No parts of diffuse are really handmade, it's all just tricks, and it has 3 general layers to it:
1. Rock diffuse: i got about 6 kinds of general stone-like textures and i've context-aware filled the entire texture space with them. Then i've created a fractal noise layer, which then i randomly selected. I deleted the selected parts from a diffuse layer, and then i've made another random selection and deleted parts of the next diffuse layer, etc.
2. Cavity map: Baked cavity map in xnormal from the high poly (wow, this took about 10 hours!), which then i overlaid on top of the diffuse. I even duplicated it a few times for more effect.
3. Edges: I've used find edges filter on the normal map to get sharp transitions. You basically just get white lines around the edges once you desaturate this. I used the cavity map to remove edges from the concave areas so that I'd only have the white lines on outcroppings. This method is pretty crude and I'll have to look into the curvature map function in xnormal, but I'll need to experiment a lot more with it as slightly different options seem to produce way different results.
If anyone has a streamlined process for texturing of this type I'd be glad to hear it.
How would you guys sculpt a rock formation like this? I see everyone doing easy round or rectangular rocks but haven't seen anybody attempting rocks like these:
I could sculpt individual pieces and mash all the low polies together, but that would exclude the moss between cracks. Sculpting everything as one piece is almost impossible and it looks like a nightmare to retopo and bake.
I would sculpt a few individual pieces (5 - 7) and then merge the hi polys together to make some hi-poly rock formation.
Maybe not as big as in your references though.
And I would personally go for 3Dcoat Voxels tools to merge the rocks together.
Of course there might be a tons of other workflows that would end up with the same - or better - results
How would you guys sculpt a rock formation like this? I see everyone doing easy round or rectangular rocks but haven't seen anybody attempting rocks like these:
I could sculpt individual pieces and mash all the low polies together, but that would exclude the moss between cracks. Sculpting everything as one piece is almost impossible and it looks like a nightmare to retopo and bake.
Make some individual instances and mix them together in your environment. It may not be a case of 'easy rocks' more like ones that are not going to create a load of geometry and be difficult to bake because of the complex uneven surface.
my hobby game project involves loads of rocks so I tried almost every approach. ZBrushing was an option but I find it very hard to come up with a good texture later on. Even with procedural texturing. A Quixel textured rock was ok, but not exactly what I wanted. It also took a noticeable amount of time within ZBrush. So finally I ended up with the photogrammetry approach. I took about 700 pictures for a total of 9 rocks.
I already did some retopology and fixed some light issues on the textures. The first rocks are now ingame. I will post some shots soon. Overall it took me about 2 hours to get a medium size rock ready. So I´m happy with this, but what do you think?
Here are some renderings (still high-poly :poly122:):
some small rocks (textures finished):
medium size rock cliffs (textures not finished yet):
tomorrow I'll be Adding a new Set of brushes for zbrush, and I'll be adding some Rocks as Ztools that you can use as mesh insert brushes or to use together with your own rocks.
Curious how you went about those slates? I assume just trim smooth border and some clay. Very nice match to reference.
Thanks! I used clay tubes, planer brush, trim smooth boarder, and trim dynamic with square alpha. Just used the clay tubes to block out the detail, and the planer to clean it up. Then use the trim brushes to make it not so clean and perfect edged.
Hey guys, I have been making a combination of photogrammetry cliffs and zbrush rubble rocks for a new project . Thread is here This first image is photogrametry taken in Snowdonia Wales and cleaned up with zbrush, baked in substance and Max. The second images are all rocks made in zbrush with photoshop. All shown in UE4.
Did a new pass on my pile of sand stone rocks, left is the old one right is the new one, the color needs some work though. The model has 142 tri's. And has a 2k texture.
Holy crap, Jack. You're really shown the proper use of a good alpha library. I'm interested in knowing how you made use of the set that got you these results.
Holy crap, Jack. You're really shown the proper use of a good alpha library. I'm interested in knowing how you made use of the set that got you these results.
seconded. I have the same set. Have you used dynamesh? My Dynamesh sphere cannot create such pretty edges with the alpha.
It was a pretty simple process for making the rock face. I only used Jonas's brushes with this one. No sculpting really on my side.
What I did was is I built up the forms with Jonas's larger detail brush and made those base forms interesting. Then I started using some more of the smaller detail brushes to add detail. At that point it was just a game of trying to find a good balance between high and low frequency detail.
Normally I would use dynamesh but when sculpting on a flat plane I find it easier to just not mess with it due to the fact dynamesh will try and close the backface.
If I were to do a full rock I would use dynamesh and build up the forms with clay tubes, trim dynamic, and trim smooth border all using a square alpha. Then once I was basically done I would start using those brushes and erase details using morph targets.
@Jonas Ronnegard - Thanks Keep up the great stuff!
Hey Guys! I some of you are starting out making rocks.... I made a 3 part tutorial serires on Youtube that covers basic "next gen" rock asset creation using zbrush,photoshop and any modeling package of choice.
Hey guys ! Made my first maps with Substance today, I'm learning the software I took a sculpt I made a few month ago on a professional project, created a low poly and went through the baking and texturing with Substance. Pretty happy for a day 1 result !
Hi,
Me too trying Substance painter on my usual rock sculpt workflow.
Here's some rocks meant to be used to detail beach terrains. (hence the orange dusty top and squashed shapes )
[sketchfab]2449461ba3114449b4ca27dac7963748[/sketchfab] Beach Rocks by nizu on Sketchfab
EDIT: updated , better aliasing on the "top dust" mask edge.
