Temple Ruins - Rift zone

Marcus_Aseth

Hi guys,I am posting here this wip because I totally need some help

The indie team I am working with asked me to create the environment of the 5 bridges that connect an ancient ruin inside a rift(for game).
To make the things more difficult,there is not a concept art to follow,I have to come up with some good design :poly122:
so I made a quick blockout of the fissure (just 2 big planes) & put it the 5 bridges (I take them from the map layout done from another guy of the team) & put all into udk,taked some screen & now the idea was to start doing some overpaint to find some cool design.

But the major problem is another: I don't have a clear idea about how to approach to the rift creation :poly141:
At the beggining I was thinking to sculpt it all into Zbrush & then retopology & stuff,but in that way I will end having a giant texture...& maybe that is not good :poly141:
Please guys,could you help me to understand how a professional environment artist would choose to proceed to doing something like that?

Marcus_Aseth

some more blockout

LuCh!

you should make a reference board first since you have no concept art,
to give yourself a better view off what you want to achieve,
and then we have a better idear of what you're trying to do.

maybe look at this for some inspiration
the cliffs have the same tilable texture, so no super sized texture (he says it somewhere in the comments)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98332

skylebones

Hey marcus, I agree with LuCh!. Gather some reference images and do some quick sketches. Figure out where you want to take it. Im not very good at drawing, but it's much easier to sketch something out on paper than in 3D.

Good luck! And post your progress.

Marcus_Aseth

Thanks you for the suggestion guys,actually I have a general direction as the style have to be something like romans/greeks style,so archs,big colums,& maybe a bit of freedom cause the absence of a clear concept,also the lead of the game send me a ref folder full of those kind of reference,so I think I am covered on that,maybe I have only to study them better :P

Thanks for the link & those cliffs are amazing,saddly this game doesn't run on udk,I assemble it in udk for personal portfolio purpose,but the lead will use the assets into the Neoaxis Engine,& I think that engine can't handle things like blending materials (though I have to ask to him when it comes online to be sure) so I think I will have to use unique texture set for each cliff piece

Marcus_Aseth

Btw,forget to post this,was a sketch I done yesterday for the pavimentation of the bridges,but I fail to give the scale of this rock,cause here they look small,but actually they are big rocks,one is like a bit bigger of my keyboard,but maybe they don't fit,so I keep looking to reference & exsperimenting with stuff

Marcus_Aseth

yesterday the lead told me that this place is one of the few places in the level where the player is outside,so it don't have to looks like a corridor,also in this bridge there is gonna be a fight with a "miniboss", (whatever that is,maybe is a dwarf boss ) so I open a big circular space on the bridge,like a plaza into a rift(who know,maybe ancient eliens go there to admire the sky when they was tired to pray),maybe I can put an obelisk or a fountain or an old tree without leafs on the center,or a big statue,or maybe that broke the long view of the bridge & is not good(got to try it),or maybe this circular area in a bridge is already too much strange & I have to keep myself better with the ref material >.<

let me know what you think

skylebones: your right,probably I should go with some quick sketches

Marcus_Aseth

Hi guys,1:30 - 2 hours overpaint to get an idea of where I am going with this rocks (I am still slow on this kind of stuff,but also I don't have any kind of hurry so it's fine ) they need to have a cold texture as the lead request,so I was going for a grey-bluish color,maybe with some moss green to don't be too much boring,also probably I need to have some big rocks to add more variation cause now there are too much small rocks,& probably in a giant rift wall is not too much cool
Also I hope I will be able to sculpt this kind of stuff,never sculpted a rock :S
The scene for the game don't have it,but for the scene for my portfolio I was thinking to add something like small waterfalls,to make it even more interesting :P

Marcus_Aseth

Hi again,starting to doing the rocks for build rocks formation inside Zbrush,but I am not really happy with the resoult
Is my first rock so I don't have developed a workflow for them,with proper brush/alpha,so,I guess I have to keep doing rocks & see what brush/alpha gives the better resoult,but probably I also need to find some good reference cause now I am not using any
Guys can you give me any suggestions to help me doing better rocks? also what do you think is wrong with this?!

thx

Darkleopard

The rocks are starting to look good!. Keep practicing!

Will be watching the progress

Marcus_Aseth

Thx Darkleopard

little up,on the left as it is now inside zbrush & on the right a simple texture applied on it on photoshop to give an idea,but the final would be without grass & small rocks,I will paint that away from the texture,now I have to look to a way to sculpt nice cracks/middle level detail on this "testing rock",after that I can start with the rock mass production

EvolMate

Your rocks are pretty amazing, sir!
Have you seen this? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tz7na7Y75o&quot;]Sculpting a rocky surface - YouTube[/ame]
(I'm learning to sculpt.. and try to make a realistic rock. This video helped me a lot)

Snader

This may or may not be of any use to you, but I recently came across an image/article about cultures that use treeroots as bridges.

Marcus_Aseth

EvolMate : nope,first time I see that tutorial,thanks!!
Snader: wow,is that real?!

Marcus_Aseth

I was busy with stuff,but today I manage to continue it,I was doing a new rock & starting to put toghether a rock formation to see how it looks like,but I was not totally happy because I remembered of a tutorial that I have seen some days ago (from choco,wenda on youtube)that explain that rocks formation have a flow,& looking at real images I have notice that,& I can see that my rock formation is missing this overall flow,is more like a bunch of random stones attached togheter
So now the idea is to start over sculpting with that in mind,but there is also a second possibility where I get this overall flow trough a good texture,so probably I can try in that way.
Any consideration of you guys that can help me to decide how to proceed is welcome

user38

can you give a little insight as to how you painted that rock?

Marcus_Aseth

I don't have painted it,to show the mesh better usually I take 2-3 screen from zbrush of the same image & I blend them toghether in photoshop,in this case I have used probably the "FlatSketch01" shader or the "Sketch Gummy",that give you something like more white on the edges & more dark colors on the cavity...or something like that

EvolMate

This rock looks amazing. Like a piece of some sort of rough plumbum or stuff.. Or like a piece of an ore.

user38

Marcus Aseth wrote: »

I don't have painted it,to show the mesh better usually I take 2-3 screen from zbrush of the same image & I blend them toghether in photoshop,in this case I have used probably the "FlatSketch01" shader or the "Sketch Gummy",that give you something like more white on the edges & more dark colors on the cavity...or something like that

sweet thanks, the result came out pretty nice. Perhaps I'll try to bake a few and edit them in photoshop for my project.

Marcus_Aseth

ok,I think now I have catched the right style for the my rocks formation,they are more rounded & less hard edged compare to the one done before,also I will sculpt away those horizontal cracks,that in my opinion looks out of place

Can you tell me in your opinion wich one do you think would be best for a rift rock wall? this new version or the old one style?

EvolMate

As for me last ones look more like stones for some kind of layered plato formations.
Previous ones look best as for me - especially if you make them more like a wall.. Or something

Snader

Yes the tree-bridge is real. These tribes intertwine the roots and such over the course of several generations, and they make for very strong and resilient bridges, apparently. I quite love the idea of them.

Marcus_Aseth

little up,here some low poly model,doing some rocks formation now (in the screen there are 2 models of each,so consider the half of the tris count for both) still not sure if they look like a bunch of rock stucked toghether of if they can actually work fine for game,the Lead like them so I keep in this direction

EvolMate

Oh wow, these are sexiest 3d rocks ever!

EvolMate

Btw, here: http://orbart.free.fr/index.php?Gallery=105
guy made rocks that made me rock hard