The Desert(real-time environment with no Diffuse Maps Technology)

[d1ver]

Good day to you, fellow Zbrush artists!

I’m quite stoked to share with you my latest personal project:

Please make sure to watch through the whole video because that’s where the whole project is. All the following images are merely a bunch of working materials.
Thank you very much:rolleyes:

[youtubehd]QtSbrIupviQ&hd=1[/youtubehd]

I won’t be posting much screenshots for now because this work is not about static images at all and I really want everyone to check the video out.

It’s a real-time environment that does not use any dedicated RGB diffuse textures. I thought I saw an opportunity to improve the way we make our games technically, production-wise and maybe even visually to an extent so with this personal project I really pushed the idea of “procedural” materials. As much as I was working hard making a visual work of art I also pushed it to make a technological statement that says “we could do well without diffuse maps”.

Now I’ve composed a whole paper that describes the technology, the concept and the reasoning behind it: both technical and artistic. Please feel free to get it RIGHT HERE and if you have ideas on the subject I’m always up for chatting.) Now for those of you who ain’t gonna read it I thought I’d post a couple images from it here to give you the gist of it:

And now to the Zbrushy part! Now since my materials only used modified depth information as an input, my normals and heightmaps had to bear the biggest burden. I’ve tried every tool possible and zbrush blown every single one out of the water. So yeah, here you can check out the renders of my normal maps most of which were produced in ZBrush:

Attachments

[d1ver]

yay goats!

[d1ver]

And the worst part that I’m actually most proud of

Now I know I suck at concept art, but anyway:

[d1ver]

Once again I don’t post much stills because that’s not what this project was about and hopefully all this production materials will convince you to check out the video(in HD with sound On).

Now if you’re interested in all of the shader trickery and technical details that are aplenty in this environment(like “procedural” damage generation or procedural animated sand material projection), or concepting and ideation of a project of such scale please feel free to check out my making of videos. They are a bit on the long side, but hopefully you’ll get compensated with interesting info for your time.

Technical:

//youtu.be/JxFwfZMBxT8

Conceptual:

//youtu.be/Kl5ocYJyLcY

I take a bit of time to spread some ZBrush love in the technical making of, because It was only during this project that I really fully transferred to ZBrush and now it’s an indispensable part of my workflow in many ways I couldn’t even expect. I even produce a lot of my props there now, as well as blockouts of huge natural scenes for example. Thank you very much, Pixologic team, from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn’t for you this project could’ve turned out much worse. Thank you.

[cdizzle]

EDIT: Sorry, was thinking something totally different. Interesting approach and nice result. Cheers!

[Santis]

Some really great stuff!

[d1ver]

Edit: No worries cdizzle! Thank you very much for your comment still:)

Santis, thank you very much, friend. Much appreciated.

[EZRA52]

I love this stuff.Excellent work.

I’m out working so have very little time these days to do more than just breifly peruse the forum but I will definitly revisit this and try to learn as much as I can from you. Thanks for sharing all the how you’ve done it information. Again, a really fantastic job.

Ezra

[johnchen]

excellent work, I can tell a lot of creative energy and technical ability went into this. Well done. I crit I might add is to lay off the diffustion / glow / bloom a bit. on youtube its blowing out a lot of the whites and overpowering all the nice detail you’ve obviously spent a long time making
Let the work shine by itself, post effects shouldnt be overpowering in my opinion. Good luck!

[d1ver]

Thank you very much for your kind words, Ezra! I hope all those additional materials will be of use to you.

Huge thanks, johnchen. I appreciate the input.

I’m sorry I’ve been so slow to reply, but thats because I’ve been busy working on something for you, guys:

THE MATERIALS!
Click the image to grab them!

There are all kinds of “procedural” materials for you to check out as well as a couple of example textures and meshes. Also there’s a .PSD that makes for very smooth gradient map production as it allows you to preview your gradient mapping, normal, specular, damage and diffuse pattern influence right in photoshop! It’s like you’re painting your gradient map directly in UDK and can immediately see the end result! I’ve made a little video that will hopefully make things more visual for you:

[youtubehd]a4TcnfX5c3Y&hd=1[/youtubehd]

I hope this will help you guys to do your stuff faster, prettier and more efficient! Though it does take a little getting used to, I can’t wait so see what great stuff you awesome people will come up with. Arrrgh

Oh, and just in case, if there’s something wrong or I forgot to plug something somewhere - report it here and I’ll get it fixed.

Have fun!