KatsBits Community

Game Editing => 3D Modeling & Content Creation => Topic started by: kat on December 13, 2009, 05:44:53 PM

Title: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: kat on December 13, 2009, 05:44:53 PM
Post any links you find to tutorials or artists explaining their processes on making rocks and terrain.

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=50160#Post242205
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=53911

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=59678&highlight=rocks
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: ratty redemption on January 04, 2010, 04:50:10 PM
http://3d-synthesis.com/tutorialsenglish.html#StonesFactory
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: Savage on January 10, 2010, 12:50:18 AM
Here is a good tutorial on making a rock in Blender, I think you will like it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb0ZRnly2RI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb0ZRnly2RI)

Also, my high poly sculpt is roughly 1.2 million I think and it does lag a little bit which brings me back to 2.5, I get almost twice that smoothly with 2.5. And the brush texture browser is much nicer as well. makes me sad about those scripts :( I'll post my alpha brushes I made when I get back in town. The video above tells you where to get some nice alpha brushes as well. I should be back tomorrow or Monday, talk to you all then.
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: kat on January 10, 2010, 04:01:53 AM
Nice vid but that's a 'bad' tutorial, unless he was just showing the principles of using the sculpt tool. The whole process of making a rock like that is rendered pretty pointless by loading in a diffuse image based on a photograph; it's much simpler and quicker to just tweak the photo he used and convert that into a normal map with CrazyBump or some other photo-editor normal map plug in - that way you have a normal map that actually matches the structure of the image; it's the reason why that texture doesn't 'sit' well over the rock because the image shows a completely different 'type' of surface to the underlying one created with the sculpt.

The mistake he's made there is in thinking that a rock is an amorphous blob built by simply sculpting with some mushy brush tools, that's why peoples models always tend to look wrong because they not taking into consideration what they actually building, it's a rock right? Well no.. what type of rock, how big it is, where will it be used.. and so on.
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: ratty redemption on January 10, 2010, 12:56:06 PM
@ savage, understood and thanks for the link, although from what kat has been teaching us over time about rock structures, I can see what he means. still though nice to see alpha brushes in action like that, previously I've only seen in video people use them to stamp on micro size surface detail.
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: Savage on January 11, 2010, 04:28:47 PM
Agreed, I think he is just showing basics though and he doesn't have much time with youtube. I like to bake my normal and a corresponding ambient occlusion to use to develop my own diffuse so yes, I know what you mean. I find it easier to create my own diffuse because, like you said, it is hard to find exactly what you want and even then, it may not match up right so... Agreed. Sometimes I may use a texture I found but I'll try to work in my own taste with blending and whatever. It never ends up looking like it once was though. Anyways, I'm really glad to be hear, I'm sure we have a lot to learn from each other. Going to be awesome! Thanks again. I'll post more when I have time.
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: ratty redemption on January 11, 2010, 04:46:07 PM
@ savage, interesting and we're looking forward to seeing more of your work when you have time, be it models or textures :)

speaking of which I should of made that clear previously, blender is the main 3d app we use but there are also texture artists and coders who hang out here that teach us about various aspects of their games work :)
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: kat on July 17, 2010, 06:38:57 PM
This is a good one on modular objects
http://philipk.net/tutorials/modular_rocks/modular_rocks.html
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: ratty redemption on July 17, 2010, 07:07:41 PM
kat, thanks that's an excellent html tutorial :)
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: silicone_milk on July 17, 2010, 11:32:18 PM
interesting
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: kat on September 09, 2010, 06:07:02 PM
Polycount Wiki page on environment art, includes some tutorial links on making rocks and similar terrain objects - http://wiki.polycount.com/EnvironmentSculpting
Title: Re: HINTS & TIPS - rocks
Post by: ratty redemption on September 09, 2010, 06:30:12 PM
very cool, that page looks like it has a wealth of very good tutorials, excellent find :)