Rocks
polycounter lvl 10
Hey guys! This is going to be my rock thread. First time making rocks, so I'd love feedback! 
I'm doing environment props for a game I'm making with some of my peers.
Here's the site:
http://www.unchainedgame.com/index.html
Aaand here's the first rock. Planning to use a 128 x 128 texture and do some handpainting. There's only a couple alpha planes for the grass now, but I will be duplicating some more later after I finish the diffuse. Concept by Nick de Spain. Critique welcome!
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I'm doing environment props for a game I'm making with some of my peers.Here's the site:
http://www.unchainedgame.com/index.html
Aaand here's the first rock. Planning to use a 128 x 128 texture and do some handpainting. There's only a couple alpha planes for the grass now, but I will be duplicating some more later after I finish the diffuse. Concept by Nick de Spain. Critique welcome!
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Replies
I loved that trailed on the website btw, some good stuff.
I have a question about texturing. I don't have to paint on a 128 x 128 pixel document do I?
Planning on making diffuse, spec, opacity, and normal map. For the normal map, still debating on whether to sculpt in Zbrush ( would be my first attempt with the software.. XD) or just make a bump map from Crazybump with a black and white image. I'm actually thinking Zbrush might not fit with our game style anyway, it being cel-shaded and whatnot.
Glad you liked the trailer
You can absolutly paint textures on larger scales and then sized them down, you´ll have to try and see how far up in the hierarcy you can go though. Just remember to do a "Sharpen" filter if you work in PS when you downsize it.
One thing I was woundering about, since the game seems to be about controlling an airship, is how far away are those rocks going to be? Think about the level of detail necessary.
Hey there,
Just some thoughts about this from what I've seen and what you've said.
First of all, great job. It already is very nice, what you have here. If you keep going with this and polish some things up, I'm sure some peeps might be interested in it!
Now to business. You say you wanna keep this game / the props low-poly. You're using XNA, right? I don't know much at all about how XNA's engine works, but rather than arbitrarily deciding how high poly, or low poly your meshes are, research the engine. Know how many poly's it typically may be able to render for "free" without having to work harder to render, or before the engine gets "chuggy." I mean, if you want the game to be low poly by then all means that's fine, but sometimes, we as game artists OVER-optimize a bit too much. Especially with nowadays game-engines, people are way too worried about polygons still. Polygon's don't matter so much anymore.
The reason I blabbed about all that, is because you mention that you had a budget of 500, but only want to go for 100. Nowadays, I don't think a 400 poly difference is even worth considering. I'd say think about how much detail you want the silhouettes of your models in the game to contain, rather than worrying about a polycount that has some small margin of significance when given to any current-gen engine.
I saw a smart quote about polygons somewhere on a forum, and won't forget it...
"If your art director tells you the budget is 8k poly's, then use 8k poly's...don't be cool and try to use 4k. It's not necessary."
Okay so enough about polygons.
Your question about using ZBrush or Crazybump.
Why not both?
If you want a truly accurate normal map for what you are desiring to create, you will be better off sculpting a high poly in ZBrush and baking out a normal map that transmits the exact normal information, taken directly from the model you made with your own bare hands.
And then after that, you could use Crazybump as a tool to generate a "Detail" normal map. Detail normal maps are just normal maps you overlay onto the one you get from ZBrush to enhance it's (....can you guess it?) detail. BTW, important rule there, don't think you can just take two normal maps and plop them onto each other in photoshop. If you're gonna do that, read up on how to do it properly first.
I'm not sure what you meant by "ZBrush might not fit our game anyways." How so?
Consider nDo as well. Do a search on the forums and you'll see what I'm talking about.
As far as painting textures, beats me. I still haven't dabbled in hand-painting my textures completely.
So there's my two cents.
Also, I think I will take my stab at ZBrush. Honestly I'm just afraid of the program cuz it's new and I've heard the learning curve is kindof high . . . but I'll never learn if I don't try I suppose! I will make a detail normal map as well. And I know about overlapping normal maps
And ummmm, I don't really know what I meant about ZBrush not fitting our game LOL. For some reason I was thinking that a detailed normal map from ZBrush wouldn't go so well with cel shading, but that doesn't really make sense now that I think about it . . .
Ok here goes!!
If not there definitely should be
When it comes to stylized rocks, I think these are pretty great inspiration for construction/workflow.
Skyes of arcadia was one awesome game!
Sure was! I keep my Dreamcast handy just to boot up that game from time to time.