Rock Surface Study

Started by j meyer, June 29, 2020, 01:15:33 PM

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j meyer

Hi there,
this one is a surface-study, sculpted in ZBrush. The main purpose was
to see how much of the sculpted detail is visible when rendered in TG.
I just did a simple coloring to get a basic stone color, no displacement
or bump, so that the details are still recognizable easily.
The model is rather midpoly and thus not good for close ups.
Also the terrain is left pretty basic and simple.
Made a lot of different views with different lighting, but don't worry,
I'll just post a few.

3-7half-2-LR-b.jpg

3-7half-2-LR-b2.jpg

3-7half-2-LR-b3.jpg

And one to show the back.

3-7half-2-LR-b-back-right-hi.jpg

WAS

Wicked model. Looks pretty good. Maybe the textures could be higher res.

Hetzen

Zardos!  ;D

Compute Normal and a Texture Coorrds from XYZ after that displacement will make any texture look good on that. 8)


Dune

Great model. Indeed, some extra texturing in TG and it can be really realistic.

j meyer

:) Thanks guys.

Zardoz, the one with Sean Connery? ;D Saw it decades ago, so perhaps unconsciously.

Maybe I should have been clearer about some things.
The model does not have normals, so compute normal and texcoords from xyz won't have
any effect, I'm afraid.
The coloring is just one Power Fractal(world space) multiplied with a faint AO map
and an also faint cavity map (combined by a merge shader). Both maps are 4k, which
should be high res enough here.
Of course I agree that more PFs and, from my point of view a painted color map would
improve it. Tested some stuff, but it made it harder to see the smaller sculpted details
and those are what I wanted to be clearly visible in this case.

WAS

The AO/Crevices maps look blurry to me. 4K isn't really large enough IMO for TG. Always noticeable issues in my cases. I use 8-16k.

Kadri

#7

If those are 4k maps there is probably stretching?
4k should be good enough for that size (as you said) if the maps are clear enough to begin with.

Dune

The overall texture is a bit soft, but that can be overcome by procedural of course. If you have blurry AO (which I don't really see as obvious here), you can take it through a surface shader and have the greys broken up a bit as well, makes it less blurry/soft. Lots of potential anyway.

N-drju

Whoa... I had a completely different thing in mind when I read the title. Didn't expect it to be so literal. :) Very interesting.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

j meyer

To me the 4k textures don't look blurry and the only stretching
is on the invisible bottom of the model, 'cause I shrunk the bottom
UV island to save space.
The PF is stretched on the y axis though, so that might cause the impression.

Created an 8k AO map last night and set up a little comparison for us to look at.
It is just the AO map with no PF color, only the default color of the default shader.
Rendered with a cache file to have no lighting differences.

maptest.jpg

Have a look for yourselves.

Dune

No siginificant difference. As what I thought.

SILENCER


WAS

#13
I wouldn't think 8K is high enough either (think 8k pbr materials, doesn't look great in TG).

The geometry of your model the AO is coming from is pretty simplistic as well.

It just doesn't seem like AO more than it is smudging of crevices. There is no definition regardless of angle/shape.

In fact it reminds me of a crevice map with blurring turned up like you can do in Materialize.

I do also have a rather large 4K ultrawide true color monitor. So I may be seeing things differently at larger scale.

j meyer

Meanwhile I tried some texturing changes, as suggested by Dune.

The first shouldn't be as soft anymore.

3-7half-2-LR-b-col.jpg

A bit more color.

3-7half-2-LR-b-col-b.jpg

And some scale change compared to the first.

3-7half-2-LR-b-col-3.jpg

What do you think?