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Snowy winter scene

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#1

Its almost Christmas and I havent really made anything besides practise work and screenshot editing in over 6 months. Recently I watched the movie called “Joyeux Noel” - it is a multilingual movie, set in France December 24, 1914. It is the true story about the French, British, and German soldiers who defied thier commanders and stopped the war for the Christmas holidays. It is a good movie and is really motivating. My plan is to be able to recreate a winter scene showing the ruins of war but the fighting has stopped for Christmas.

These are the things that I want to figure out how to do:
(I have 3dsMax8, Zbrush2, and PhotoshopCS2)

1-Making a field - with trenches, parappets, barbed wire, and blast craters
2-Covering that field in thick white snow
3-Building and texturing ruined buildings (I have some parts of this covered)
4-Making realistic trees and smoke without using any other software or plugin
5-Lighting the scene to create a Christmas like atmosphere
6-putting it all together

I can find tutorials for number 3, 5, and 6. The rest however always lead me into poorly written tutorials,a nd above all else require me to spend so and so money to buy some thirdparty plugin or another program that I will probably have to learn how to use. I have about 1 month to get this done - as a personal challenge to myself and soemthing I can do that is worthwhile. (Thats a month considering I have 2 school projects and still have to go to school aswell)

Can anyone help me? Ready made props and parts, textures, tutorials… It will all be appreciated. :smiley:

Thanks in advanced and an early Merry Christmas

(attached is a screenshot from the movie)

Attachments

joyuexnoel.JPG

#2
  1. you might try displacements for the trenches and stuff, play around with 'em. Get the free version of terragen to give an idea of what the displacement image may look like. I did an animation a few years ago of the building of stonehenge and used displacements for the trench and mounds around stonehenge, it worked nicely.

4-Making realistic trees and smoke without using any other software or plugin,

I expect that that is because the plugs will cost money, well here is a little jscript app that makes pretty good trees and stuff.

http://arbaro.sourceforge.net/

#3

Well, 3dsMax 8 has the AEC trees plugins. I get good high detail trees but still have no texture - although these take up so much processing power if I will make the rest of the scene in detail.

I still cant figure out how I will make the snowy field look like a real snowy field. Displacement maps however arent helping that much (for the snow). As for teh trenches I dont really need to model them as I am not expecting to show the entire trench jsut a section of it - plus I know the exact measurements for the dimentions of a trench wall. The idea would probably be put a small portion of a trench, its covered in snow, there is an abandoned rifle and helmet. As the trench wall turns you nolonger see the trench sections on the other side - therefore it doenst need to be modeled. In the background I’ll have ruined builds, smoke, and fog - maybe even slight snow fall. I can model the low poly ruins and texture them pretty quick.

My problems are with modelling the ground and the snow over the trench section. Plus rendering them with textures that reflect light like real snow - a slight glow - pixel shader like effects. (I think Ill pop in CoD2 screenshots and take a look).

In the movie, they showed the German trenches were decorated with the top of pine trees decorated with candles - instead of barbed wire. I could probably cut up the existing tree or figure out how to make a makeshift tree - in the end I am not aiming for photorealism since I will take the final render to PS and make it appear as a painting. The snowy ground with real snow texture remains as the only problem - and maybe the trees and candle light.

-I suppose I can use either PS or Zbrush for post production painting and detailing as well as texturing (Zbrush especialy)

Any help with this will be appreciated. :smiley:

#4

Well to help you out

This is probably my 3rd or 4th illustration in zbrush.

That time I was new and forgot to subdivide the mountain mesh :o … morover it has a cartoon look :laughing:

But I can bet a snow scene can be created in zbrush easily… with proper texturing and right use of 2d tools… I am talking abt illustrations only… :+1: :sunglasses:

[snowy-mountain.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘44790’,‘snowy-mountain.jpg’,1,0))

#5

Well I can see the effort put there but im looking into making a snow covered crater scarred battlefield. Im guessing I would be using regular bump maps and diffuse maps (with several mixes) to create the snowy surface. A Specular mask limiting reflectiveness to snow and preusmably frozen surfaces. A displacement map for cratered regions. I could possibly just elimite the trenches from view that should save me from alot of work making realistic textures for the wood and mud in those trenches not to mention the damage details. Ive already began to model the ruined buildings, I already have the gate house in the picture modeled and ready to be textured. Well I feel that the final design would look alot like that screenshot in my first post, slightly changed maybe a scene where you would see one of the trees closer.

