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[CE3] Forest

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polycounter lvl 6
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AkiRa polycounter lvl 6

FINAL


ne_01.png


ORIGINAL POST

Hi guys
since I've always had (and still have) a very very hard time making all that natural stuff (trees, foliage in general, rocks, ground materials, etc) I figured I'd start a natural environment to really push my skills when it comes to natural elements.

Every time I try to make trees/rocks/foliage it looks weird to me and not realistic enough so I guess there is definitely something I'm doing wrong.

A huge inspiration for me are Rex McNish's and Steve Oberman's foliage work but it seems like I'm not able to catch up with their amazing vegetation.

Alright enough bla bla, here is what I have so far:

1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg
5.jpg
6.jpg

This is all the stuff I made so a bit more isolated so you can see better:

7.jpg
8.jpg
9.jpg

Next I plan to create a lot more ground cover plants like ferns, dandelion,etc before I move on and create some tree stumps and broken branches/trees. There is a lot more foliage to add in general.

I also want to create a little chapel (maybe ruined) to give the whole thing some kind of focal point/hero piece and tell the viewer what time it is set in.

If you want to see texture flats, wires, high poly renders, etc just give me shout and I will be more than happy to post them so you can have a closer look!

Would love to hear what you think and of course looking forward to some crits so I can finally start improving on this stuff!

Thanks in advance! :)

Replies

  • Shyralon
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    Shyralon polycounter lvl 11
    Looks really nice to me!
    How exactly did you do these ivy leafes growing on that tree? just planes with leaftexture/alpha arranged arount the tree or any special workflow for that? :D
  • mettigel
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    mettigel polycounter lvl 6
    The Flowers are looking very strange to me.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    @Shyralon:
    Thanks!
    Yeah, it's actually just like you said. I made the ivy as a seperate asset (just planes with textures) and just placed it around the tree trunk. :)

    @mettigel:
    Thanks for your comment. Can you specify what exactly about them is looking strange?
  • mettigel
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    mettigel polycounter lvl 6
    The Shape of the red marked flowers. What are your references for these ?

    6n6uzl.jpg
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks for the clarification!
    The colors are not right on that screenshot due to a problem with the shader but I fixed that already as well as the weird plane I've used for them. They are all much flatter now and don't have this strange, trumpet like shape. Do you think I should re-do them?

    These were my main references:

    gaensebluemchen.jpg

    wildflowers1.jpg

    Wild-flowers-04.jpg

    Indian-blanket-wildflowers.jpg
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    I feel your environment needs a bit more value separation. My eye gets lost in noisy values in the distance and I really have a hard time finding a focal point.

    Jeff Parrot has a section on his blog that explains it a little bit more.

    http://blog.environmentartist.com/?p=1127

    Also, the grass is consistently dense everywhere that there is grass. It may help to vary that density up a little bit. I would expect the grass beside the dirt path to be a little bit shorter and less dense.

    I hope this helps! Keep it up! The assets themselves look fantastic!
  • matt bryan
    I think it looks excellent, great work.

    I would only add to the other comments that your idea of ferns etc will really beef up the ground and add some variation. Go to any wooded area and there is usually less grass and more coverage by various plants etc

    The comments about the flowers are spot on, I think they look too straight and sharp.

    Keep it up.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Tobbo:
    Thank you!
    Thanks for the link! Very useful! Even though I understand the theory, I don't really get how to do this in practice and really improve the value separation. Do you have any particular tips on that?
    I definitely agree about the grass and it's one of the next things on the plan to fix this ugly "seam" between the path and grassy parts as well as get some areas with less grass.
    Thanks again!

    matt bryan:
    Thanks man!
    Yeah, I saw it again as I looked on reference photos. In fact, there is a lot less grass than in my scene at the moment. As I said I'm going to fix this soon!
    I changed the flowers a bit but only the meshes but I agree that they look pretty unrealistic so I think I'll redo them.

    So I did a few things.

    I made some more ground cover plants like I planned some dandelion and ferns and also some generic ground cover leaves.

    2-1.jpg

    Also here is a shot of the flowers and how they look atm:

    2-2.jpg

    I also changed the lighting slightly and made it a bit more realistic and foggy to give it some kind of an "early morning" feel. Apart from that I added a bit more DOF to seperate the foreground from the background a bit more and get rid of some of that noisy values Tobbo mentioned.

