Porous rock by Brandon Gobey

[inkydigit]

Cool stuff by Brandon Gobey
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6wvmw

[AP]

That is so neat. If only such effects were possible within Terragen. Maybe some day.

[Dune]

Awesome rock. Getting tempted to switch softwares 

[j meyer]

Nice rocks indeed. Could be done with ZB or Mudbox as well, though.
Didn't see what program was used for the rendering.

[mhaze]

Most of this can be done inTG.

[Oshyan]

I was pretty blown away by this at first. But it's really not clear how it was done. There's a comment on the piece that the author replies to that makes me a little more critical/less impressed:

The question:

"were exactly did you use 3D Coat? cause it looks like a photo-bash from that rock pack smiley great work in any case smiley"

His answer:

"Hey Darius, the only thing from the rock pack is the giant one in the middle, the rest was created with height maps from satellite images, hope this helps!"

So, still pretty unclear, but if the big rock in the middle is a "photo-bash from a rock pack", then it makes me wonder about what the rest actually consists of in 3D...

- Oshyan

[Hannes]

Indeed an impressing image. Somehow I thought that I had seen something similar made with TG some time ago. There was something about occlusion weight...

Btw, what is the rock pack, they are talking about? The only one who is mentioning a photo bash is the one who asks the question. Maybe it's a model pack, or some sort of vector displacement map?

[Oshyan]

His response clearly acknowledges use of this "rock pack" and the question asker's mention of a "photo-bash", plus the fact that this guy (and many others on Artstation) are essentially 2D or 2.5D matte-oriented artists (who use a lot of photo-sourced elements) makes me think it's probably a pack of rock *photos* that people use to integrate into their 2D matte paintings. Without a more specific name for the "rock pack" it's impossible to know for sure but I'm definitely curious. Basically, I don't think the center hero rock is 3D, or at least is not using displacement to make all that nice detail... but I'm not sure.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

So, still pretty unclear, but if the big rock in the middle is a "photo-bash from a rock pack", then it makes me wonder about what the rest actually consists of in 3D...

You are right oshyan, if you look you can clearly see matte paint tricks. Only the foreground could be 3d I bet. the ground is definitely from his image map pack. And the tower must be the sculpt. The background is all matt for sure. Also look at his portfolio, definitely as you said, a painter with 3D skills.

Also,
I was waiting for his map pack, I guess it is out, but no link in the OP thread, and no link that I saw in his web page, does anyone have a link to it?

[AP]

It is hard to tell sometimes the tricks that are used for such renders so maybe not as impressed as originally thought. I have however seen some very neat things done with high resolution volumetric displacements which should produce similar effects but without all of the tricks. I would like to see things like this done procedurally and not a series of photographs to fake the look. I understand that being in there community in this case.

I almost want to say something like an alpha map was used to 3d sculpt the object in the center with photographs mapper over the object for texturing. The far background along the left and right I suspect are actual photographs. Clouds look like they were painted in using Photoshop. Foreground could be 3D Coat as well with the photograph texturing. The reflections and water, do not know. If 3D Coat can do reflective surfaces and water materials? The water looks like it does not quite match the surrounding sky and terrain.

[Dune]

Not procedural but a photobased image, hmmm... less impressd indeed. Grab any porous rock from the web and put it on a sphere, and you're there, sort of. This isn't tiled, but was done in a jiffy.

[AP]

I see it more now. With a higher resolution photograph and even a clean bump map image it could work the same I would think. Of course with any sculpting software, high resolution alpha maps can make for some very nice results. If Terragen even gets more noise types, I am certain some very neat procedural results like what is seen in those renders could be possible.

Maybe three layers of an inverted low octave billowy voronoi slightly warped with negative displacement on top on some rigid perlin might come close?

[Dune]

Might. Problem with the voronoi is that they are still a bit angled. Perhaps three sizes of low octave perlin with increased variety in the noise would be better. Or a blue node setup where rather perfect spheres can be made, in a few sizes.

[AP]

The blue node approach would be better now that you mention it. The voronoi angles would pose an issue. Not soft enough.

[AP]

I have been testing more functions and came up with something perhaps interesting. While not exactly a clear imitation, there are possibilities.