I have a question going back to your foliage, specifically the texturing of it. Why don't the solid colors behind the leaf texture show up on the in-game model? How does that work with alpha needing to be present to have nothing else show on the plane except the leaf texture? Is the solid somehow above the texture/not effected by the alpha?
The solid colours are in the background layer and not the same layer as my foliage. So I just ctrl-click the foliage layer to get the marquee selection of my leaves and past that in the alpha channel. The solid colours are just there so that if & when its LOD's there's no bleeding of black or white pixels.
I was messing around with your texturing method today and ran into an obstacle I can't seem to get over. I've duplicated my original image and applied the despeckle/dry brush filter to it and then created a new layer for the black and white clouds filter, but I'm confused by your instructions after that.
How are you singling out the black in the clouds layer to apply it as a mask to the duplicate?
edit: Nevermind I think I've figured it out. I used threshold and inverted my mask on the duplicate layer. Here is the result
@adam:
I've read through this entire thread a couple times to make sure you hadn't mentioned it before, and maybe I'm just a n00b, but are you doing the (finalized) terrain all in UDK via the terrain gen/mapper or in Max, importing the mesh, then doing all the foliage brushes/blending/etc on that?
I just wanted to pop in say your doing a great job with this thread, But most importantly it looks like your having a lot of fun which is the most important part!
Doing a little Collab Action with Adam. So here are some early concepts For a Henchman and The Evil Genius of Compound. Dr. Q!
A few notes on some design choices.
I thought the base henchman should be a blank Soldier. In a generic Soldier/Drone Design you always want to hide the eyes and to anything you can to make them feel unified and as non-individual as possible. He hase a DEATH-O-MATIC laser pack and rifle, Standard issue.
Design Thoughts on Dr.Q:
I wanted a Dr. Evil Type vibe. Every Evil Genuis has a pet to stroke while they ponder their plans for world domination. In this case a mutated Cockroach, because Cockroaches are survivors, and Dr.Q admires that.
He wears an air filtration system because he is allergic to everything.
This will probably go through another iteration, but this is where I am currently at.
I have a question for you, Adam. For your environment, are you going to model the actual environment first? (Rocks, cliffs, bushes, grass, trees, etc) , move on to texturing all those, and then proceed to modelling the props? Or is there no particular order to follow?
Glad you guys are digging Dr. Q and his pet roach! Can't wait to see the next iterations, Josh.
As for me, I've a small update from today to post before I move on to some Hemlocks for this scene.
The birch tree is nearly done - finished enough for me to move on to the next tree. Once all 3 tree's are completed and placed around a bit I'll do their final passes to make sure their leaf colours and patterns are meshing well together.
For this tree I'll do a quick rundown of the Birch tree bark. For the Hemlock I'll break down how I went about making it (no Speedtree!).
Handpainted birch! End result on that is really great. Highlights on the notches look a liiiiitle strange to me in the scene there, unless that over-accented look is what you're after. Nice work either way though - love to see the rest of the scene flushed out.
This is a really sweet looking project. Thanks for posting the birch tree textures, it's helpful to see how others handle textures. Awesome job overall! I can't wait to see the finished product.
Hey Adam, looking nice so far
One crit on the birch trees, something looked wrong so I looked up some reference to check: Those black recessed areas on the trunks have protruding upper and lower lips and the general trunk surface is pretty rough. It's not really a biggie but might add a bit more realism if your going to get in close.
GCMP - If I have time for little stuff like that I'll definitely come back to your suggestion. As for the surface of the tree, I couldn't go too noisy with my normal map if I wanted to maintain the softness of the lighting hitting it. So what I did was only bump the main shapes of a birch tree's patten in the normal map and do the rest in the diffuse.
Alright, my terrain is buggered and not baking shadows properly. Check out the images below to see what I mean. All my objects are set to cast shadows. Grr..
A, the problem was my lightmap resolution on the terrain. Fixed now!
For shits & giggles I've also adjust my lighting based on the square I outlined in the image above this post. I like taking little breaks to muck around with an environments lighting.
I've been following this project for a while; though I didn't have the time to comment.
Sweet texture work Adam, those birches are looking sick. Mood is really nice, but I'm not a fan of that overblown DOF; seems a bit too strong for my taste.
Hahah the DOF and Bloom is just me fucking around with options when I'm bored. I'm in the same camp as you, they don't need to be that maxed out. Generally, when they are, the picture can scream out 'I WAS MADE IN UNREAL!' which I don't generally like to achieve
I like how you showed us that are focusing on the scene as a whole while you work and not getting caught up on the little things. That's a great technique for just getting things done.
Would you mind showing us how you constructed the branches of those trees? They look pretty full yet not too triangle heavy.
Hahah the DOF and Bloom is just me fucking around with options when I'm bored. I'm in the same camp as you, they don't need to be that maxed out. Generally, when they are, the picture can scream out 'I WAS MADE IN UNREAL!' which I don't generally like to achieve
Hehe. Glad to hear that - overblown DOF was the only thing that really bothered me.
