Aphexx's Sketchbook

[aphexx]

hi. since i'm more into game environments, i'd like to post some of that stuff here. perhaps you can give me some advice in doing things..

i.e. this is a 2 h sculpt of a canyon like, cheesy like structure.
can be used as a populated place, when placing huts into the cavities.

if this terrainform would be approved for ingame, i would first retopologize for making it playable (angles and tweaking of the walking distances) and then do some cool tilable textures and normalmaps, which i later could blend via vertexcolors in the engine. i.e. trail -> rock.
the diffuse i mainly do in photoshop, and then the normal in mudbox also. making seamless also again in PS.

see the video (http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/cheese_canyon/landscape_conceptsculpt.htm) for a better understanding of the mass..


http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/cheese_canyon/scultp_01.jpg

[Wayne]

The major forms work well and it may be worth the retop job to take it to completion. Maybe more minor forms and irregularity would be a good direction to go in. Not too sure the current spec works for that rock as is.

Its great to see some enviro stuff for a change.


Wayne...

[aphexx]

thanks wayne for the feedback.
yes, more details would be the way to go.normally i would solve that later by placing props and doing the final texture work. the main forms would even have to go more simpler than in the concept sketch due to polycount :/

and the spec in the mudbox viewport is hard for me to control. i cannot reduce the spec to almost zero.
even if all material slots are of black color.
how would i do a "no spec material"?
thx again

[Wayne]

how would i do a "no spec material"?
thx again


Take your secondary sepc to almost black and secondary gloss to almost black as well. Then lower the spec color for the main spec channel to near black. Or create a small tile in photoshop thats just off black and import and use that.
Let me know how you get on.

Wayne...

[aphexx]

that did it. secondary spec was still too high.
its to mention, that putting any gloss value to complete black, produces shading artifacts.

ii found out, that using a hard fresnel of a not too high intesnsity, produces a cool dusty look on a none spec surface. (the fresnel index in the screenshot is mapped to 2, so slider half is 1, not 0,5)

see this screen with no spec and fresnel.
http://www.saschahenrichs.de/priv/blog/landscape_fresnel.jpg

[aphexx]

just to show some unusual work i did with mudbox, i post this one.
it still has so many flaws, including the whole arrangment.

this pic was for a challenge at cgarena named: Beautiful
i didnt want to do any woman char..not only because a lack of skill ;) but also to not automatically associate the wide field of beauty to only women..which was a mistake if you wanted to get any price or mention ;)

so i tried to create a nebula like the "eagle nebula" (http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/eagle-nebula-2000.html)
my approach was to sculpt the nebula in mudbox, and then render plenty pictures with different shaders and lighting situations in 3dsmax and then comp in photoshop...

the result comes somewhat messy and sometimes stony
http://www.saschahenrichs.de/priv/blog/nebula_small.jpg
hires here (http://www.saschahenrichs.de/priv/blog/nebula_big.jpg)

[aphexx]

just put out another stone no real texture so far.
the cracks come a little unmotivated i think..

vid here (http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/highrock/vid.htm)
http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/highrock/scultp_highstone_01.jpg

[aphexx]

hi, currently i'm working on a making of video about a stone. :)
covering

- sculpting in mudbox ->from sphere to full detail sculpt
- retopo and mapping in 3dsmax 2010
- normal and displacement render in mudbox, including displacment fix in Photoshop and displacment of the new lowpoly for AO bake
- texturing in mudbox
- some Photoshop work...

it will be very long, since all steps are recorded. but i think i will speed it up to 2x.

currently i'm in the middle of the point "texturing in mudbox" and it is 3.15 h in realtime...
here's a WIP picture. awesome, i know ;) its a new stone i do freestyle in the vid, and its far from final yet:) but the final video will be interesting, i hope.
http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/stonemaking_preview/stone_01.jpg

here is a very short preview of the vid (http://www.saschahenrichs.de/vids/mudbox/stonemaking_preview/preview.htm)


@ wayne: the final file will be VERY big, do you know, where i could host it for free? the video itself should also be free to download for everyone

[Wayne]

You could try vimeo as that handles long files. Although my tip would be to cut it into sections so that it streams better.


