this overall concept and layout is really good. I particularly like the asymmetric composition. Keep going

Originally Posted by SirCalalot

@gsokol, I could hug you

As far as I can see, your textures used are:

- COLOUR MatCap from your High-poly
- COLOUR Diffuse of the Ice and Sub Surface Scattering map
- HEIGHT Parallax map for BumpOffset as well as DX11 Tessellation from High-poly
- COLOUR Diffuse of the Snow
- SPECULAR Spec' map for the Snow texture (I'm guessing a noise map?)
- NORMAL MatCap from your High-poly
- NORMAL Detail normal for general detail

Is that right?
The grey-scale maps can be combined into single textures, or tacked onto colour textures as alpha channels, so you could probably reduce the texture draw-calls to about 4 or 5 too for some optimisation

*Starts trying out material himself*

Sounds like you might be confusing matcap for baked textures.

By matcap, I mean a spherical environment map...basically the same thing as the matcap materials in zbrush..the vector transform expression is switching the vector values from tangent space to view space. So basically, the section of the sphere map that is sampled depends on the angle of the camera to the object. If you google matcap or sphere map you can find out more about it.

This is what the texture looks like for that:


So the Matcap is being added to the diffuse..which right now is just the Ambient Occlusion bake multiplied by a color.


Your definitely right about dropping the grey scale textures into channels. When I'm getting close to having a final material I'll pack them all together.

Originally Posted by gsokol

Sounds like you might be confusing matcap for baked textures.

Yes. Yes I am.

Which would explain why my test material I tried earlier looked absolute gash compared to your wonderful composition

Heyyy its been a little while.

Here is where I'm at now:




I fiddled with lighting a little bit, added a few more blockout props..added more icicles.

I made new ceiling beams..textures aren't done yet. Also..texture on the wall on the left is just the ceiling beam texture..I'll replace that soon.

It might just be the character in the scene (and the blue/yellow complimentary lighting), but I'm getting some awesome Bioshock-esque vibes from this now.

Your piece has such a great atmosphere @gsokol!

Another Update:



I replaced the blockout transverse frame pieces, made the metal plating texture for the wall, and..hard to see in this image..but replaced the placeholder water tank models in the background as well.

I also fiddled with the post process settings a little bit. I fiddled with Bokeh a little bit..which was really cool..and I adjusted the color a little bit..took out some of the reds to sell the cold, icey atmosphere.

I still have really slacked with texturing..specularity doesn't read very well on most things yet.

YES!

It has a kind of hand-painted look to it

you really got the look of the ice. That shader looks really confusing. I can't never understand how all that setup works. Was there a tutorial you learned from or do you just get use to it over time? Anyways ima be following this thread. keep it up!

This is awesome, And I agree, you definitely can pull a BioShock feel from this.. Definitely has that eerie vibe! Its coming along very very nicely my friend! GREAT job so far. The concept definitely got transferred exceptionally well.

As for the metal texture on the wall to the left, I feel it can use some work IMO. It feels like the black sheep to me in this piece. Dont get me wrong, it all looks awesome, but if I had to single out one thing right now, the texture on the left almost looks rushed if that makes sense. Maybe if you pushed the plates together some more it would help? The black bars between the plates seem really jagged and there seems like too much gap. The actual metal texture you made is pretty damn rad though, I really like its feel, but maybe some more organization and more firm lines between the plates would really tie that wall together Just some crits! Overall as a whole though, this scene is awesome. I dont post much, but had to log on just so i could give some feedback on this! Awesome man.

Thanks guys!

Iciban:
The shader does look confusing all at once..but when you build it up from scratch its a lot easier to separate everything and understand whats going on.

I didn't use a tutorial for the ice..but I did have to look up how to do a couple of things (MatCap, Tesselation/Displacement, Sub Surface Scattering). The displacement took a little experimenting..it seemed like every tutorial I found for displacement did something wrong, so I had to play around a little bit to get a good working combination.

