Zbrush Stone Tiles

joe gracey

How do these tiles look? Any crits or comments would be very helpful.

Are any of the tiles going in the right direction?

I'm still figuring out what brushes work best in Zbrush.

Eventually this would be used as ground texture for a cellar/dungeon type scene.

As always, thank you for the help!

OMGiFARTED

all you really need is trim dynamic and hpolish, you've gone alittle crazy using clay buildup. If you're going to use clay buildup, use it very subtly. i would suggest not doing so much ware and tare and all sides of a tile. definetly get the corners, but keep the ware and tare inconsistent, your tiles look too uniform for me.

joe gracey

Thanks, I couldn't agree more. The clay buildup is out of control.

Would you use the malletfast brush to do the trim dynamic and hpolish?

joe gracey

Another try at it.

I feel like my base tiles are a little too wide apart and shouldn't have such wide or deep cracks. I don't know.

Paulod

Hey,

Good start but I would advise looking at some more reference. A quick Google search can give you a great start. At the moment I would suggest lowering the height of the tiles and the gaps in-between them. Make them a little less square and add some grouting between the tiles.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=stone+tile+floor&hl=en&prmd=imvnsz&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=FDqyT6q0HKKQ0AXC2IGaCQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CIEBEPwFKAE&biw=1009&bih=1054#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=old+stone+floor&revid=1084911345&sa=X&ei=PzqyT5DmKOHJ0QXgwsSpBw&ved=0CEoQgxY&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=cecdfbeae6323ee4&biw=1009&bih=1054

joe gracey

Thanks Paulod. More reference should have been something I did right from the start, but I guess I had a bad case of tunnel vision.

Also agree with lowering the height and closing the gaps.

joe gracey

Still too noisy.

Too much general wear and tear as well.

joe gracey

How do these tiles look?

I'm still trying to figure out how to make grout properly, so that will come.

motionblur

Hah ... those remind me of the ground tiles from Super Mario Bros on the NES. Especially the second from left in the bottom row.


For the grout: Try making it a separate subtool that you can embed your tiles into. That way you can play with sculpting, noise and textures separately without needing to worry about your tiles. Depending on how tilable or unique you want the thing to be you can also make single tiles stand out a little or be covered in grout.

The most important thing is always looking at reference. Preferrably real one if available.

joe gracey

haha... awesome that they look like SMB bricks, and at the same time... not.

Thank you for the help with the grout, I didn't know where to start really, and now I do.

Appreciate the help motionblur!

AlecMoody

The cracks on the tile pieces look drawn on because everything is still on the same plane. The broken off chunks of concrete should be rotated to face the point of impact.

Animesh

The first set of stones has some nice character. There is some nice detail and scratches in the first set of stones that the second set is lacking. The second set of stones look smoothed over a little too much and has lost a lot of detail. I would suggest adding more gouges like the first set to the second set because the second set of stones appear to have a nicer edge flow.

joe gracey

You're totally right AlecMoody, the cracks don't look real at all. I need to go back and make up a little story with the tiles. I think less cracks would be better.

@Animesh... maybe I'll try combining the gouges of the first set with the edges with the second?

joe gracey

How about this?

joe gracey

Here's my first attempt with grout.

Z3D

Maybe you has seen that,pretty cool reference

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZbjZDh6fbs"]Tiles for normal map in Zbrush 3.5 - YouTube[/ame]

Keep going joe!

joe gracey

AlanSMitchell

try out the clay tubes brush

Fingus

Try to change the alpha of the ClayBuildup brush, the default square one is very harsh and it's very obvious you used it with those little hatchings that come with it. You can get some very different looks to your surface by using a different alpha. Experiment with it a bit.

joe gracey

Oh wow, I didn't know about changing the alpha! Thanks Fingus

Fingus

You're welcome, always a joy to share information.

joe gracey

joe gracey

Thank you Joan7

I'm still having trouble with the grout. I feel like it's either too noisy or too flat. I need to find the happy medium.

MadnessImport

Happy Medium you say?

http://eat3d.com/free/zbrush_stone

If you haven't seen this ^ Take a watch. He uses a Morph target > Over details > Then uses the Morph brush with a Spray stroke to reduce the detail to get that Happy Medium

joe gracey

I'm trying to create a tillable wall piece, what do you think?

BIGSOG

neato! but the way it is now the tiling will be visible. let some of the pieces go over the border to prevent having a straight line with no stones on it

joe gracey

I'm not sure if anyone can answer this, but I'm having a bit of a problem with UDK. My normal map isn't showing up. Any idea's as to why this is happening?

I'm sure it's something simple, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

l.croxton

Showing it in "unlit" mode. Turn it to "lit" :P

joe gracey

Son of a bitch, I feel like an ass.

Thank you l.croxton.

l.croxton

Haha, its no problem .

joe gracey

Hey guys, sorry for all the noobish questions. How do I merge my subtools? I've been looking online and I can't find the option to do it. I want to save the whole piece as one obj for xnormal.

WarrenM

Not sure in 3.1 ... there are buttons for it in 4.x+ ... why not upgrade?

joe gracey

I don't know... I guess for what I use it for I didn't think there was a need, but now I probably should.

WarrenM

4R2 is really good!

Low

Read both Old Tiles and Cracked Stone at least. They both use Zbrush in their workflow.

http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html

foxmarry

I think the grey one is better than the other one.