Rock-Earth Modeling/Texturing
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Hello everyone,
I started working on a scene, aiming for a bit of a realistic outdoor shot. In the foreground i will have a big rock/boulder so i want to get as much detail as i can into it and in the process learn how to properly sculpt and texture such an asset.
The thing that is not clear to me is how to treat the organic issue of having earth on a rock surface in a realistic manner, the transition between the two textures and braking up the mesh for two different shaders.
The softwares i'm using are Zbrush, 3dsMax, Photoshop and i also have DDO to play around with. I will be rendering the scene in Vray.
I'm currently finished with sculpting the mesh in Zbrush to a point where i'm satisfied with the details. I sculpted the earth regions and the rock/stone on the same mesh and now i am wondering how to go about texturing it.
What would be the best way to approach this asset? Should I just separate the earth from the rock by painting a mask with an appropiate alpha and creating 2 separate polygroups to make the texture maps? Or is there a better way?
I started working on a scene, aiming for a bit of a realistic outdoor shot. In the foreground i will have a big rock/boulder so i want to get as much detail as i can into it and in the process learn how to properly sculpt and texture such an asset.
The thing that is not clear to me is how to treat the organic issue of having earth on a rock surface in a realistic manner, the transition between the two textures and braking up the mesh for two different shaders.
The softwares i'm using are Zbrush, 3dsMax, Photoshop and i also have DDO to play around with. I will be rendering the scene in Vray.
I'm currently finished with sculpting the mesh in Zbrush to a point where i'm satisfied with the details. I sculpted the earth regions and the rock/stone on the same mesh and now i am wondering how to go about texturing it.
What would be the best way to approach this asset? Should I just separate the earth from the rock by painting a mask with an appropiate alpha and creating 2 separate polygroups to make the texture maps? Or is there a better way?
Replies
Usually rocks are just pushed into the ground, two separate meshes. You can soften the transition between the two with AO and similar color values. For example, dust and mud splatters can accumulate on the sides of a rock.
This is the closest thing i could find, as you can see on the left there is earth on top of the boulder, but in my case, i want the soil to be more exposed with not so many dead leaves and grass on top.
http://green.jrhoadesconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/boulderRetainingWall.jpg
http://www.fredhoogervorst.com/oni.app/local/upload/43307ddb.jpg - this is the kind of scene i'm aiming at only from an angle wich puts me close to a rock formation
The answer i was probably looking for is to treat the elements seperately and try to make seperate chunks of soil geometry that sit on top of the rock. Thanks for advice!
I would start with blending dirt and rock textures together on the rock model itself, using modulation blending. Then add specific smaller dirt models, small rocks, twigs, etc., to add depth and detail.
Modulation blending tutorial:
http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UT3_Vertex_Blend_Variation_Tutorial.html
(more: http://wiki.polycount.net/Multitexture)
Specifically these
http://rogelioolguin.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/t_shot_07.jpg
http://rogelioolguin.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/t_shot_wire_04.jpg
http://rogelioolguin.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/t_shot_00.jpg