Caves

Elodin · May 2013

Hello again,

I just wanted to ask how can you make a modular cave. I saw boulders tutorial (when you just make a couple of big rocks and merge them together in different shapes). But I've seen a modular cave of another sort, split into pieces.

Corners, rounds, stuff like that. And the floor obviously has random shapes and sizes but it all lines up in the end.

How? I tried making a couple of pieces and then take them to Zbrush for sculpt but the edges go separate ways and if I try to constrain them - it doesn't exactly look natural.

Ark · May 2013

This is worth a read: http://blog.joelburgess.com/2013/04/skyrims-modular-level-design-gdc-2013.html

Elodin · May 2013

I've red it through, doesn't answer my question though, how do you make chaotic forms that lined up eventually. Even in this Skyrim example the cave has "bubbly floor".

The article bears lot's of interesting points, though.

illo · May 2013

instead of making 'bubbly shapes' make ' chaotic shapes'

sprunghunt · May 2013

Elodin wrote: »

I've red it through, doesn't answer my question though, how do you make chaotic forms that lined up eventually. Even in this Skyrim example the cave has "bubbly floor".

The article bears lot's of interesting points, though.

They don't have to line up exactly. You can stick pieces through each other and scale them up and down.

Elodin · May 2013

Um, okay, that answers it, i guess. Thanks.

seir · May 2013

Somehow you're right with that bubbly shapes from Skyrim. It feels to be a modular piece because of it's "corridor feeleing". It's easy to fix and I'm a bit disappointed with the result in Skyrim...

Take a look at the reference pics of caves and think what kind of environment you want to make. You'll need few sizes of modules and remember that organic shapes doesn't need to catch up with grid points. Don't connect floor modules with the wall, it will force you to make few sizes of the "corridor". Also there will be lots of overdraw if you'll make it without plan.

I'll make some prototypes for you, give me a few hours, I need go out right now

seir · May 2013

sprunghunt wrote: »

They don't have to line up exactly. You can stick pieces through each other and scale them up and down.

Avoid scaling. This will make you texture desity different. Scaling is the easiest way but not professional. Also it will make dozens of faces rendered but not visible. If you want to make a crazy-detailed cave on PS3 you need to avoid losing of polygons and I'm talking about 1 000 000 tris scenes.

Mark Dygert · May 2013

You just want to disguise the tiling edge well, it doesn't need to be a straight crisp line and you can use whatever details you want. Just make sure it snaps to the grid in a usable way.

These might help give you some ideas how to make that edge less noticeable.
http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/modular_rocks/modular_rocks.html
http://wiki.polycount.com/TilingRockWallBeyer
http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting#Tilable_Cliffs
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50160

Ootrick · May 2013

It's all ways great to be modular, I was stuck in the same situation where I had to work with carving a cave into existing terrain. My brain told me to work modular, but the fact of the matter was this was going to be way more costly, rather then making it modular I made a unique mesh and just get the tiling texture right. Unless your going to have massive cave systems, the "Skyrim" slides show the best method. Use big shapes and then alternative meshes to form the unique shape of the caves you want

Lord McMutton · May 2013

Instead of ending each segment with a sheer edge, like | |, you could have it curve outward like \ / so you don't have to match each piece up exactly.

Elodin · May 2013

Thanks for the advices guys, I'm currently experimenting with different approaches.

Caves

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