Benjamin Brosdau (Tora_2097)

[Tora_2097]

Thanks a lot, glad that you like it. I'll do some more shots once I incorporated the stairs into the stone surface.
Here is a short description of the creation process:



Image 1 shows the lowpoly mesh that was imported back from mudbox at subdivision level 2 (25k polys). I started from a very lowpoly model in 3dsmax that just carried the rough volume, UV coordinates and an even meshflow.
The highres mesh in Mudbox came in at around 7M polys. At the export subD level of 2 it cannot carry all the small sculped details but all large proportions and massings are present. It also makes for smooth handling back in 3ds max.
I extracted normal and displacement and ambient occlusion at 4k resolution each from the highpoly mesh.

Image 2 shows the effect of only the normal map in place. It already adds a great amount of detail and is very fast to render.

Image 3 shows the same normal map mixed with Bercon procedural noise.

Image 4 shows shows displacement, normal and bump map applied.

Finally in image 5 the earlier displacement map was multiplied using a composite map with the painted texture bump map. The diffuse and bump map were painted @ 8k resolution in photoshop using reference images from cgtextures. The baked AO and normal maps were a great aid in knowing where the put appropriate texture sheets according to sculted surface details. Mixing the texture bump map with the displacement map ensures that visible stone cracks in the diffuse texture will also be represented as a real geometric crack during rendering.
The vegetation was added with multiscatter. It is of benefit to have the general volumes and shapes of the surface already in the mesh as opposed to displace the whole thing from a coarse mesh, since you get away with smaller displacement heights (20cm in this case) and it makes the placement of objects that interact with the displaced object that much easier. It's more difficult to place proxys and stuff like that on a surface that's only being generated at rendertime.
I hope that made sense in some way.


Ben

[alias_marks]

Very cool and insightful. Great write up. Out of curiosity what translation do you use to go back and forth from mudbox to max?

3ds?

[Tora_2097]

@alias_marks: Thanks for you compliments, and no, its not 3ds, it's OBJ format. 3dsmax even comes with presets during OBJ export suitable for all kinds of applications. Works really great.

Ben

[Tora_2097]

So, this is a closeup view of the embedded stairs. It's still the above described process for the rocks, and multiscatter for the vegetation. Rendertime was around 1h on a 12core machine, but that was mostly because of the DOF.

http://www.ag-systems.net/images/hov..._cliff_v03.jpg

[Rod]

Your moss is a particularly nice touch. What are you using for your vegetation? Perhaps a bit of chamfer on the steps, they look aged but new at the same time. Could be just the extreme close up that allows me to be so picky of an exceptional work

[Tora_2097]

Hi Rod, you are right about the stairs, I'll rough them up a bit more. For the vegetation I am using Multiscatter
Thanks,

Ben

[DIA]

Nice work witch the vegetation Tora I love details!! Same Tora as on maxwell forum ?

regards
/Dia

[Tora_2097]

Two more images for today, tomorrow I'll tackle the surrounding forest, although it will play a smaller part compared to the cliff/shore surface.
The first one is a wider shot of the area according to Ronen's wish but I am not satisfied with the glossiness map, the rocks look too shiny in my opinion. I will change that.
The other shot shows the new cladding I mentioned earlier in greater detail, though not finished as well. So far I was just rendering straight to file without any passes/layers/masks so I only did color corrections and a couple of texture overlays is photoshop. Once I am satisfied with the shaders and textures I can really start pulling it all together.
Anyway, here are my last images for today:

http://www.ag-systems.net/images/hov..._cliff_v02.jpg
http://www.ag-systems.net/images/hov..._cliff_v04.jpg

P.S. @DIA : Yes, the very same.

[BBB3]

A really stunning piece of work so far. One would expect no less from a member of the Pure crew!

[DIA]

Really impressive skills you have Tora . Keep up the good work. Great to see some old school people from the maxwell forum here

[lamppost]

Wow! Great design.

[fuzzylojik]

Good take on design and I'm really impressed the way you did the rocks and the ground as well as the vegetation.