Making plants for terragen from scratch

TheBadger · March 30, 2012, 07:36:50 PM

Hello,

I am currently attempting to teach my self modeling in Houdini.

My first model is to be of a mushroom. I believe I know enough to shape the mushroom in basic terms; stem & cap. However, I need to know before I start which of two ways to go is the best.

Please look at the images below.

I can make the shape of the mushroom, but do I model the details like you see in the underside of the cap in image 2? Or, do I add that as a texture some how? I have read that certain programs allow you to paint texture on in 3D, is that what I should do?

Look at the texture of the stems and of the top of the mushroom in image 1. Should I try to shape that in the model or do I add that later some how?
What would you do? And what is best for super real looking mushrooms in terms of what I asked above?

I am planing a fantasy scene for rendering in terragen2, and so I need the plants I make to all look very real, in order to make the scene believable. Its ok if this takes me a long time.

Thank you guys. All tips and instructions will be helpful.

King Mango · March 30, 2012, 10:02:58 PM

It all depends on how close you are going to get to the mushroom. I am an experienced Maya user and unless I wanted to get very close to the mushroom I would model a very basic mushroom shape ignoring the bumps and gills and simply let the diffuse network handle the color information. Now if I wanted to get fairly close to the mushroom, I would consider using bumpmaps for the stem and caps and use a normal map for the gills. The reason being, the gills don't really contribute to the profile of the mushroom and lend themselves quite well to a normal map. If I was getting up close and personal with the mushroom, then I would physically model the bumps AND the gills because a bump map does not actually displace the geometry so your profile up close would suffer from not reproducing the silhouette altering bumps. And the gills from very close would have to occlude the deeper parts of the folds.
I of course am assuming that TG2 does not add physically to objects during bump render. I know that's what it does for terrain, but objects are an entirely different beast. I think. I came here to look into custom objects myself.

Kadri · March 30, 2012, 10:32:06 PM

Quote from: King Mango on March 30, 2012, 10:02:58 PM
...
I of course am assuming that TG2 does not add physically to objects during bump render. I know that's what it does for terrain, but objects are an entirely different beast. I think. I came here to look into custom objects myself.

If you use the micro renderer (by unchecking the "Ray trace objects" in the Full Render window) for objects , it does add detail-displacement .

King Mango · March 30, 2012, 11:50:32 PM

That's really neat! I wonder does it tessellate the mesh? And if so is it a patch or the whole mesh? Or is it a strictly a screen-space modification? If it tessellates the mesh how important would it be for the asset to have quad topology. i.e. Edge rings/edge loops?

Does TG2 support normal maps?

TheBadger · March 30, 2012, 11:58:21 PM

Thanks Kadri & KM, this conversation is helping.

I have seen some stuff from z-brush and others, they make "painting texture" on, look easy and best. I'm not sure though if in the videos and images I saw, the painting was adding shape and form to the model its self, or just denoting where a texture map is used.

@KM
I will want to get very close to the models, so they will need to have that detail.

Kadri · March 31, 2012, 12:16:59 AM

Quote from: King Mango on March 30, 2012, 11:50:32 PM
That's really neat! I wonder does it tessellate the mesh? And if so is it a patch or the whole mesh? Or is it a strictly a screen-space modification? If it tessellates the mesh how important would it be for the asset to have quad topology. i.e. Edge rings/edge loops?
Does TG2 support normal maps?

As a matter of fact i really don't care for the technical side.
You can use a very basic polygon and make a real landscape on it if you want. It can get so detailed .
I didn't tested for the difference of quad etc. but the detail of the original makes a difference on the object especially in the edges as i have seen.
No one from Planetside responded so i am not sure but they didn't say that these are wrong so if you want you can look at this thread here.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=12248.0

Yeah the thread has a different(!) tone and ends with a kinda Vue propaganda . I prefer Terragen 2 just so you know

King Mango · March 31, 2012, 12:30:31 AM

I like whichever one gives me the best results lol

Actually though I feel the TG/Vue thing has been done to death much like Ford/Chevy, Fender/Gibson, Bebop/Smooth Jazz et al

I haven't tried my hand too much yet with TG2 simply because I don't have the time to throw into really learning it so anything I do is really just noodling around and monkeying somebody's superb scene settings. I have a good handle on the basics by now but I really want to get into custom objects at some point myself.

