[Tutorial] Rock modeling techniques
polycounter lvl 10
Hey guys, I decided to make a thread regrouping all the videos regarding the rock modeling techniques series.
This is more of a workflow then a tutorial which shows the methods I use for modeling and texturing most of the assets I create.
I hope you enjoy watching the course and that you can find some useful information.
Sorry for the mic popping which occurs once in a while by the way
Introduction :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIOBnl6WjaM"]Rock modeling techniques [INTRO] - YouTube[/ame]
Part 1/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCtjt1qudfQ"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 1/4] - YouTube[/ame]
Part 2/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrDU1toNV6A"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 2/4] - YouTube[/ame]
Part 3/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeFqsfgIWzg"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 3/4] - YouTube[/ame]
Part 4/4 :
(Coming soon)
This is more of a workflow then a tutorial which shows the methods I use for modeling and texturing most of the assets I create.
I hope you enjoy watching the course and that you can find some useful information.
Sorry for the mic popping which occurs once in a while by the way
Introduction :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIOBnl6WjaM"]Rock modeling techniques [INTRO] - YouTube[/ame]Part 1/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCtjt1qudfQ"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 1/4] - YouTube[/ame]Part 2/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrDU1toNV6A"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 2/4] - YouTube[/ame]Part 3/4 :
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeFqsfgIWzg"]Rock modeling techniques [Part 3/4] - YouTube[/ame]Part 4/4 :
(Coming soon)
Replies
Technically the texture map that I'm using is called a curvature map which can be rendered in Xnormal. You can get much better results in Xnormal compared to what I got in Mudbox or Crazybump.
I'll add the note in the 4th part of the video series where I'll render that texture map and use it for the final diffuse texture.
Have you considered using polypaint instead of mudbox? Polypaint would give you more realistic results.
Get all the important details down or write everything out before you start the parts that need video demonstration so you save time in the video and pause when you fiddle with file systems, load programs, paint out seams and other less important stuff.
Good Stuff Choco! I learned several new useful techniques.
I have very limited time but I still allowed myself to share with you some of the techniques that I use, which I wish was up there on youtube when I was trying to figure out how I should approach the creation of such an asset.
If you find the quality of the tutorial not up to your standards, I'd suggest to spare some money and buy a tutorial made by a pro (eat3d, 3dmotive etc...) for around 50 bucks.
Don't get me wrong, these are some great tutorials.
Best of luck!
Same here, seems you were taking our words as being harsher than they were intended. It's a good series, I just can't watch with sound on.
Looks like the Maya integrated Shader is a Proffessional version only or? Weird their homepage is for me death...
ps: The scene we can see in the 3rd vid
part 5/5 will feature UDK export/import and setup.
[ame="
I'm currently testing my new microphone, I still need to learn how to properly compress the video in order to avoid the artifacts shown when I'm working within the cryengine sdk.
Keep up le good work.
Thanks a lot man, I'm currently doing some freelance work at the moment which should hopefully help until I get a stable job.
Most of the time I'm just creating sets of models and selling them to a reseller.
Thanks again :thumbup:
Now that I got a better microphone, I'm currently considering of making a tutorial regarding the creation of a whole scene in UDK or CE3. We'll pretty much pick up a nice concept art and make a scene based on it showing each step of the creation process (modeling, texturing, optimizing etc...). Once that is done, I'll probably put on my website and maybe add a donation button on it.
First of all let me say this: your tutorials are absolutely amazing! I've been doing hard surface modeling for years, never venturing outside of that field, but now, thanks to you, I'm hooked to Mudbox and WM, and I'm finally able to create canvases to place my stuff on: beautiful terrains made with your amazing workflow.
Right now I'm starting to follow your tutorials on rock modeling techniques, and if you don't mind, I wanted to ask several questions on Mudbox as I'm having some minor issues there.
Here are my results:
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Glad I could help out man, the techniques used have been improved.
I'll probably update the whole thing once I get some time.
For rock modeling, you can just duplicate the base mesh and do the placements all in mudbox then select all your sub-meshes and export them to 3dcoat.
In 3dcoat just go to file -> "merge object" and open up the exported model from mudbox.
This will automatically merge your model which is ideal for generating a low poly mesh suitable for decimation.
Later on in xnormal you can use the mesh exported from mudbox as your highpoly and the merged version as the low poly mesh.
This method is faster and allows for better interactivity with the different parts that make your rock formation. (you can edit the individual parts in mudbox before exporting to 3dcoat).
I wish that there were a remeshing option built in mudbox just like in zbrush.
One thing that was bugging me, though, is xNormal AO/Normals bake quality. I've fiddled with ray distance settings a lot, but artifacts persisted no matter the values (clipped sides in cracks and other problems like that). And even putting that aside, the maps that were rendered by xNormal featured areas with completely incorrect coloration (e.g. black and white areas or unusual colors that won't represent correct vectors and have no place on normal map) and were strangely blurry.
Out of curiosity, I've rendered normals and AO directly from final highpoly to final lowpoly in Mudbox, and got much more satisfying results. Here are the maps in question, just open them in separate tabs and check the difference.
What do you think could be the reason behind such an output from xNormal? I doubt the software itself has flawed algorithms or something, - after all, it's a widely adopted product. Maybe the reason lies in the absence of a cage, and it's not possible to render normals properly without it?
In any case, I'm currently using Mudbox output and I'm quite happy with it, - just curious what went wrong there with xNormal.
That's more efficient way for sure, and I think I'll prefer it over the older one, - but one thing I really liked about 3D Coat was the ability to subtract the volume (with Ctrl+Enter). With some additional meshes (specialized for cutting) loaded into the library, that would make an awesome way to add damage to your rocks. So whenever I'll need some utterly destroyed forms (for landslides, for example), I'll probably use old 3D Coat workflow to exploit that.
P.S.: And here is the diffuse, for no particular reason. )
P.P.S.: Oh, by the way! I'm frequently using diffuse alpha channel to store specular maps (awesome way to save memory and speed up rendering, recommended in Crytek guidelines), and I've stumbled upon a small problem. How can I disable Maya from using diffuse alpha to render opacity on a material? As you can probably guess, having semi-transparent ghosts in a viewport isn't too handy
Thanks
And for the first time modeling rock is actualy fun. Great tutorial
thank you