After a summer of not getting much art done and after procrastinating about applying for the ArenaNet internships for a few weeks I've decided to put together a quick desert scene alongside working on the art test to submit as my portfolio. I was inspired a few weeks ago by some of the desert views shot in Breaking Bad and started working on the scene a few days ago.

Here are a few of my goals for the scene.

• Learn new UDK foliage placement system
• Learn new UDK terrain system (Depends on if I can figure out how to apply blend masks to it)
• Explore new methods to create foliage
• Learn to create skyboxes
• Explore new material functions such as randomizing the color/hue of foliage based on placement
• Have the scene in a presentable state before September 21st so it can be submitted as a portfolio for the ArenaNet Internships

Here's where it's at now. I'm planning to work on the house today and then start planning out the art test.





Here are a few of my references to show you where I'm planning to take it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3360480/New%...esert/ref1.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3360480/New%...esert/ref2.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3360480/New%...esert/ref3.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3360480/New%...esert/ref4.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3360480/New%...esert/ref5.jpg

Please post any crits, comments and suggestions!

Only major crit at the moment is to do some more so there is something to crit.
I can say that it really depends where you are in NM to get big chunky rocks like that. The plains don't really have them, but the foothills do, but they're also too round and soft.

Really its super early to be criting, but keep at it. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I agree with Vailias on what he said regarding it being to early to critique.. My question is why did you pick these references? The flat desert references don't look very interesting. Desert in Sonora MX have interesting rock formations and plant variety.

@Vailias, right now I was planning to have it be more similar to the plains. I wanted to put something in here so it's not just foliage and sand so some small boulders seemed like an obvious choice. Maybe later on I'll add in a more foothill-like part in so the rocks fit in better geographically.

@Riddlaz, maybe I did post the thread too early. I'm planning to finish this pretty fast though so hopefully in a few days you'll have more to critique. As for the references, I felt inspired to do a scene based off of these after seeing some of the open desert views in Breaking Bad. There's some more interesting foliage in some of my other reference so it won't just be straight grass like it is in those shots. I binged Sonora Desert real quick and the results I got looked somewhat similar to the New Mexico deserts, just with a lot of cacti and hills.

the terrain near Sonoma is very similar to much of Northern New Mexico. There area right at Sonoma has more interesting sand and wind blasted rock formations.

The terrain of new Mexico varries a lot. If youre wanting to keep the breaking bad vibe then you're going to want lots of scrub brush, some sage, the occasional cholla cactus (pronounced choy-ah) or small yucca, and prickly pear. The soil can be rocky but not usually large visible rocks. The floor is not often sand but more dirt and clay dust, ranges from the redish brown to mud brown.

The real plains of NM are to the far east of the state by the west Texas border, and aside from the occasional hill, are indistinguishable from west Texas.
For good reference google "northern chihuahuan desert" the biome is a bit different than the Sonoran desert which is to the west and covers most of Arizona.

Not that most people would care or notice mind you.. I just spent 25 or so years living there.

Originally Posted by Vailias

the terrain near Sonoma is very similar to much of Northern New Mexico. There area right at Sonoma has more interesting sand and wind blasted rock formations.

The terrain of new Mexico varries a lot. If youre wanting to keep the breaking bad vibe then you're going to want lots of scrub brush, some sage, the occasional cholla cactus (pronounced choy-ah) or small yucca, and prickly pear. The soil can be rocky but not usually large visible rocks. The floor is not often sand but more dirt and clay dust, ranges from the redish brown to mud brown.

The real plains of NM are to the far east of the state by the west Texas border, and aside from the occasional hill, are indistinguishable from west Texas.
For good reference google "northern chihuahuan desert" the biome is a bit different than the Sonoran desert which is to the west and covers most of Arizona.

Not that most people would care or notice mind you.. I just spent 25 or so years living there.

Thanks a lot for the info! I had no idea what half of these plants were called. Knowing the names of the yucca and the prickly pear will help a lot when gathering more reference. As for the rocks, I'll probably end up keeping them. As you said, not that many people will notice or care that they're not actually there in the New Mexico deserts. I won't place too many of them though.

