ZBrushCentral

big seas ocean modeling?

Community
#1

Does anyone recall having seen an example of realistic gigantic ocean seas using ZBrush to model it? Seems it would fairly easy and quick. The modeled waves sculpted from a plane (if that’s how it would start) could be instanced in another app so it shows the sea from up close and all the way to the horizon. Woops, wait a minute, the instances would have to “tile” seamlessly…

Any ideas on this? I would definitely be modeling the waves, dramatic hero waves. But how do I deal with the large expanse leading away to the distant horizon in another app such as modo or C4D?

#2

You might get good results from using a displacement map.

#3

Wouldn’t making a greyscale image for displacement be just as time consuming as modeling directly?

#4

several ways to do it, depends on what you need it to do? and whats it for?
anyways here are the first few thoughts that came to mind…

  1. make tileable alpha, use it to sculpt a plane…extract either disp or norm maps or both for render

  2. using the “picker” in zbrush and adjusting your brush settings sculpt the wave with a combination of alphas and strokes…use use 3D layer for more control

  3. create one massive plane for the entire shot, sculpt up to a certain subd level…then go HD and extract your maps from the HD data.

:smiley:

#5

You could start from a photo.

#6

Morph, ‘…then go HD and extract your maps from the HD data.’

you mean the displ and normal maps from 1)?

#7

once you subdivide your mesh to a certian level, they say 1million but it most likely depends on your system…but anyway you can then add HD subdivisions…check the pixologic site for online documents on that.

then you can extract your maps displacement and normal, which will capture the insane details from the highest HD subD.

works great!

#8

all right, thanks

#9

Waste of time, all 3D packages have wave generators build in, either through noise and displacement, or mesh generators. Not worth modeling water surfaces in ZBrush except for a sculpture.
C4D has a fantastic plugin for this:
http://www.add-the-sea.de/eng/
Lemo

#10

poo poo lemo,

why leave all the fun stuff to presets, procedural and plugins?..

I think it would be damn cool to go one step further and sculpt fire!

…

then again you are rarely rewarded in production for being the “maverick”

TopGun, all time fav movie!

#11

Naaaaa… If you need a specific stylized look… you have to model it yourself of course. But for the so called realistic stuff others have through about it long and hard already.
L

#12

OP here. Stuff like this nautical scene from the artist’s imagination would be a sculpting candidate.
http://screencast.com/t/ZjViMzU0M