Also....I just finished checking out Ryan Smith's (Virtuosic's) Advanced Mesh Paint Tutorial at 3d motive. Its a pretty sweet tutorial..I managed to pick up a few neat tricks with vert painting that I'll integrate next time I touch the shader.

As far as everything else goes, yea I just kinda learned along the way. I made it a point to try to get a better understanding of the UDK material editor with my last project..my Jetbike. Between that and the ice material...I've started to really get a grip on how the Material Editor works. Before that I didn't really know much..and I referenced tutorials a lot more.

I still have a few tricks up my sleeve for the ice..I'm not done with it yet. I've got a few cool ideas that I'll tackle a bit later.


Add3r:

Thanks for the critique! I'll agree with you..it does look a little harsh there. Those lines are shadows from the normal map..the edges are worn a little bit. The texture is actually a tiling texture...so I shrunk it down a little bit:



It seems to help a little bit, but is still pretty dark. I'll figure out something to make that not so harsh. Thanks for pointing that out!

Ice is looking boss. Thanks for the screencap, still trying to wrap my head around UDK materials myself. Excited to see where this goes!

Oh wow... Yeah the metal texture, at least this is how I feel, is in the sweet spot... I am REALLY diggin' it now... Wow, that small change I feel made all the difference! It is a tad dark as you said still, but depending on the angle of the cameras and the setup of the composition, this could definitely pass as a final texture setup Awesome man! I really like this scene! You get an awesome balance between the warm light and the cool ice, as well as the eerie feel of the long tunnel/passage. Keep up the work! Good job!

Thanks guys.

Thanks Nick1!!! I think this might be the first time that I've ever received critique from a spam bot! I feel honored...

Anywhoo...I decided to figure out what I wanted to do for the hole in the shiphull, so I whipped this up tonight:



Skybox is a default UDK one..not mine..I'll replace it later. I just removed some of the meshes so you can see the entrance better..The hull piece thats missing will be partially there..I'm going to model in some damage later. Also, I hid the blockout icicle chunks..but those will be there later as well.

I worked on the icicle chunks over the weekend.

Here are the sculpts:

This includes a the single icicles that I had already done. For the clumps, I gave dynamesh a shot. Worked out pretty well...made getting the base shapes pretty quick and easy.

Also wanted to see how I might place them in the entrance. These meshes are just decimated versions of the high poly out of zbrush..I haven't made proper low poly models yet...thats next on the list.

Very cool what does the expression look like for those clear icicles they look really dope!

dudealan2001:

The material for the sculpts is based off the Green Glass matcap from the Pixologic website, I just played with the properties and changed the hue a little bit.

If your interested, I threw it up here.

I thought you did something special in UDK to get it to look that good I made icicles for one of my old levels and it didn't look nearly as good.

oh and the link is down

Whoops. Thought you were talking about the zbrush material.

The udk material is fairly simple, the icicles aren't actually clear at all, they are completely opaque. I have a rimlight being added to the diffuse to get the nice highlights on the edges, and I'm using the heightmap as a transmission mask to make it look like light is bleeding through. Just a flat, high value spec at the moment with a pretty low gloss value. I'm using a low gloss instead of a high one because the wide specular highlights help make it look like light is passing through the icicles, vs being tight and giving a wet, opaque look.

Also, link was working if you right clicked and saved it, but clicking on it was going to an empty page. Dropping the file in a .zip folder fixed that..I updated the link in my previous post if you still want it.

wow that's a nice ice! i guess the paralax makes it even cooler when you move around : )

Hoth meets BioShock- great icicles!

Thanks for the explination in both parts ^^;;
Wow thats a very simple and elegant solution inside of UDK very cool, I would over think it like a mofo lol. can't wait to see more.

oh yeah I have had this thought for a while but creating a decal that only uses the emmissive to fake refracted light

Those icicles are looking saweeet

Don't rotate the icicles at all; they look weird coming down at angles.

Looks awesome though, nice work.

Very nice job .

nice Ice material . is it the same you show the picture in first page ?

I Wonder How can I make a mat like this in Unity !