Whoa i really like the way you stylized the photo-realistic textures! Can you do a small breakdown on how u did one of them? I'm sure you just samples colors and painted in the right areas and such, but idk how you applied it so well! I'd love to know :]
great job man!

Thanks, I'm pretty much trying out a photoshop plugin thats supposed to be used for removing artefacts and noise on pictures. I'm using it to get a good base to work on for making stylised textures.
The plugin in question is called : Kodak Gem

The KODAK DIGITAL GEM Plug-In, for ADOBE PHOTOSHOP and compatible programs, automatically reduces and manages noise and grain in digital images without causing excessive softening or blurring. This professional version has a powerful grain/noise reducing algorithm, a "Noise Preview" screen, 16-bit support, and more.

Its basically the ideal noise reduction tool that keeps only the interesting detail.

You can find a demo version here : http://www.asf.com/

Inspiring, Choco I might try the voxel sculpting within 3d Coat to start a model like you did.

I have been experimenting with sky textures lately, and tried to use 16bit textures for skydomes to have high quality skies without any compression artefacts showing up no matter the resolution or the exposure of the texture.

I also did some attempts to make stylised skies based on photo just by running a few photoshop scripts.

Some results :









I also did an "in engine" test with a low resolution 16bit texture projected on a dome to see how it looks.









I'm planning to use xtream Vue to generate the final spherical sky and then stylise it with photoshop.

I will probably use image based lighting to get more accurate ambient lighting. (based on following article : http://www.zspline.net/blog/2010/06/...ased-lighting/ )

As for volumetric clouds, I'm thinking of using speed tree modeler to generate sprites and slap a proper material which reacts to lighting accordingly.

Really dramatic and cool skies man! I kinda liked how the whole scene had a fluffy and sunny feel to it before though. Kinda innocent in a way :P

I started reading the stuff from z spline. Really cool stuff on there! But do you know if he's released his GViz to the public or if it's still in the making? I guess you where thinking of making a sky in PS and use the IBL from that anyway? Cheers!

Very nice scene! I like the grass texture, where do you get such a texture? I have a hard time finding a good grass texture myself.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing this completed, and EVEN MORE looking forward to seeing the breakdown.

Don't forget! Lot's of us are truly dying to see your process =]

Those stylized skies in the scene have taken it to a whole new level. It's starting to feel a lot more surreal now. Inspiring stuff here!

idk why, but im not a fan of that rainbow colored sky. I loved the whitish sunlight you had on it before.
Maybe play around with some regular colored skydomes?

Can't wait to see the land texture breakdown when you finish, I'm very interested. Also I really like the colourful sky, depending on what other meshes you put in, it could really work.

Amazing job.
Following! ^__^

I've been experimenting with the per-pixel painting in UDK (dec version) and I must say that its probably one of the biggest features added to the engine.

Here is a video showing off one the usage you can make with a proper shader setup :

UDK Realtime perpixel painting demonstration ...

UDK per pixel painting test 2 - YouTube

And here is a tilable texture which took me around 30min to paint in UDK.
Everything done in UDK (no photohsop, no mubox or zbrush sculpting)

wonderful work, i am curious how you did the normal map painting in udk?

wonderful work, i am curious how you did the normal map painting in udk?

Thanks, there is a material function that allows you to generate a normal map out of a heightmap/grayscale texture in the material editor

The more I see of the capabilities of UDK the more it makes me drool over it. So much to learn, so little time... ^^

Realy great stuff!

Some awesome work here!

this is really something great i love it and its pretty for once. the stylization you've added is great gives it a "Mario galaxy" semi hyper real effect. keep it up!

Echoing everyone's comments: AWESOME! STUFF!!!

wow this is amazing! i really love the style your going for. Have to say the skydome texture is looking really good. Gives off that heaven/ anime feel. Totally following this.

For the base mesh, could we see a wireframe? U have so much details on your rocks. also it'll be cool if you can show us your workflow.

keep it up!

Your Grass simply ROCKS! ;) Keep up the good work, Bookmarked, keep sharing

WOW, that is to cool! It really opens up for some creative stuff! Thanks for sharing man!

I'm really liking this environment. Real nice work so far.

thanks, I've been testing out some custom shaders and post processing shaders lately.

The post processing shader is basically a gradient mapping technique applied to the camera.
It works like the photoshop gradient map effect which also allows you to use split tone mapping.

Gradient mapping post process + some custom assets with snow shader tests.
With :



Without :




I've also figured out how to make grass models pick up terrain texture color automatically to blend perfectly with terrain. I'll post some beautyshots later on when I make some real vegetation models.

tests :

nice snow shader. did you make it up yourself? I recall a tutorial on how to create a snow shader using Up Vector or something in UDK. Everything's looking great, i'm interested to see the results of the grass model color blending with terrain.

this tread keep amazing me....

about the snow shader, i was wondering if it would be possible for it to detect interesction with other meshes to create zones where snow appears due to accumulation...

an example could be the rocks on the right side in the foreground, as snow should accumulate in the crease they create by intersecting