@ Hoshi : Great work on the sharpness of those rocks : i wonder, the fine surface details , like cracks, was that already in your sculpt or is a result of texturing ? (i suppose you had a very finely detailed sculpt, or otherwise great tuning of those textures.. i never get that much 'character' out of heightmap details)
It's a bit of both actually. Here is the original sculpt :
Then I added some cracks thanks to one of my colleague who wanted to show me how the slope blur & directional wrap were working, which clearly added some character to the rock.
You made me realize that I forgot the displace on the first version ! I've change the image in my previous post.
Replies
[SKETCHFAB]fb5316387cd94c189e7ecd5542b35202[/SKETCHFAB]
@Malcolm thanks for the breakdown - this is a really smart way to approach it!
Here are some of my highlights from the last two years:
WEBM!
shitty panorama
shitty daylight, not sure whats going on with specular
No rock diffuse, just cavity/edge
No parts of diffuse are really handmade, it's all just tricks, and it has 3 general layers to it:
1. Rock diffuse: i got about 6 kinds of general stone-like textures and i've context-aware filled the entire texture space with them. Then i've created a fractal noise layer, which then i randomly selected. I deleted the selected parts from a diffuse layer, and then i've made another random selection and deleted parts of the next diffuse layer, etc.
2. Cavity map: Baked cavity map in xnormal from the high poly (wow, this took about 10 hours!), which then i overlaid on top of the diffuse. I even duplicated it a few times for more effect.
3. Edges: I've used find edges filter on the normal map to get sharp transitions. You basically just get white lines around the edges once you desaturate this. I used the cavity map to remove edges from the concave areas so that I'd only have the white lines on outcroppings. This method is pretty crude and I'll have to look into the curvature map function in xnormal, but I'll need to experiment a lot more with it as slightly different options seem to produce way different results.
If anyone has a streamlined process for texturing of this type I'd be glad to hear it.
material is fully procedural PBR, made in Substance Designer.
I whipped this up in a few minutes with Maya, dDo, Knald and zBrush. its so easy!
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122622&page=6
How would you guys sculpt a rock formation like this? I see everyone doing easy round or rectangular rocks but haven't seen anybody attempting rocks like these:
I could sculpt individual pieces and mash all the low polies together, but that would exclude the moss between cracks. Sculpting everything as one piece is almost impossible and it looks like a nightmare to retopo and bake.
Maybe not as big as in your references though.
And I would personally go for 3Dcoat Voxels tools to merge the rocks together.
Of course there might be a tons of other workflows that would end up with the same - or better - results
UPDATE:
I added some Sand and Dirt and made the Sharp Edges more visible.
Make some individual instances and mix them together in your environment. It may not be a case of 'easy rocks' more like ones that are not going to create a load of geometry and be difficult to bake because of the complex uneven surface.
Wanted to make a few for a desert ruin or something.
It has 142 tri's.
Im having a hard time making detailed rocks like those I see here.
Reference Used
I already did some retopology and fixed some light issues on the textures. The first rocks are now ingame. I will post some shots soon. Overall it took me about 2 hours to get a medium size rock ready. So I´m happy with this, but what do you think?
Here are some renderings (still high-poly :poly122:):
some small rocks (textures finished):
medium size rock cliffs (textures not finished yet):
Thats it. Now I´m off for retopology. And after that, no more rocks for a while
Curious how you went about those slates? I assume just trim smooth border and some clay. Very nice match to reference.
That's impressive man. You've put a lot of effort into searching reference and it shows.
Now let's see the low poly :nerd:
you find my old brushes at https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zbrush-brushes-stylized-rock
Thanks! I used clay tubes, planer brush, trim smooth boarder, and trim dynamic with square alpha. Just used the clay tubes to block out the detail, and the planer to clean it up. Then use the trim brushes to make it not so clean and perfect edged.
Here's a shot of the graph for some rocks I've been texturing with substance designer at home:
from my twitter
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=155655
What do you guys think?
Here is a pic of the substance file
Tests:
That looks really nice!
@lamb
It was a pretty simple process for making the rock face. I only used Jonas's brushes with this one. No sculpting really on my side.
What I did was is I built up the forms with Jonas's larger detail brush and made those base forms interesting. Then I started using some more of the smaller detail brushes to add detail. At that point it was just a game of trying to find a good balance between high and low frequency detail.
Normally I would use dynamesh but when sculpting on a flat plane I find it easier to just not mess with it due to the fact dynamesh will try and close the backface.
If I were to do a full rock I would use dynamesh and build up the forms with clay tubes, trim dynamic, and trim smooth border all using a square alpha. Then once I was basically done I would start using those brushes and erase details using morph targets.
@Jonas Ronnegard - Thanks
That's some really good results with that workflow, looking forward to see more from you
You can check it out here:
https://youtu.be/4Cw0k5YUNJk
Hope this helps some people!!
Tim
Me too trying Substance painter on my usual rock sculpt workflow.
Here's some rocks meant to be used to detail beach terrains. (hence the orange dusty top and squashed shapes )
[sketchfab]2449461ba3114449b4ca27dac7963748[/sketchfab]
Beach Rocks by nizu on Sketchfab
EDIT: updated , better aliasing on the "top dust" mask edge.
@ Hoshi : Great work on the sharpness of those rocks : i wonder, the fine surface details , like cracks, was that already in your sculpt or is a result of texturing ? (i suppose you had a very finely detailed sculpt, or otherwise great tuning of those textures.. i never get that much 'character' out of heightmap details)
It's a bit of both actually. Here is the original sculpt :
Then I added some cracks thanks to one of my colleague who wanted to show me how the slope blur & directional wrap were working, which clearly added some character to the rock.
You made me realize that I forgot the displace on the first version ! I've change the image in my previous post.