    2-3.jpg
    2-4.jpg

    Finally I started the blockout for the small chapel.

    2-5.jpg

    I have some problems with separating the interior from the exterior since working with VisAreas is a bit difficult. If anyone knows more about that I would be happy about hearing it.

    Thanks guys!
  • Soldier63
    For my personal taste, there is a little bit to much fog in it, but as you aim for an morning scene, the amount of fog is probably just right. A forest in most cases is destroyed, so that means there are some limbs and wood pieces around. For me you could add a little bit more variation to your grass, maybe some puddles with dirt or even some tracks from animals would bring more realismn in your scene. But i really love your work so far :)
  • TeotiGraphix
    The forest renders look great! What engine is this in? I was looking around but didn't see you mention it anywhere.

    From a beginner in this landscape game art, your stuff is motivational to say the least. :)

    Mike
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Soldier63:
    Thank you!
    Lots of broken stuff like branches, tree stumps and broken trees are definitely part of the plan as well as dirty puddles! The Animal tracks are a great idea actually, will sure take those in!

    TeotiGraphix:
    Ha, thanks man, glad to hear you like it! :)
    It's rendered in CryEngine 3 which is an awesome engine if you ask me!

    So, small update here.
    I tweaked the lighting and personally think it looks better now since it's much softer.
    What do you guys think?

    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    I have a really hard time figuring out how to do the smaller grass on the side of the path. Should I make some smaller grass patches and splatter them around? Would be happy about any tips on that!

    Thanks in advance! :)
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    This is looking better. :)

    Yeah, I would just make a separate small grass patch asset to spread around.

    The lighting and post processing I think plays a large part in value separation for more realistic scenes like this. The last 2 screenshots have much more separation between the middle-ground and background giving it a much cleaner read.

    It's looking good. Keep it up! :)
  • Popeye9
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    Popeye9 polycounter lvl 15
    This is a good looking start. I would try and work on the ivy. The leaves all point the same direction and the coloring is all the same. If you look at real ivy there is more variation in direction and hue. The normal map on them seem a little strong for the veins also.
  • Archarial
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    Archarial polycounter lvl 4
    AkiRa wrote: »
    1.jpg

    Hey! Out of curiosity, would you mind giving the poly count on that tree in the foreground, and if possible showing the wire frame?

    Just curious about how expensive it is with all those silhouette breaks.
  • Stormfreek
    Hey man this is looking awesome! Have you thought about darkening the colour of the mud/dirt texture to blend with the grass a bit more?
  • TeotiGraphix
    AkiRa

    Yeah I feel neebie for sure, the subject line had [CE3], heh I guess that means Cry Engine 3. ;-)

    The new renders look great. How high is the camera off the ground?
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Tobbo:
    Thank you! :)
    Yeah, I guess that's what I'm going to do then. Planning to do those small grass meshes tomorrow and then see how it looks.

    Popeye9:
    Thanks for the crit! Yep, I totally agree! I'll definitely re-do the ivy!

    Archarial:
    Thanks for your comment! Sure thing, here you go. Screenshot's straight from 3DS Max. You can see the tricount in the top left corner.

    4.PNG

    EDIT: I know that this is not a maple tree. I just forgot to rename it. :D

    Stormfreek:
    Hey man, thank you! Glad you like it!
    Yep, really good advice! Did that and it helped a lot!

    TeotiGraphix:
    Thank you!
    Yeah, exactly. But I guess there are lots of people who don't know exactly what those prefixes mean so it's totally okay to ask! :D
    Phu, good question. I guess around 50 centimeters maybe? Not totally sure though, sorry.

    So, I worked a bit more on the scene.
    I worked a bit on the chapel and applied some first materials to it.

    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    These are the materials I made. Some tiles and wood for the walls. Not totally sure if I should go with wood for the walls or make some rough stone/brick walls. Would love to hear some opinions on that. :)

    5.jpg

    Apart from that I made a material for fallen and dried pine needles to break up the grassy areas a bit more. There is is still too much grass so I'm going to make it a lot less tomorrow.
    Having a bit of a hard time figuring out how the terrain layer blending in CE3 works exactly so the blend is very blocky and harsh at the moment. Going to find this out soon hopefully since it really looks bad like it is now.

