[UE4] Lava World

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

Hi guys,

Had 2 really good days working on this day and night. It's an 8x8km landscape I'm working on for a new landscape pack for UE4 Marketplace. Heightmap done in WM2 and textured in UE4. The lava is done in 3Ds MAX, flows at 3 different speeds based on vertex colors and has some heat shimmering around it. Can be placed using landscape spline tool and tiles seamlessly. I intend to make more lava pieces, lava pool etc. for this map. Would love hear your feedback! Thanks in advance!

kymo_thys · Sep 2016

the landscape looks really nice, the lava however looks very flat to me. Lava is more of a very dense paste and has really interesting shapes and height differences. Maybe sculpting it in zbrush might be a good idea and then try to get it to tile seamless. It's gonna be a challenge getting it to look believable and can't wait to see the final result!

Sebvhe · Sep 2016

Really like the landscape !

As mentioned before lava is not fluid, that's just something we believe because of movies and common belief.
Even Hawaiian lava which is the most fluid in the world is really more of a mud rather than water. Current lava flow in Hawaii flows at about 40 metres a day. Also lava is the opposite of water, water erodes terrain and starts flowing in crevices, on the other hand, lava is rock that erupted from the ground, it is above the rest of terrain.
I'd suggest having a look at that video

If you could nail the lava, I'm sure it will make an incredible scene ! I understand lava is really hard to do, because it is something people will usually never witness and what we think of when we think about lava is usually very, very wrong.

Hope it helps

Tomtegubbe · Sep 2016

The sky would probably be full of some smoke.

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

Thank you all! really appreciating the lava tips. Looking into it.
Generally speaking, I don't have experience with wrinkles.. first time for everything! going to be a good challenge.

Gonna have to start thinking about the sky as well yeah..

Also took a few more screens from the terrain itself.

pixelpatron · Sep 2016

This is looking sick, reminds me of mordor.

Nicorepe · Sep 2016

It has some dark atmosphere really nice environment man.

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

Thanks for the kind words guys!

Finished some small dark stones for procedural distribution on the landscape layers. They didn't end up looking the way I expected (shader wise), will do some more work on them later.

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

Hi everyone!
Desperately looking for help.. Can you please give me a hint or link me something that gives me a good start at modeling such forms?

Thanks!

kymo_thys · Sep 2016

in zbrush the elastic tool does exactly that, you can then use the surface noise generator on it for some small detail. You could even use an alpha from a weld and sculpt it to match the reference

macoll · Sep 2016

At first sight, i'd say make a high poly mesh in Zbrush and then export the normal map for a tiling texture. In UE4, you could use the BumpOffset node in the material to increase the effect..what do you think?
In Battlefront, i think they made it only with meshes. From your screenie, it looks like a mesh. Also, think about making some lava Decals to smooth between the textures... you could also ask Dice how did they do with their terrain

A small link just for info: http://www.sandatlas.org/types-lava-flows/

PS: forgot to tell you that your terrain look really great to me, gg

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

Thank you thank you! Going to give it a try now.
Meanwhile was working on a baby lava pool, nothing near finished yet. But hey, here's a screen.

xChris · Sep 2016

dang, this is looking amazing!

Sebvhe · Sep 2016

I just put a few shots of lava flow I did in a video, the speed is x5. I hope it helps you getting an idea of both the speed and the way wrinkles are formed.

The lava lake looks pretty good to me, I'd just add one spot (usually on the side, that is way brighter and orange, like this
Also, lava is molten rock but also metal, a cooled lava flow, is very metallic, it is one of the very few exceptions where a metallic value of 0.3-0.6 looks pretty good, give it a try

Maximum-Dev · Sep 2016

xChris. Thank you.

Sebvhe, Thanks for the helpful tips. I'm gonna do what you said and post an update soon.

amirabd2130 · Sep 2016

awesome man

Maximum-Dev · Oct 2016

^ Thanks!

I have made some progress on the lava pool.

Maximum-Dev · Oct 2016

Almost getting done with the first pool.
4K screens. View in full res otherwise they're blurry.

Maximum-Dev · Oct 2016

Finally the lava splatter particle.

ANıL İŞBİLİR · Oct 2016

Looking good. What are you using for the landscape materials? I really like how crisp they look.

SimonTG · Oct 2016

I'm curious about the landscape's materials / textures as well. Looks really great!

Maximum-Dev · Oct 2016

ANıL İŞBİLİR SimonTG, For landscape materials I use a few of the incredibly awesome amazing nice megascans materials. For rocks and other things, no. Because I needed particular surfaces that aren't available in the megascans library "yet".
Merci for the comments!

Made some rocks and a 4k Shot!
I'm getting done with this by november. I'll be posting pictures here soon like a carpet bomb!

almighty_gir · Oct 2016

My only real critique here is that this is called "lava world", and you can see from the rock formations and materials that it's an area with a lot of volcanic activity. But there's only one small river of lava... surely the rest of the area would be smoking hot? and the edges of the river have a really harsh cut off, i would have expected an almost smouldering appearance to them.

Maximum-Dev · Oct 2016

almighty_gir said:

My only real critique here is that this is called "lava world", and you can see from the rock formations and materials that it's an area with a lot of volcanic activity. But there's only one small river of lava... surely the rest of the area would be smoking hot? and the edges of the river have a really harsh cut off, i would have expected an almost smouldering appearance to them.

Maybe I exaggerated about the name, I surely did.. haha.
The landscape is 64 square kilometers and would take too much time to make it look like smoking hot all around. I'm kinda doing a minimal level design on a small area to demonstrate the usability of the assets.
But I agree the lava edges don't look natural. I should have more attempts at that.
Thanks man!

Maximum-Dev · Nov 2016

Some PrintScreens from the lava rocks I created for this environment, viewed in UE 4.14 asset previewer.

thegeist · Nov 2016

Looks good! Really looking forward to see future updates

gsokol · Nov 2016

I actually liked the earlier version of the lava pool better than what you have right now. Specifically, the way it fades from molten lava to the dark, cooled rock around the edges. Additionally, I think the same treatment would make your lava trail sit better. You might be doing that in albedo, but its hard to tell from the shots. However your roughness is so different from the surrounding rocks that it creates a hard line instead of a nice, smooth transition into the molten stuff.

I think the image with the lava splatter particle is awesome. Seeing the orange glow uplighting on those rocks looks really nice. Do more of that