I'm on my way to that thread right now. :cheers:

Kadri · March 31, 2012, 12:49:52 AM

Quote from: King Mango on March 31, 2012, 12:30:31 AM
I like whichever one gives me the best results lol
...

This is not common on forums

King Mango · March 31, 2012, 01:01:44 AM

I believe that! However I think each has its own style and they are both valid. I do have a soft spot for Matt and Osh though and if it came down to choosing a side it's no contest. But I stay away from such things as I prefer to remain practical.

TheBadger · March 31, 2012, 05:23:15 PM

OK, this got to hard. I'm changing to Hexagon for the modeling part of things, at least for now.

King Mango · March 31, 2012, 08:38:59 PM

How do you like Houdini?

If you're having trouble you may also want to check out Autodesk's Softimage Mod Tool. It's geared towards the Hammer world editor for Valve games, but I tried it once and it seemed pretty straight forward whereas Houdini seemed overly complex. But my go at Houdini was about twelve years ago. And the price tag back then was ASTOUNDING...

[EDIT]I would start with a profile curve and then revolve it, then pull the shape point by point till it looked organic. Then convert it to an editable poly surface and start doing the little extrusions for the bumps.

Matt · March 31, 2012, 10:37:27 PM

Quote from: King Mango on March 30, 2012, 11:50:32 PM
That's really neat! I wonder does it tessellate the mesh? And if so is it a patch or the whole mesh? Or is it a strictly a screen-space modification? If it tessellates the mesh how important would it be for the asset to have quad topology. i.e. Edge rings/edge loops?

It works in the same way as the terrain, except that shadows and reflections won't be displaced. It works with triangles, subdividing each triangle into two smaller triangles, repeating this until the triangles are small enough in screen space and also meet some other criteria. The size of the triangles is controlled by the Detail control on the renderer. This all happens on the fly and doesn't use much memory. When models are loaded, quads are always converted to triangles before rendering. Polygons with higher numbers of points may also be converted to triangles but the results might not be so good.

For anyone picking up this conversation half way through, this only works if you turn OFF ray trace objects on the render node. If it's ON, the displacement information is rendered as bump mapping only.

Quote
Does TG2 support normal maps?

No. Bump and displacement in TG currently work off the same principle, so this usually means a greyscale bump map. You can displace using vectors, but this is not the same as a normal map. If you have a normal map you'll need to convert it to a regular greyscale bump map using some other software.

Matt

King Mango · March 31, 2012, 10:54:03 PM

:cheers: Matt

TheBadger · April 09, 2012, 10:02:46 PM

Hi,

So here is the first model I have ever done

Anyway, now I need to get color and texture on it. Soooooooooooooo.

I made the model in Hexagon 3d and could only find two tutorials on adding texture. I need help now, not sure how to proceed.

Also, when I brought the model (.obj) into terragen it was as tall as a building! Whats up with that?

Lastly, how do I go about getting my model set up so TG2 likes it? What is the best way to save an object for TG

[attachimg=1]

masonspappy · April 10, 2012, 12:30:24 AM

Quote from: TheBadger on April 09, 2012, 10:02:46 PM
Hi,

Also, when I brought the model (.obj) into terragen it was as tall as a building! Whats up with that?

Lastly, how do I go about getting my model set up so TG2 likes it? What is the best way to save an object for TG

[attachimg=1]

After importing the .OBJ model into Terragen, check the "OBJ Options" tab. Putting a checkmark in the "Source in CM" box will make the object about 10x smaller than if it is not checked.
Once you've got your model set up, you can save it in TGO format. Go into your node network and right-click on the box for you object. Select "Save as Object File". Just backspace over the .obj extension in the upper box and make sure the lower box is saving as type "Terragen Object Files (*.TGO). From then on, you'll be able to reload the *.tgo file as it was previosuly set up. Make sure any image files (PNG, BMP, TIFF etc) are in same directory as the TGO file.