I'll post back in a few days with an update on the house and some foliage.

oh hey, just remembered I have a few pix left I took for reference years ago for just this sort of pursuit. May be at least enough to be a texture base for you. This is more foothills than plains, but it should be within about 20 miles from the Breaking Bad pics you posted. (hard to tell exactly.. a lot of that part of the state looks really similar)









OH also.. since you mentioned "learning to create a skybox" one of the most outstanding things I remember from living in NM was the sky. Amazing cloud formations, or just the most pure blue clear ever. Here's some cloud/sky reference.. no photoshop in these btw.. #4-7 were on opposite sides of the highway in the southeastern part of the state.. very heaven and hell looking. (pardon the blur.. those were taken with a cellphone while going about 90..)

@Vailias, thanks a lot for those references. They came in handy for texturing the ground. I was even able to use that top reddish one as a base for one of the textures. Those foliage shots are great too. I needed some close ups of single bushes and such.

Update time!



The building needs more medium details but I'm not quite sure what to add other than some covered up windows. If anyone has any suggestions please share them.

I also did a quick test for the grass today and I think it turned out pretty well. After I tweak it a bit more I'll put it into the scene and start on the other foliage.

That's really cool! The grass looks fantastic and you've done a good job on the house and texturing the ground what you may need for the house is some stuff outside like a broken fence maybe or a broken child's bike etc stuff that a normal "house" would of had. I wish I was as good as you!

Grass!



Haven't been able to build the lighting with the grass because it turns out all black. Should look a bit better once it stops being a nut stick.

@Dagon, thanks. I was thinking of doing a broken fence a while ago but that might look a bit weird having a broken wooden fence right next to the wire fence. Maybe I'll be able to do something with a wooden fence once I expand the house area a bit more.

loving it. keep going

needs more variety in plants, and more scale and color variation.

I'd love to see a screengrab of the grass material set-up in the editor. I can never get my grass looking that bomb-diggity. Great job so far; I'll be keeping an eye on this for some inspiration, no doubt!

@Sid, thanks!

@Zac, that's probably next on my list. I need to get this at least presentable so I can submit some pictures of it as a portfolio for the ArenaNet internships and foliage is definitely more important than a few extra building details.

@Joopson, the grass is literally just a texture with alpha on it. I spent a lot of time getting the texture right though. If you want I could do a little write up on how I painted the grass clumps.

Really? What does the mesh look like then? My grass always ends up with very harsh shading on one side, unless I do some shader genie magic.

Originally Posted by Joopson

Really? What does the mesh look like then? My grass always ends up with very harsh shading on one side, unless I do some shader genie magic.

The mesh is just 6 triangles jammed together with two straight up in a plus formation and the other 4 angled in a square formation. Want me to do a little baby tutorial on how I did the grass?

I would really appreciate it, actually, if it isn't too much trouble! Because it sounds similar to the setup I have, but mine doesn't look nearly so good.

I second the request for a baby grass tutorial!! x]

Sweet! I live in New Mexico so this is really cool. Your doing a good job so far. Some prickly pear cactus would be perfect, you can do it without the fruit to keep the dried up look to your scene. you can make a really interesting sky too similar to the refs Vailias posted. Maybe you can add something rusty as well like a water troff, plow, etc...

@Joopson & Jessica, I'll write up a small tutorial sometime over the next few days and post it in here.

@Rion, I was planning on doing some prickly pears and probably some yucca too. As for something rusty, I think I'm going to do a windmill-like thing. I'm not sure what it's called specifically but it's made of metal and looks like a windmill!

I really like some of Vailias' sky pictures too but I'm not sure that they'll fit the scene. The lighting is pretty bright and crisp and you don't get that kind of lighting with cloudy skies like that. Maybe I could do a few different types of skies though and take pictures with each one at different times of day so there could be a cloudy one like Vailias' for morning, a clear one for afternoon like I have now and a night one all with their own lighting settings.

grass planes are huge !!

hi man , you did a great job at this . cant wait to see more ...
i have a liitle question your lighting is simple? are you using just direction light ?

Feels like home, and by that I mean Texas. I like where this is going keep up the good work

I want baby grass tutorial as well. mmkay

@Pixelz, I scaled them all down a bit and added a bit more variation in size in certain areas.

@Ayoub, right now there's just a Dominant Directional Light in the scene.

@Poff, thanks!

@Synergy, info on the Grass Tutorial below!



About the grass tutorial, I'll try to get around to it sometime this week but I'm trying to get this more presentable and finish the ArenaNet art test in the next 9 days so it might have to wait until after that.