    3.jpg

    At the moment the VisArea still gives me a bad headache...I managed to get a transition from outside to inside but sadly the whole chapel (in- as well as outside) are now inside the VisArea and get lit by the environment probe inside the VisArea (i.e. not affected by outside lighting) and that results in a very bright interior (as you can see on the screenshot: The interior is very washed out, I would like it to be a lot darker). Does anyone maybe have any ideas on that? I would be grateful to hear them!

    Thanks in advance guys!
    Cheers
  • CreativeHD
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    CreativeHD polycounter lvl 6
    You have a nice scene coming along! I think the stone would look better than the wood but it's hard to say with out seeing the stone texture. I say try it and see what seems to fit more into the scene. Also what version are you using the freesdk or eaas?
  • locater16
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    locater16 polycounter lvl 8
    Looks good! Though you could think about doubling the polycount for that tree at LOD 0. The old habits for modeling are starting to make for some weird looking games, where trees get huge oversized quads while ground cover and characters end up getting far more detail in terms of polys for relative game size, making scenes that start to feel mismatched in terms of asset quality.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    CreativeHD:
    Thank you! :)
    Yep, I agree. I'm working on a stone wall material right now and will post screenshots as soon as I got it done.
    I'm using the EaaS version.

    locater16:
    Thanks!
    Interesting tipp! So you think around 5.9 - 6k tris for a big tree is feasible?

    I still think my firs look strange for some reason. Does anyone know some good tutorials on branch distribution on firs? :D If not, any tipps/opinions?
  • RexM
    The parts of the vegetation that stick out to me the most are the perfectly straight edges on al of the tree trunks. Add more geometry to change the silhouette of the trunks more.

    Also, where you have sub_branches growing off main trunks, they're not flowing with the growth of the tree. Check out more reference for that.

    Overall, looking good.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    RexM:
    Oh my...!
    Thanks a lot for your crits!
    Really happy to see a post from you here! :)

    Here is a small update:

    First of all I re-structured the firs to and re-made their trunks to make them a bit more realistic and adress the issues RexM mentioned.

    7.JPG

    Second I made the first broken trunk/branch and oriented it on RexM's broken trunks since I absolutely love the way they look and also wanted to practice sculpting such things.
    Here is the low poly in marmoset and the high poly in ZBrush.

    5.png

    6.jpg

    Not really satisfied with the bark though. I just don't get how to sculpt really nice looking tree bark. Definitely a point I need to work on. Would be happy about tips on that. :)

    Here are two shots showing it in the scene and also the current state of the scene besides of some lighting tweaks.

    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    And lastly I made a new road and tweaked the lighting a bit.

    3.jpg
    4.jpg

    Next up is to finish the stone wall texture for the chapel and make some more broken stuff.

    C&C is appreciated! :)
    Thanks guys!


    Oh and happy new year to all of you! :D
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    So, hope you all had a good move over! :)

    Some update here.

    I'm trying to make all this a bit more natural looking so I spread around a bunch of smaller stuff like some broken branches, some bushes, etc.

    1.jpg
    2.jpg
    3.jpg
    4.jpg

    Let me know what you think, all C&C is appreciated! :)

    Thank you!
  • Kaine123
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    Kaine123 polycounter lvl 10
    I think the rocks on the road look really unnatural, you need to tone down the effect so they're not jutting out so much.
  • locater16
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    locater16 polycounter lvl 8
    Kaine123 wrote: »
    I think the rocks on the road look really unnatural, you need to tone down the effect so they're not jutting out so much.

    Parallax mapping never seems to look right, probably why no on ever ships it. There's also alpha stippling artifacts on a bush to the left of the road, I'm not sure where or why that's showed up.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Kaine123:
    Thanks for your crit! I agree about the rocks. Just toned down the effect and it looks way better. Seems like POM is a case of less is more...

    locater16:
    Thank your for your comment! :)
    I see what you mean. I checked it in engine but it's not visible there for some reason. Seems to be something with the screenshots. I'll check it next time when I take a screenshot and try to figure out where the problem is.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Update!