Wayne...

[RobinB]

It'll be very interesting to see the completed video Aphexx, thanks for doing that. There's lots of sculpted head videos, but environment stuff is very thin on the ground.

A rock doesn't sound very exciting, but it's quite a different proposition to a character.

I do agree that it might be a better plan to divide the video up into sections. It's much easier to watch part of a video, then go away and do something else and come back and watch the second part if you don't have to spool through the streaming file to find the point you left off.

I'll look forward to seeing the end result.

[aphexx]

long time no see. a bit busy currently, but hows that: another stone :)
you see, one day i will understand stone.... then i'm going to model the ABSOLUTE stone!

for this one...it comes out nice, but i think i was not quite sure, what type of stone i wanted to do...first i was like, sediments and stuff..and then i was like standart layered sandstone..
so the result is-> weird stone :)

see it here in better res: www.saschahenrichs.blogspot.com
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8jIBmdC99Kc/Sm4fGOdyUjI/AAAAAAAAAgI/K2rIsIkqDqw/s1600-h/stone_comp_01.jpg

[Wayne]

Thats one versitile stone you've made! I admire your drive to produce the perfect stone.... its not easy to get perfect. Yeah its easy to get a close approxamation, but perfection is far harder.

Wayne...

[montypython]

I'm with Wayne; some of those rocks are pretty good. If nothing else, they capture the essence of a rock, which, if I am not mistaken, is usually the point of both fiction and art. I particularly like the coloration on the red-orange rocks as well as the texturing.

[aphexx]

thank you both!

@wayne, yes the perfect stone is not only hard to do, but perhaps impossible to do. but anyway i'm stone addicted somehow.. i think i will try to push them some further

@monty, actually it is only one stone, that is only rotated, which is why i call it a "weird" stone. it has no design direction.
glad you like it. thank you!

[montypython]

My mistake. But I guess that only goes to show the genius of the sculpting! If you picked up a random rock of that style, you could probably see about a dozen different rocks depending how you looked at it. In case it's not obvious enough, I'm trying to cover up the gaff I made. Oh well, we're all friends, right? What's a slip-up or two?

I might also add that some of your previous terrain images were quite impressive- in particular, the coloring of the rock/cave dwelling network resembled something that I might be able to find in Southern Utah (home of red rock mountains) without too much effort. Excellent work!

Keep up the stoning, Sascha! (There's got to be a decent punchline in there somewhere...)

[Wayne]

I forgot to add that there' s something in my upcoming masterclass for autodesk (aimed for around siggraph) thats made free online that may help with the rock.


Wayne...

[aphexx]

free online? i'm highly excited as also not informed. can you give some details? and whats that "something" that could help with the stone?? :)

[Wayne]

free online? i'm highly excited as also not informed. can you give some details? and whats that "something" that could help with the stone?? :)

LINK (http://www.mudboxhub.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2767#post2767)

Alas I'm restricted how much I can give away for the content (plus I'm also debuting mudbox 2010 by the looks of things with it...which is not going to make some freinds with some people lol.) But give it a watch on monday and I'm sure you'll catch the part I'm referring to.


Wayne...

[aphexx]

wow, thank you wayne for the hint! i will be there...at least online :)

[montypython]

wow, thank you wayne for the hint! i will be there...at least online :)

I will be there, too!

[aphexx]

*deleted the previous post*

since i'm not statisfied with the turotial i posted here. it has too less information in too long playing time.
i will do it again.

[aphexx]

a first video concerning sculpting techniques for props

http://saschahenrichs.blogspot.com/2009/08/mudbox-techniques-for-props-1-wood_20.html

[Hulahuga]

that's one cool rock ;)