After some testing, the alternate method using layer blending works* sort of.... there are still seams, but you have to be extremeley close up to see them. I had to set the layer amount to -0.45 which sounds like an oddball number, but it was what looked best visually. Still though, the first method is much cleaner.
To get variation into your maps you can overlay other bakes. A subtly overlaid ID pass, a depth bake, something like that. Keeping the roots darker in the specular is a good idea in my experience so perhaps try overlaying the gradient bake too. The color map will need plenty of variation too in most cases. Beyond that -…
You can also paint in the layer mask itself and have your generator as a part of the mask stack with multiply blending mode for example. You can also paint a mask on some layer in the very bottom of the stack , set anchor there and then use fill in your target layer mask stack with a link to that anchor. Sometimes it…
Thanks for the comments :) XaKu - yeah what you said will be done later :) lukepham101 - Thanks alot! I've changed my DOF settings now and upped the gloss on my R2 he sits better in the environment now :) MartinH - Thanks for the comment, the fire trash can idea is in the concepts and thought I had to get it in there :)…
It's about due time for an update. There's been quite a lot of progress since the last post, mainly in the the fact that there's trees now populating the map. List of new things....GO 1) Added 12 different types of speedtrees to the map. Most are populated with leaves, some are bare. Used 3 different leaf textures, and 3…
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I'll post more shots later today. Would you guys prefer it all added to the original post or should I just add it to the current page? Yes, the end product is still the flat planes but they have a paralax map to give it a little more depth. The alpha planes hug the buildings geo really…
Thanks for the feedback guys! I am trying to add stuff to the foreground to get a sense of the scale, but I want it to make sense, so I'm struggling a bit. ^^ @Tokusei: That's a good idea. Cheers! Here's the texture layout as it looks right now: R Channel: This is the ambient occlusion map. This is multiplied over the…
Here we go... So I would not suggest to directly plug the textures into the output options of the "if"... because it will want float 1 values and your texture is a float 3 and you'd need to do a lot of magic to get everything working correctly. Instead, use the if to create your id maps... it will give you a mask that you…
For the turn around. If you want a constant camera you can come back to later, and you don't want to animate the object itself... - Draw a circle spline around your object. - In the top viewport create a target camera, place its target near the center of your object. Or quick snap (Shift-A) it to the center of the circle.…
You're very welcome, CactusFantastico. Thanks, leleuxart! You're welcome. That particular piece of information could be found in something as old as Eat3d's Damaged Pillar tutorial. "Oldie but goldie" :) Mikael, yeah I used to be bummed about it as well, but... [ame=" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7leQB_Oe_k"]The…