how to make best sand texture?
polycounter lvl 14
Hello , I have been trying all the techniques I know so far , with pretty decent results but to be honest none really make me feel like its "perfect" , I sculpted, crazybumped , even used geocontrol tools to create sort of dunes normals but they alwyas lack some deepness ,I found the best was to have a photoshopped handwork out of an original picture , but then what would you suggest to make a good normal map that shows proper ups and downs in the sand? Making it out of the texture dont work as takes the darker areas as drops in height and viceversa for the light parts , when instead are side shadings ... is there a way to get a better high up definition heightmap or normal from a picture ?
Replies
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/olivierl/olivierl0908/olivierl090800005/5421627-foot-path-in-sand-dune-to-the-beach-at-the-shore-under-a-cloudy-stormy-sky.jpg
The texture itself is simple, just actually MAKE dunes with edges and faces.
You could try something like bump offset to add some visual depth, but if you really want it to look like deeply depressed sand, just model it. The detail will get removed in the LODs down the line.
Or you could use some displacement mapping on a sufficiently dense mesh for the ground plane.
Those particular mini dunes look very close to Perlin's Turbulence function.
My suggestion? start with a plane of N by N dimensions, where N is one side of your texture. Like for a 256x256 pixel texture use a 256x256 plane, so you have one point for each pixel in your end map.
If you're in 3ds max, apply a displace modifier, then put a new "noise" map into the displacement slot, set its setting to turbulence. Top color white, bottom color black, use 1-3 octaves at most, and a low size, like 4-16 for a 256 map, and tweak the other settings till you get something you like. This should give you something like this:
Take this to zbrush or your sculpting app of choice. Don't subdivide it, just modify it enough so that its a bit more sandy. Sharper peaks maybe, add a few internal dune accumulations that you don't get from the algorithm alone.
Next step is to make it tileable. Use one of the many methods in assorted tutorials around the web and polycount for making high res tileable assets/textures.
Once its tileable and looks more like the sand you want, bring it back to max or your retopo program of choice and make your low poly version. Export and bake as normal, apply sandy texture as needed.
teriyaki can u post some updates while you do it?
this this only isnt convincing, id say some portion of thermal erosion would help
gotta try that out, images later
[Edit]
probably this could work
The reference was a little different in this thread but pretty much the same thing, some modifiers, some sculpting, some tile work... I'm not sure if you realize it but the pattern in the ref image is due to human foot traffic, so having large open, untouched areas with that material would be kind of weird... Which brings me to another point, often you have a handful of sand materials and they need to be blended together, normally with some kind of vertex color mask.
similar to sand dunes in desert but on smaller scale ....
http://www.ronenbekerman.com/procedural-vray-sand-material-how-to-use-it-video/
That particular pattern is caused by human feet coming to and leaving a beach...
The most common pattern you see in deserts/dunes, are the wavy lines.
Occasionally in certain areas you might get something that looks a little more chaotic because the wind changes direction and erodes the wavy pattern in another direction but normally those patterns are formed by pretty strong winds associated with weather patterns such as storms where the wind is blowing constantly in one direction for a prolonged period of time.
but that is because where im from, Nova Scotia has really rugged beaches with lots of granite boulders scattered about.
like i said the look of the beach will have a lot to do with the location, in my case got it bordering the whole Atlantic ocean so the elements can really get to things verses, a beach in a place like California where it is quite sheltered from the elements, and not as deep.
vegetation will have a effect too, dune grass, or shrubs and trees growing on the border of the beach, but when it isn't the wind at work it is mostly likely all the crap the tide is pushing and pulling over the beach that makes it all messy.
you should pick a location for your beach and study images of that area and only that area. pick a Provence or State and study the beaches from only 1 shore of that said Province or State. I also don't know where you live but maybe a beach day is in store (if possible), just bring a Camera and a sketchbook with you.
i got pretty decent looking sand plane from it
One thing I just remembered is, substance materials come with a few sand materials that each have their own variety of changeable parameters. The best part is they tile, and using a plane you can bake out spec, normal, diffuse and AO maps.
You can then do like arrangemonk suggested and start layering various things together. You might even bake out a few different materials or combine them in the 3dsmax material in different ways.
As is they look pretty good and because they're tillable you can get a pretty good start on creating something custom.
Ok... How did you make those exactly? The results these give when I use them as a displacement map are pretty spot on for what I need, just too low resolution. Plus they look like simple filters some how?