My First Foray Into ZBrush

Got a Digital Tutors account and finally dusted off ZBrush. I'll admit I've been terrified of using the program for a while now, but it is pretty awesome (at least the parts where I'm not confused or infuriated). I've been following along with a very basic tutorial that gives me the lay of the land and over the course of several installments leads me to build my first "scene". Tonight's section was the lay of the land and some proper sculpting and tool management. I learned the basics of what to do in the program and at the end of it all, had this base mesh for what will eventually be a little turntable.

Here's my first night's progress with the tutorial, I'm going for a grassy hill with what is supposed to be a large rock in the middle there. Eventually I'll paint it and all that other neat stuff, and the tutorial also teaches some of the fiber mesh uses, so I'll hopefully get some real grass on there. All in all I love the program despite a slight hiccup where it kept crashing because of RAM.

Cemetery Lighting and Texture Study (UDK)

While I could always use practice with modeling assets, I find that a lot of my environments fall short when it comes to lighting and texturing. So I've decided to put some extra time into an environment where I will be practicing my texturing and lighting, taking more time to fine tune the texture maps and light maps, and hopefully getting a great result! My choice of scenery is an abandoned cemetery, and while it is a dark locale, I'm not going for scary, but rather somber and reflective.

My first model, a column for the front gate. Mapped completely with Diffuse, Normal, Spec and a Lightmap to boot.

Couldn't sleep, so I modeled out the adjoining walls and an attempt at Ivy for the walls. No textures yet, and the lightmaps aren't perfect, but that is what this project is all about : D

Matching the textures for the walls with the original columns, I have plans to use the ivy to break up the tiling on both the flat walls and the columns themselves.

First time getting plants to work well, I'm mega-stoked on this ivy, so I had to post it.

I went a little ham and tried to finish all of it. The textures might need some touching up, but I think it's good enough for a night.

I adjusted the saturation of the leaves after getting some critiques from a friend, and instantly love the results. I got adventurous and gave all of my lightmaps a resolution of 64, and it cleared up a lot of issues. I've had a bit of wine, so sorry for posting so much, but this is easily the proudest I've been of my work.

Modeled out a gate and hinges today, the lightmaps on these look kind of wonky so I'll have to sort them out later.

Trying out Ivy on more things, need to work with it. I'm tired though so I'm calling it a night.

Got a rust texture going on the gate with full maps, I'm not sure whether I like it or not yet. I'm gonna cover it with Ivy and other assets including chains and a lock, so we'll see if my opinion changes. Also sneak peek at a headstone in the back there (don't tell anyone).

Chains and lock models finished, lightmap on the chains needs work, also might be too high-poly but they wouldn't be that hard to change.

Yay for modular assets! I can now effectively build out the perimeter of my cemetery. Later on, I'll make some more variations of these templates to further add depth, but this is a start.

Got my grass in the scene as well now, and even though you can't see it, I swear it blows in the wind along with  the ivy. I unfortunately have to finish a project for a class, so I can't work on this all day like I wish I could.

Adding detail to the Ivy, with a vine and what will soon be mini vines on the planes.

Textured my lanterns, and got my first experience making a glass shader in the UDK. I exported the lantern in two parts, made maps for both, and have now made them a Prefab within the editor. Also if you look close, you can see the distortion on the glass as well. I'm learning so much and having a blast with this project!

Padlock is now textured with all maps, looks pretty damn good I'd say.

Textured my first grave, didn't know what to put on it. Figured this was poignant enough. Really tried to pay attention to normals here, so the moss and lettering would pop out at the player.

Made some candles and had to try a quick night render. There aren't any flame particles, but imagine with me.

The beginnings of a tree model, which is not my forte. I'm doing my best though, and taking it slow. I really want the trees to look good.

All in a week's work, here's what I have finished for now. I'll call this my first checkpoint, seeing as I'm going to Colorado for a few days. It'll be a good break, and enough time for me to refine my top-down map of this environment. I've got all these ideas for it, and I need some time to iron them out. See you in a week!

I'm back from my trip, and more than excited to resume working on this environment. Unfortunately, Titanfall just came out, so I'm gonna have to work really hard to not lose myself in that. I figured I'd post a screen of my Maya workflow since all of the images above are finished assets in UDK. I'm creating a rock walkway currently, so I took an image and applied it to a plane. And I'm now tracing the image with planes and extruding the finished shapes into rocks for the path.

The Walkway in the UDK, I'm gonna make another tile square in order to break repetition. But I think it looks pretty nice so far.

First Mausoleum is pretty much completely modeled out. I may add some extra detail here and there, not sure. The window holes will eventually have stained glass that is part broken and part intact. I want to work out lightshafts that adopt the diffuse of the windows later, so it should look really legit.

Rock maps are finished, at least for the first patch, now to match the other patch. They should look good when I get a terrain working and put some dirt and grass as opposed to the stark white ground.

Didn't like the other mausoleum that much, so I modeled a new one and textured it. The light maps are horrible right now, but that is next on the agenda, along with a landing for the mausoleum and fencing.

Getting the stained glass in order, having some silly problems with opacity, and then getting them to cast a translucent shadow is a whole other deal.

Got a sweet light shot going on here, but I want the stained glass to be projected onto it. I'll have to delve into the textures on the stained glass and really take some extra time. The stained glass is something I really want to nail.

Got it to work! Sort of... I can't for the life of me get a translucent shadow working, so I'll have to do that. I also have to do two more designs because I don't want all three to be the same.

Not bad for a day's work, now off to the gym and maybe some Titanfall.

Sorry I've been away for a bit, Unreal Engine 4 came out, so I up and swapped over and had to reimport everything and set up my materials and meshes again in the new editor. It is well worth it though, because UE4 is awesome!

Got my first tree up and running, and I'm pretty pleased. I don't know how to get the leaves to move yet, but I love learning all the stuff I can do with Unreal 4.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been splitting my time between this and the ZBrush tutorials, as both are important to me getting a job in the future. I have, however, finished quite a few grave and headstone models. The contrast is pretty bad with the untextured models in-game, but they're all lightmapped and ready to be textured. I also added collision to everything, which is invisible in the picture but makes a huge difference when playing it.

Started adding the lower area of the cemetery, switched out the default ground plane for one of UE4's fancy Landscapes. It's worked pretty well, and I've gotten some new ideas for more detail from it. The only thing I'm not sure about right now is how to properly lightmap it. I also modeled some new meshes, including a staircase which you can see here.

A nice place to stop for now. I'm really trying to lock in the perimeters before I go crazy modeling headstones and greenery. I want the cemetery to be overgrown to a certain degree, but I don't to under/oversell it.