For the snow and ground surface; would anyone suggest that I should just bump texture and displace a flat mesh, or model the snowy surface manually? or both - which is a pain with my 15 day window (weekends including friday).

For the trees: Since most of them are going to be far from the camera, can anyone point to me how and where I can get tree sprites without spending any money - or atleast how to make these sprites that look real (pine trees).

Final composition: This will be a nighttime scene - so the set would have to be lit by small numbers of weak omni lights on the trees themselves - candle light glow. I could try to use the PerPixel camera feature for the first time to save rendering effort from lights so I can concentrate the rendering power for the trees themselves.

Eitherway, I will need tutorials for these - and possibly some samples.

  1. Snowy field - cratered battlefield
  2. Trees - sprites, detailed
  3. Composing and rendering - multipart, perpixel lighting.

Thanks in advanced.

#6

For snow and ice there was a material somewhere —

If you can get hold of that material you will be able to texture very good looking frozen and snowy ground directly in zbrush, with renderings in your animation software… you will have to search for it though :wink:

#7

Is it in these forums or google? Exactly what file format should I be looking for?

To tell you guys the truth all I know how to do in zbrush is messy zspheres and making tileable textures. Im making this scne in 3dsMax and main texturing in PS, but I plan to use Zbrush for more detailed textures. Ofcourse if I can get this done mostly on zbrush once the main objects in the scenc ehave been modeled and textured - setting things up in Zbrush would probably be the best.

I need help though - I can model in Max really well, I cna paint textures in PS, but putting them all together is my problem - one with a final render that looks really good.

The gatehouse now is still unfinished on texturing. It is lowpoly - under a hundred - the texture is still being painted so right now it is 3000x3000 which may be small for some but this is so far the second largest texture I have done - largest would be 4000x4000. I will resize this texture to around 1024x1024 since this structure will be in the background anyway.

#8

Still lacking snow texture. Is it a good idea to manually model the snow so that they look fluffier?

The ruins so far, took around 40 mins each to model, UVunwrap, and texture paint. Gatehouse texture is 3000x3000 8mb PNG, the shed has a 2000x2000 2.5mb PNG. Looks great up close.

#9

While texturing, you can try using the spherebrush tool with depth to create fluffy ball type appearance…will need lot of trial and error though…

#10

Well the buildings and the other props will be fully textured using Photoshop primarily. I guess Zbrush will be most help ful when detailing the ground which I expect to have alot more detail.

The layout would be:

Ruined buildings at the back, depth of field used and focus on the foreground slightly -I have the zdepth plugin for 3dsMax for this.

Then comes the first trench wall, presumably the german trench walls which will be tall parapets covered in a blanket of snow and decorated with small pine tree tips with candles -I dont think detail is a concern here since it will still be far and still be blurred a bit by depth of field.

Next would be the barbed wire - I guess I will just twist some cylinders around or simply use an opacity filter and texture the wire. This may require some detail as debris will be all around this.

Snowy field - around 20-40 feet of snow covered ground with slight debris and signs of cratering - may require some detail

British trenches - wooden trench walls covered in snow, signs of recent activity - hand prints on the snow. Main object in the scene will be a Springfield1903 and a helmet on the parapet/sandbags. The rifle is almost done but hasnt been skinned yet, I will position it so that I dont have to complete the rifle at all. I havent made the helmet yet. This part requires the sharpest amount of detail.

Camera positions? well I wont know for sure till I actually build the trenches. Im wondering if anyone can point me towards tutorials for making and textuinf highly detailed sprites for trees and the barbwire. That would be helpful and saves alot of time and processing rather than building them in real 3d.

This image update now has the shed texture fixed because the side incorrectly joins with the roof.