    So, I didn't really like what I had so far so I deleted the map I had a started over again.
    I felt like I should make the area a little bit bigger so that the scene felt more like a forest rather than just some path in the middle of nowhere.

    This is what I have now, very WIP of course!

    2.jpg
    1.jpg

    Still I feel like my vegetation (especially the trees and grass) don't look realistic enough but I can't really tell what exactly is causing it.
    I took some pictures from Ryse as a reference for the layout and placement since they really nailed down the natural environments (especially the grass!) and tried to reproduce their color scheme and the look of their grass...didn't work so good.

    Would love to hear what you think and maybe also some tips on how to make my vegetation more realistic. :)

    Thanks guys!
  • beefaroni
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    beefaroni sublime tool
    Hmm for some reason your most recent image isn't loading.

    Also, thanks for linking to those two foliage artists. Their stuff is pretty great. Although I will add one more to the mix!

    http://everettgunther.weebly.com/
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks for the heads up about the images I checked the link and they should show up fine now. In case they do not, I've added them as attachments to the post. :)
    Ah yeah, I know Everett's works. Super amazing stuff and his foliage indeed looks pretty awesome! :)
  • beefaroni
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    beefaroni sublime tool
    Hmm. I don't have too much crit right now since I'm just learning this myself.

    The only thing I can think of is to tint the bottom of the grass brown so it has a nice gradient going up. It could help it blend in better with the ground.
  • Sweetangel0467
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    Sweetangel0467 polycounter lvl 10
    Hey there! I think what your trees might need is some moss to have them grounded at the roots. Or at least a whole lot of Lichen

    Hope this helps :)
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    beefaroni:

    Thanks for your reply!
    Tinting the bottom of grass brown is a very good idea! Just did that and it helps a lot!
    Thanks! :)

    Sweetangel0467:
    Thanks!
    Yeah I'm definitely going to populate the tree trunks and roots with some moss and lichen to make them look better! :)
    Thank you!

    I originally didn't wanted to make this a fantasy forest but since I don't have an exact concept I'm following and always loved this high fantasy I decided to bring in an elven ruin to add some main focus point and a point of interest.
    I'll keep the forest realistic but will orient the style of the elven ruins a bit on the ones seen in Dragon Age Inquisition.

    I made a super quick, super rough blockout for the ruins to evaluate their style:

    1.jpg
    2.jpg
    3.jpg

    If someone has any suggestions/ideas please let me know! :D
    Would also love to hear some opinions if I you think it's good to go for a fantasy type environment or not and also what you think of the style of the ruins! :)

    Thanks in advance!
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    I'm really liking this direction! The scale looks pretty solid.
  • godejon
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    godejon polycounter lvl 6
    This looks great! The trees all appear to have the same texture, which makes the scene hard to believe. That's the only big thing I notice! Lighting looks great, plants look awesome.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Tobbo:
    Thanks for your reply!
    Good to hear! Wasn't really sure about it. :)

    godejon:
    Thank you!
    And thanks for the crit!
    Yeah, it's actually the same on all the trees currently. I'll definitely going to make some more variations when I get to make some more (and different kinds of) trees.

    Bit of an update:

    I started to make some textures for the ruins and added some elements to them but I think the textures look way to boring at the moment. I will also add some vertex painting to the wall pieces soon to give them some more of a ruined look.

    1.jpg


    4.jpg
    5.jpg
    6.jpg


    What do you think about the textures/layout/general style/idea of the ruins?

    All C&C is really appreciated! :)

    Thanks guys!

    Cheers!
  • peanut™
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    peanut™ polycounter lvl 18
    Highly enlightening, this goes straight to inspiration folder.
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks peanut! :)

    Update!

    I worked a bit more on the ruins themselves (re-made the brick texture) and also re-made the ivy.
    Apart from that I made a little cave to go below the collapsed ruin floor.

    1.jpg

    3.jpg

    4.jpg

    5.jpg

    2.jpg

    6.jpg

    7.jpg

    Cave is obviously far from being finished yet!

    Also sorry for the pretty low res screenshots. Haven't figured out how to take hires shots inside CE3 yet. Anytime I try it only captures a small part of the image instead of the entire frame for some reason.