Nevertheless; looking forward to seeing what you will come up with next. I really like that swampy look you have going out there.
It's been a plan to explore different types of blends but for now while I am moving forward I'll stick with the two blends I'm already using*. I'm not convinced the rocks NEED that sort of texture blend happening on them but if they do, I'll add them in to the material.
*Part of my goal was to investigate modulated vertex blending on static meshes and, right now, my rocks are doing that. It's subtle but its an easy way for me to remove any patterns seen in the rock from using 1 tiling texture. So, I've achieved that original goal of mine and if I find that they need a third blend, a grass/moss surface will be it.
vrav: Sorry im talking about unreal shader stuff...if hes doing a real time environment might as well make some interesting shaders that do more blends and crap right?
its not as complicated as it sounds if adam knows the material nodes. He should know what im talking about (hopefully)
Adam! Epic.
This is my first day here and I have learned so much. Thank you and your walls of text. And everyone who has provided great info on this thread.
Question: With all the duplicate meshes used, does that automatically count as "instanced geometry" or is there a button/technique that needs to be pressed/used?
Replies
I'm confused.
How are you singling out the black in the clouds layer to apply it as a mask to the duplicate?
edit: Nevermind I think I've figured it out. I used threshold and inverted my mask on the duplicate layer. Here is the result
And its Drybrush - Reduce Noise.
I've read through this entire thread a couple times to make sure you hadn't mentioned it before, and maybe I'm just a n00b, but are you doing the (finalized) terrain all in UDK via the terrain gen/mapper or in Max, importing the mesh, then doing all the foliage brushes/blending/etc on that?
A few notes on some design choices.
I thought the base henchman should be a blank Soldier. In a generic Soldier/Drone Design you always want to hide the eyes and to anything you can to make them feel unified and as non-individual as possible. He hase a DEATH-O-MATIC laser pack and rifle, Standard issue.
Design Thoughts on Dr.Q:
I wanted a Dr. Evil Type vibe. Every Evil Genuis has a pet to stroke while they ponder their plans for world domination. In this case a mutated Cockroach, because Cockroaches are survivors, and Dr.Q admires that.
He wears an air filtration system because he is allergic to everything.
This will probably go through another iteration, but this is where I am currently at.
I was already loving the progress on this piece, and it just got even better now we're getting some Josh Singh action too.
Concepts look cool, love the note about the allergy thing being the reason for the filtration system on the evil genius!
As for me, I've a small update from today to post before I move on to some Hemlocks for this scene.
The birch tree is nearly done - finished enough for me to move on to the next tree. Once all 3 tree's are completed and placed around a bit I'll do their final passes to make sure their leaf colours and patterns are meshing well together.
For this tree I'll do a quick rundown of the Birch tree bark. For the Hemlock I'll break down how I went about making it (no Speedtree!).
One crit on the birch trees, something looked wrong so I looked up some reference to check: Those black recessed areas on the trunks have protruding upper and lower lips and the general trunk surface is pretty rough. It's not really a biggie but might add a bit more realism if your going to get in close.
For shits & giggles I've also adjust my lighting based on the square I outlined in the image above this post. I like taking little breaks to muck around with an environments lighting.
Sweet texture work Adam, those birches are looking sick. Mood is really nice, but I'm not a fan of that overblown DOF; seems a bit too strong for my taste.
Good to see you got the shadows working ^^ Looks ace!
Looking forward to follow this thread.
I like how you showed us that are focusing on the scene as a whole while you work and not getting caught up on the little things. That's a great technique for just getting things done.
Would you mind showing us how you constructed the branches of those trees? They look pretty full yet not too triangle heavy.
Beautiful work, Adam!
Hehe. Glad to hear that - overblown DOF was the only thing that really bothered me.
Nevertheless; looking forward to seeing what you will come up with next. I really like that swampy look you have going out there.
I suggest adding a lerp with a vector constand in the red and blue channels.
Keep 2 textures and blend them , have 1 be moss/dirt with a bump offset on it and blend it easier that way.
Just my 2 cents
sef, that is confounding advice. But if you mean moss on rocks -> hell yes!
It's been a plan to explore different types of blends but for now while I am moving forward I'll stick with the two blends I'm already using*. I'm not convinced the rocks NEED that sort of texture blend happening on them but if they do, I'll add them in to the material.
*Part of my goal was to investigate modulated vertex blending on static meshes and, right now, my rocks are doing that. It's subtle but its an easy way for me to remove any patterns seen in the rock from using 1 tiling texture. So, I've achieved that original goal of mine and if I find that they need a third blend, a grass/moss surface will be it.
its not as complicated as it sounds if adam knows the material nodes. He should know what im talking about (hopefully)
SHORT ANSWER: Make moss >>to dirt>>to Rock = win
This is my first day here and I have learned so much. Thank you and your walls of text. And everyone who has provided great info on this thread.
Question: With all the duplicate meshes used, does that automatically count as "instanced geometry" or is there a button/technique that needs to be pressed/used?