This would actually be the first time I make something with actual texture and UV skins - before I only used procedural but that is because for that past 5 years all I have been doing was learning to poly model - now im learning to texture and render as best as possible as my software can go - I dont know how and wehre to ge tbetter renderers and textures without going for the expensive prices of the commercial ones. :confused: :stuck_out_tongue: that is what makes this hard for me, lack of software and textures to work with.

#11

Time to make the trenches, the snow, and the rest of the snow. I have finished the visible part of the ruins, all fully textured up to 3000x3000 reaching 73Mb compressed and 380Mb uncompressed.

Any suggestions on how I should put the snow on the ruins and how to make the snowy fields and trenches? :confused: Im thinking of doing this in brush now - where I can easily sculp (but still dont know how to) a displacement map and a normal map that can be applied to the mesh at max.

Attachments

gatehouse2.jpg

gatehouse.jpg

#12

I have modelled the terrain and trenches manualy… now I need to know how to paint it? Obvoiusly because of its size, manualy mapping UVs isnt going to be a good idea with a 22 day deadline. I have Zbrush, but I cant seem to paint it without Zbrush making it look like glass of metal or low poly. Is there a way I could just use Zbrush to take the mesh and flatten it so that it is easier to paint? or any other suggestions on how I can paint it?

#13

Use bump maps to paint on the texture, that will give you high detailing of snow and dirt and all.

then displace the bump map and you ahve a low poly plane with high details, now simply color shade the mesh in zbrush(while mesh is in displaced viewing) with appropriate materials and export the texture.

and combine them all in other software…

If I was you I could have tried this one , but be very sure before you invest time on it.

#14

The only problem is this would really be the first time I use Zbrush for production texture painting.

There is a section of a trench along the walls… painting the insides seem to be harder in Zbrush if I do it in 3d because it is hard to move it around in Zbrush.

Plus, should I divide the mesh first before painting because I am getting a really horrible lowpoly look.

Any links to texture painting tutorials for Zbrush - ones especially for winter and snow?

#15

Use the hide and seek method…:slight_smile:

hide the part which you do not need, have a look at the practical guide(downlaod from zbrush site) and properly go through it once for sculpting details and texturing. It is very important.

Divide the mesh to have about 2 million polygons, do some sculpting on it first.

When creating the bump texture take highest as possible or import a bigger base texture from photshop) 4096 x 4096 is highest in zbrush.

While creating details always hide other portions to save system resources and work smoothly.(turn quick 3d off as well)

For texturing check out Auricks precision texturing tutorial in these forums, they are two of them. Remmbering painting bump maps is like painting texture, differnce is gray and white will give depth, so both ways Auricks lessons are very important.

Check out the wiki for bump map tutorials and I am looking for that ice material for you. :smiley:

#16

Thanks…

So in 22 days I should be able to get the snow painted in with debris detail and some dirt. I have to get trees and lights in between that time and final rendering. So much to do…

#17

Heres the link

http://www.linkhitlist.com/cgi/LHL_E.exe?G2L&LinkNo=1543968&ListNo=69143

#18

Thanks. Here is what I have so far. Now that the dirty snow is out of the way, time to model debris, barb wire and trees. I am having a hard time doing the mental ray lights as I have never used mental ray to render a scene before.

As for the trees, is there anything Zbrush can do to create realistic trees but maintain low-med poly? Besides normal maps.

Attachments

gatehouse3.jpg

#19

Yes you need to look for a material here on zbrush- its wood and tree material some kind. When you apply that material to a low poly say 5k model(I hope thats low poly) it will render it like having bark and details. leaves i cnat help as I use fiber brush for it, that wont work for you though.

#20

Alright… So by low poly model do you mean a sprite or a low detail mesh tree? I should attemp to get it under 3000 poly each and if possible looking as real as possible.

I suppose I can use the same trees in 3dsMax’ AEC foliage package. They are quite mid poly but have no textures at all.

I figured out Mental Ray - all that remains is the set of barbwire fencing and a bunch of Christmas trees and snow fall.

Any tips on the trees and barbed wire?