Highlands UE4

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Hi everyone! I recently finished this little mini environment so I thought I would post it

Got to try out some new softwares and workflows so it was a lot of fun!

Rendered in UE4

[ame]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6YL-px0hLA[/ame]

codyaq2 · Apr 2015

fk that is sensational

Cloudydays · Apr 2015

Watched the demo video. What really stuck out in an awkward/bad way was some of the grass flora movement in the field grass in the first few shots. It looks like you wanted there to be a breeze to pass through them so that they don't seem like static objects but instead it looks awkward as there are clumps of grass that move rather clump-like rather than more loose as taller grass would move.

This is probably not your largest concern since you aren't putting an emphasis on VSFX or animation but as a demo reel critique, I'd recommend doing a bit of study into how highlands grass moves in order to replicate that well into natural movement if you want to include that.

Other than that, cheers! Your work looks really great and I especially liked some of the moss detail you put into the rocks.

altermind · Apr 2015

looks really good man.. but the animation of the grass and plants is killing it!.... it would be better if they didn't move at all.

Wish I had figured out how you did that mossy rocks! would have been useful for my last project

marcobar · Apr 2015

I really like the look of this - the colours of the grass, heather, the lichen on the rocks, it all works very well together. I agree with the previous crits about the grass - I think it just needs to be more directional. You might want to look into exploring some wind volumes, and seeing if you can get the wind actors to move more naturalistically that way instead of just swaying back and forth. Highlands are windy places!

The other thing that stuck out for me was the flow of your video. We get a lot of nice shots with interesting stuff in the middle ground, but I found it frustrating how we just sort of stay stuck in the little area around the tree. For example, that hill in the last photo you posted is super interesting, and I have a strong urge to move the camera up to it, and 'stand' at the top of it. I realize you've treated it as mini environment, but I think it would be awesome if we could see a little more of it.

Mik2121 · Apr 2015

As some people have said, the wind on the grass actors looks kinda weird. UE4's default foliage wind makes everything look like it's underwater, so you might want to play around with it a bit to get some more natural results.

Otherwise, the atmosphere is great. Show some more background and not just the foliage and rocks though!

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Yeah I guess Ill have to take another stab at the wind, its not really a type of shader math Im good at. I used a simple setup right now that displaces the verts in 2 axis with vertex colors as weight. I preferred that over the default one that comes with UE4 since that make everything look like seaweed so I figured even though not perfect I preffered it over "under the sea"

I'll see if I can figure something out.

What areas would you suggest to get into the video? Its a pretty small environment so any grander scale camera movements wouldnt work too well Imo

tomenjerry · Apr 2015

looks amazing!!!

Grusti · Apr 2015

Good work Fozwroth! If you dont mind it will be very good if you provide us a little breakdown of your textures, cause for me it looks like you used photogrammetry)

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Thanks! Yeah sure I could do some breakdowns later, just need to fix that wind. Its all hand modelled and sculpted so thanks hehe

I used photos I took of rock surfaces and polypainted with it in Zbrush and made alphas for lichen and moss that I stamped on the rocks

Umbrafoxus · Apr 2015

Inspirational work! Id love to see the breakdown of your process in creating foliage too if you ever had the time

K · Apr 2015

This looks absolutely stunning. Very natural. :poly008:

Mr Flopsie · Apr 2015

I heard that foliage was difficult to get right in UE4 but this looks amazing!
I especially like the shots where you can see the grass cleanly go to the back(?)
4,6,7 and 8
Again, nice work!

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Thanks everyone

Yeah I might be able to fix the bush, I'm having a really hard time with getting anywhere with the grass wind shader though... Anyone have any tips on making a good looking grass wind with world position offset in UE4 ? I got nothing right now so any ideas would be greatly appreciated

ThomasNgulo · Apr 2015

Excellent work

Snefer · Apr 2015

Beautiful stuff!

kimmokaunela · Apr 2015

Awesome stuff! Really liking the mood! I think there are too little variation in flowers so some sort of color variation can do a lot.

Oskar Selin · Apr 2015

Fozwroth wrote: »

Thanks everyone Yeah I might be able to fix the bush, I'm having a really hard time with getting anywhere with the grass wind shader though... Anyone have any tips on making a good looking grass wind with world position offset in UE4 ? I got nothing right now so any ideas would be greatly appreciated

Great work Fozwroth! For the animated grass check out Ulrich Thümmlers grass shader in this thread:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?3268-Nature-Environment-in-UE4&p=65111&viewfull=1#post65111

I haven't yet tried it out myself but the pattern that it generates, shown in the videos, is really good looking.

Looking forward to your next project!

Nuclear Angel · Apr 2015

I find it sad that it is only a mini environment, as I would love to see something more than the tree. Maybe a building or bigger rock formation. That is because there is such a great mood in this piece. Congratulations man, its great ^^.

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

@Snefer Thanks man!

@kimmokaunela Thanks, I'll see if i can get some variation in the grass maybe

@Oskar Selin Thanks a lot! I'll try that out and see how it looks

@Nuclear Angel Well yeah I didn't want it to take up too much time since I'm having quite a few of these mini environments planned next as a kind of asset re-use exercise, adding some new things as I need them. I am thinking of maybe doing a spin of on this one with another theme like a cliff side with a small waterfall and maybe you can see the sea below or something

danpants · Apr 2015

wow amazing work nice job fozworth! I love the mood you are setting. Wind a little wavy rhythmic. Other than that great!

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Thanks! Yeah I'm currently trying to improve the wind

will post an update once I have something

alecchalmers · Apr 2015

I actually think the color variation is fine but if you wanted to add some subtle variation you could write into the material location based variance. It works great for foliage, especially if you only vary the color subtly.

megalmn2000 · Apr 2015

It's awesome! I like it!

RILKE · Apr 2015

I really like it!Amazing work very inspirational.

anglorum · Apr 2015

I'm extremely impressed by how simple, yet diverse this piece is. Could you explain a little more how you approached lighting the foliage? It's something I'm sort of struggling with in unreal right now. Not really loving how un-friendly their static lighting workflow is.

Fozwroth · Apr 2015

Thanks! Its pretty simple really, I'm just using the foliage shader model and some slight tweaks, the grass for example has Vertex normals pointing upwards. I can share the shaders once I've done the wind tweaks and provide a full breakdown of the scene