinder and unwrap it as it is. I don't know if max has the setting, but in maya you can just check 'preserve uvs' in the tools settings, then the uvs will change dynamically with the altered mesh. I'm not sure if that would be applicable to this entire mesh, but maybe that can help out with the roots.
This tree is coming along very nicely. I appreciate you explaining your process on creating the wrapping affect around the tree. It took me a minute to understand it. Keep up the great work.
hahaha i don't even know if you can trust that FPS meter, it spikes all over the place.
done with diffuse.
"Pick up that can."
"Now put it in the trash...."
Are you running a sharpen on your textures? Seems like it could help here. Everying seems a little on the muddy side. Could just be due to the size, but it seems like there's detail in there that could be helped out a little.
yeah i run a sharpen after im done with the spec and everything else. I try to keep the diffuse maps, sort of lack luster when it comes to contrast as well. I get that and sharper details with the specs.
Very nice welds mahn. Pretty sure that most hydrants are cast iron, and thus not welded, but pfft. Nice weld anyway. Wasn't able to find a close up ref of the nyc spec dresser 500 style which it appears you're basing this on.(Oh the wealth of info in the internets)
I know you're done, but I've gotten into the habit of analyzing pieces for my own benefit, and giving critiques is as helpful to me as I hope it is to others, so I'll throw a couple more at you.
1st: Post png's man! jpegs can seriously obliterate detail.
2nd: I think the wear you've got going on isn't helping sell it. Not that this won't ever happen, it's not as common or as likely as the wear pattern that favors the outer edges and places that get banged/brushed up against.
3rd: Paintover.
My 35 cents for future ref. I'd apologize for criting your work when you're done, but it's polycount.
yeah but i think i would be super crippling myself slaving to references. What i mean is only allowing myself to only go by what i see in the reference, at the end of the day, it's random damage.
I keep the reference and reality in mind but i'm going for what comes out, from playing around. altho, (having said that) i kinda 1/2 disagree with the crevices comment, because it becomes too subjective of an input to apply. you can actually see a lot of crevice damage in the last pic you posted, lol.
It's impossible to stylize something without knowing what it looks like in reality.
Reference reference reference. Every style of art is based reality. It's not so much about a specific reference, and following it exactly, I certainly don't mean that.
And yeah, like I said before, it's not that that type of wear can't happen, (paint adhesion, etc.) And there is certainly crevice wear on that pic, mainly in the form of scratches. There's a lot of factors that come into play as to how something wears.
Even in that last one, if you look at the top edge, you'll see rust forming where it's been worn down for longer than the scratches in the crevice areas where something has scratched it.
I just posted that last one because the eyes were funny.
45 cents. :P
*edit* Also, you definitely can go the other way and make it to obviously edge worn just as easily. My paintover is a tad exaggerated.
Replies
all i need now is to refine and define.
I personally thought you were going for a jelly/organic look for the base. This will be interesting/
Refined the bark, details still need to be more pronounce. Gotta make em pop a bit more.
having this whole thing on a unique texture sheet even a 2048 or 4096 would leave it pretty blurry, or cutting it up into multiple sheets would still be really expensive. with a few blended textures and vertex color to break it up, you could really have a super efficient mesh. naughty dog uses tiling textures for almost all their world building and i remember seeing their trees built that way.
you could sculpt a could nice organic textures on a flat plane with wrap mode and build it like that, I think it would give you really nice crisp results and with your nice evenly divided mesh, you could blend it up really nice as well. just a though, large scale objects are always really tough to figure out how to do.
That way you keep both the normals (unique detail) from the sculpt but also get some really high res macro detail while not relying too much on the low res normals. You can even overlay an ambient occlusion map (UV channel one) on top of your tiling diffuse.
This isn't the cheapest way to go, but your normals from the sculpt can be relatively low res as the tiling will hide a lot of the smaller shapes but keep the major forms. I'm not sure how this holds up from a technical standpoint, but it gives you some good results for something so large and organic.
You may want to use a texture that doesn't look like it follows a certain direction. or instead of having the mesh as one piece you could have the swirly parts separated and then unwrap them as you would a tree trunk or branch.
Also it might be a good idea to block out your entire scene, you could find you want to change the shape of this once you see other things around it since it is a hero piece/focal point I'm guessing.
looking forward to more.
it is art!Made from Premuim Quality Wood
Architectural Facts Stimulates Creative Learning http://cutt.us/nxlN
I totally agree with the approach that paulsvoboda suggested. I did something similar in the fantasy cave scene I worked on, and your can get some really nice effects with just two nice tiling textures and some vertex painting. I had no idea that you could use multiple uvs for anything other than lightmapping, so I'm sure that will make it look even better.
I know one technique I've used for getting the texture to flow along with a certain direction is to make a plain ol' cylinder and unwrap it as it is. I don't know if max has the setting, but in maya you can just check 'preserve uvs' in the tools settings, then the uvs will change dynamically with the altered mesh. I'm not sure if that would be applicable to this entire mesh, but maybe that can help out with the roots.
Thanks for the suggestions, unwrapping that beast is going to be fun... i can already see it.:poly122:
KennyTies
Glad it helped! thanks.
here's me starting to block this whole scene out.
worrying about big shapes first, next the huge gears.
[super exited! no freelance jobs... lol]
anyway, trash can first. this is squeezed into a 1024 map shared by 3 pieces.
so it's not the best res. kinda going for an oldies boston look.
No Specs. just Diffuse. Please excuse the Alpha maps going crazy in max viewport
As always crits welcomed altho i'm not sure if there's enough to crit. :P
just need specs now
i finished working on a structure for a scene with 3dmax, i was at 22k at 40fps lol
***yaoming***
done with diffuse.
[no specular maps, yet. diffuse only at the moment]
"Pick up that can."
"Now put it in the trash...."
Are you running a sharpen on your textures? Seems like it could help here. Everying seems a little on the muddy side. Could just be due to the size, but it seems like there's detail in there that could be helped out a little.
messing around with spec maps.
here's the shared texture... still wippy.
I know you're done, but I've gotten into the habit of analyzing pieces for my own benefit, and giving critiques is as helpful to me as I hope it is to others, so I'll throw a couple more at you.
1st: Post png's man! jpegs can seriously obliterate detail.
2nd: I think the wear you've got going on isn't helping sell it. Not that this won't ever happen, it's not as common or as likely as the wear pattern that favors the outer edges and places that get banged/brushed up against.
3rd: Paintover.
My 35 cents for future ref. I'd apologize for criting your work when you're done, but it's polycount.
i was referencing this little hydrant.
this turned into a simple spec and diffuse exercise, that's why i decided to stylize and exaggerate the ref.
The base and large side t illustrates what I meant about the outer surface wear versus the crevices.
Also :P
I keep the reference and reality in mind but i'm going for what comes out, from playing around. altho, (having said that) i kinda 1/2 disagree with the crevices comment, because it becomes too subjective of an input to apply. you can actually see a lot of crevice damage in the last pic you posted, lol.
Reference reference reference. Every style of art is based reality. It's not so much about a specific reference, and following it exactly, I certainly don't mean that.
And yeah, like I said before, it's not that that type of wear can't happen, (paint adhesion, etc.) And there is certainly crevice wear on that pic, mainly in the form of scratches. There's a lot of factors that come into play as to how something wears.
Even in that last one, if you look at the top edge, you'll see rust forming where it's been worn down for longer than the scratches in the crevice areas where something has scratched it.
I just posted that last one because the eyes were funny.
45 cents. :P
*edit* Also, you definitely can go the other way and make it to obviously edge worn just as easily. My paintover is a tad exaggerated.
Definitely