    All C&C is very appreciated! Thanks guys! :)
  • beefaroni
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    beefaroni sublime tool
    Wow beautiful so far. A bit busy so I can't make too much of an in depth comment but nice :D
  • Cay
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    Cay polycounter lvl 5
    Very nice scene! A few thoughts..

    I'm not sure if the tower ruin is possible the way it currently is.... the walls are very thin, I think it would have collapsed already.. (wind).. if you want it to be this high it might be a good idea to have more of the tower standing to support it
    I'm super nitpicky here.. so I could be wrong.. just something to consider

    I'd also consider thicker walls in general.. if this was meant for defense.. it shouldn't fall apart so easily.. medieval fortresses had walls that were atleast a meter in thickness.. so maybe two or 3 bricks in thickness atleast?
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    beefaroni:
    Thanks man! :)

    Cay:
    Thanks for your crit! I totally agree about the thickness of the walls! They are way too thin! I've had a look at a lot of reference images again and you're totally right! Will fix that right away!
    Thanks again! :)
  • Sweetangel0467
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    Sweetangel0467 polycounter lvl 10
    You're probably already on this.. but some variations in ivy leafs could be nice to break the tiling. ^^
  • atomander
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    atomander polycounter lvl 7
    Wow, this thread had been one of my favorites to follow. I love the lighting.

    Composition-wise, the detailed, tiling sun tiles seem a little out of place. They are kinda noisy, and seem a little too intact to be right next to that big hole. I wonder if something simpler with more signs of wear would fit the scene better.

    Really amazing stuff! Keep posting!
  • locater16
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    locater16 polycounter lvl 8
    atomander wrote: »
    Wow, this thread had been one of my favorites to follow. I love the lighting.

    Composition-wise, the detailed, tiling sun tiles seem a little out of place. They are kinda noisy, and seem a little too intact to be right next to that big hole. I wonder if something simpler with more signs of wear would fit the scene better.

    Really amazing stuff! Keep posting!

    Would agree, otherwise amazing work! Go go go:poly142:
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Sweetangel0467:
    Thanks for the reply and the crit! Yeah, I did that, hopefully it looks better now. :)

    atomander:
    Thanks!
    I agree about the tiles. I removed the sun and added some more wear to them so they look a bit more beaten up. Maybe I'm going to add some more broken variations.

    locater16:
    Thank you! :)

    Update!

    I worked a bit more towards that Dragon Age Inquisition look I want to achieve and therefore removed most of the fog and DOF and also tweaked the lighting a bit. Apart from that, I made the walls a lot thicker.

    1.jpg
    2.jpg
    3.jpg
    4.jpg
    5.jpg
    6.jpg
    7.jpg
    8.jpg

    Also still no high res screenshots, still couldn't figure out how to make them sadly.

    Would love to hear what you think!
    Thanks in advance for any C&C! :)

    Cheers!
  • Sweetangel0467
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    Sweetangel0467 polycounter lvl 10
    For high res screens.. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08HwSBAcW0E[/ame]

    It does, however, fuck up when you have a depth of field.. since it keeps the settings but the blur goes over a larger screenspace and so your end result won't look like what you see in the editor. :)
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks Sweetangel! Yeah, I know how to do it in UE4 but I meant I don't know how to do it in CE3 (since that's what I'm using). :)
    But no worries, I figured it out and it works fine now!
    Thanks a lot anyway. :D
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    No real update but...

    Finally HiRes! :D


    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    Also started to add some wooden structures to the cave (story wise they have been added to prevent the rest of the structure from collapsing).

    C&C is appreciated! :)
  • TAN
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    TAN polycounter lvl 12
    AkiRa wrote: »
    Thanks Sweetangel! Yeah, I know how to do it in UE4 but I meant I don't know how to do it in CE3 (since that's what I'm using). :)
    But no worries, I figured it out and it works fine now!
    Thanks a lot anyway. :D


    Hey mate ;)


    http://www.cryengine.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=311&t=92863
  • AkiRa
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    AkiRa polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks a bunch, TAN!
    I already figured out how to do it (it's so easy and took me so long to get it to work... -.-)
    Thanks again! :)
  • Kaine123
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    Kaine123 polycounter lvl 10
    The interiors below ground remind me of Quake for some reason. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy <3
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