The Rock Essentials

Started by Kadri, August 05, 2016, 11:06:10 PM

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AP

These are still very experimental and use just some standard fractals.

masonspappy

Nice job. Trying to imagine these with various colors/patterns, I think they would be great!
Thanks for posting

AP

More experiments.

masonspappy

Bottom right looks most 'rock-like'.  Top left almost reminds me of some sort of organic structure.
Have you tried coloring them?

AP

Yes, the top left was very experimental. I will try and color them as soon as possible. That is another challenge. I also need to experiment with cracks, fissures, stratification, warps.

Dune

Nice. Looking forward to some colored specimen.

ajcgi

These real rocks look incredible. What a project! They're tricky to make in CG. My approach has been to use a plugin for Softimage called something catchy like FC_Rock, then kick those out into Mudbox for sculpting and retopologising and then out of there to Software of choice. Even then they still don't quite look right, thanks to the limitations described on the page there.
Being how almost every outside scene is littered with rocks it'd be great to nail this at last as fake stones still often look fake to my eyes.
Good start AP. Bottom right as a base for sure.

AP

Some basic color experiments.

masonspappy

I don't know how to do what I'm about to suggest, but the rough surface of the last rock would almost lend itself to a mossy texture, I think

Oshyan

Very nice sandstone-like texturing there! In the previous test, the top-left is a really cool result, I'm curious how you achieved it. All of them look a lot like coral formations...

- Oshyan

AP

Quote from: masonspappy on August 16, 2016, 01:08:00 PM
I don't know how to do what I'm about to suggest, but the rough surface of the last rock would almost lend itself to a mossy texture, I think

That certainly should be easy enough to change into a mossy surface. I can post some examples later.

AP

Quote from: Oshyan on August 16, 2016, 04:35:52 PM
Very nice sandstone-like texturing there! In the previous test, the top-left is a really cool result, I'm curious how you achieved it. All of them look a lot like coral formations...

- Oshyan

Yes, sandstone texturing was exactly the idea. There is a decent amount of functions involved with the latest experiments. I am currently experimenting with convexity. Coral sounds like a neat idea, imagine the colors involved.

TheBadger

#42
Nice playing indeed! But the skill is one thing, the time it takes is another.

Seems the point of the pack is missed a little bit, since the point is to have these assets so that you don't have to spend days making them.

I think the fix to all this is in Matt making an "Easy" button in the rock department.   :) which will probably not be easy at all. Curious how hard it was for him to make a easy button for clouds. Also curious if now that he has done it, if that means he can and will do it for the other areas of TG. Or if its all different and just because he did the one does not mean he can to the other?

Anyway, with the limited noise choices, I don't see how it can be claimed that you would end up having too much similarity with a pack, but not with TG. Just look at the examples here and throughout the forum. But efflux has ranted on that enough.

For me two things lead to nirvana (in addition to all the new goodies)
1) Proper object materials editing and texturing process (in addition to the power TG already has for texturing.) Where objects and be used and worked on and rendered similarly to the rest of 3d software that have modeling tools.
2) More noise and an easy button- to include a separate window and optimized work space for both objects and rocks.

From a modelers perspective, the way things are you work on your rocks/objects in TG on the planet. which is kinda silly. I mean why do I need all that other stuff going on to make a rock? There should be a modeling window that dose not have the planet or any node connected to it or the sun or anything, just a grid the rock and the relevant tools and such.

Assuming the above is possible and that we got it, then welcome sublime happiness where the above topics are concerned.

These aren't complaints, and I haven't lost my patience yet. If anything I am more optimistic than even having been reading about all the new developments and seeing some of the open testing, that we will get some more tools, once matt is happy with the TG fundamentals he has been improving. I hope.
It has been eaten.

AP

Time, indeed.

In the meantime, I am still exploring more ideas and will continue to do so for now. Convexity seems to be working most of the time.

I should probably move these experiments over into a new thread.


masonspappy

@ AP:  When you create a rock from a sphere, are you able to rotate that rock?   I created (what might pass for )  a rock, but now find that it always presents the same face to the camera, no matter that the rotate transform numbers keep changing when try to turn it in different directions.   For better description and illustration of problem, go to link below

http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21984.msg221273.html#msg221273