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Environmental Artist Inspiration


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#1 DPRoberts

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 12:24 PM

This post is for those trying to get more out of their environmental art skill set and, ultimately, a better final result with a golf course in Unity with assistance from Course Forge.

 

All the pros for environmental art in the game industry are utilizing a Maya or 3DSMax/Zbrush/Substance workflow to some degree. The beauty of the work is that it is really about developing a material that has a great match from the height information to the normal. Depth provides interest and gives that realistic appearance. Using procedural based material workflow, multiple iterations of a single material are possible with less effort once the base material is set. This means you can create a rocky cliff material and tweak over time or just for a slight variation to give a different look or vibe elsewhere on your course, or for another course. 

 

I really think our next level look comes from placement of meshes around the course and not relying on terrain sculpt except for the playable course areas. The idea would be that a cliffside at Pebble would really be meshed out with a few rocks instead of a Unity sloped terrain with terrain paint. This allows for the combination of multiple Substance paintable materials and avoids some of the stretching involved with painting on vertical surfaces in Unity. Light will also interact with a 3D mesh better than a sloped surface. 

 

I love looking at the art of others. K11, RobC, and Mikahenrick have always provided great inspiration around here. As complicated or overwhelming as it may seem, the best artists have a way of simplifying the workflows. As an example, this artist uses 2 rocks, 2 trees, and a handful of foliage meshes to create the following scene, (follow the link below and you'll see how he simplifies the construction)

 

by Joshua Williams, on ArtStation

lFxH1fO.jpg

https://www.artstati...m/artwork/zY2E6

 

Artstation is a phenomenal forum composed of beginners and pros in the gaming industry. They share substance materials, tutorials, and workflows. Ultimately, if you have Substance and download a material, you can see how the material is constructed from start to finish.

 

I have also been enjoying the work of Daniel Thiger https://www.artstati...thiger-aka-dete

 

I really think we can take these courses to the next level with or without CF2 or PG2. There are some benefits to the Unity 2018 if we will be allowed to join along. Regardless, as long as some iteration of the game is available to the community, I'd love to see what we can do. 


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#2 Kablammo11

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 01:14 PM

Thank you for sharing this, DPR. 

 

I agree that mesh objects are a real plus for terrain, especially for rock formations, I used 3 meshes for large desert rocks just now on the Rattlesnake (And lots more on the Black Swan, btw). If only I could afford to give them one level of subdivision more to get rid or their sharp outlines... And yes, there are a few butt-ugly terrain slope cliffs in all of my works, too. I hate them. 

 

I always feel ill at ease when my efforts are suspected of qualifying for the word of "artwork". Being brutally honest I think that my "environmental artistry" (another pang of mental discomfort right there with this word) is of the lowest level, if at all, a bit like a three year old finger-painting boy being compared to real grown-ups in the world of art. I'm not here to create ART, chrissakes, that would be utterly arrogant - I'm here to enjoy myself in my own little dream world and if others may deign to have a go at my work, then why not?

I honestly lack the wherewithal to even aspire to more than what I'm doing now. We are talking of complex and very tricky graphics tools here, apps that are not easy to master and require a tremendous amount of work. And lots of money to buy. 

 

The only redeeming thing about the current, lowly state of PG graphics is that they are more or less free to produce for us bloody amateur designers. That is quite a neat state of affairs, actually, in this day and age in which money is expected to change hands at each and every turn. This is vital, imo - it may look like crap, but at least it's free.


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#3 NoPutt

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 01:31 PM

Harry looks a little out of place in this majestic environment.

y2hU44A.jpg

 


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Dry Gulch...................Released                     Smithfield Golf Club...........Released

Millstone Golf Club....Released                      The Walker Course............Released

Kingsmill Woods Course...Released               Pine Lake Golf Club..........Released

Woodhaven Golf Club (9) Released                The Reserve at Keowee...Released

Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards..Released              The Ace Club...................Released

Dry Gulch 2..........Released                               Blackberry Oaks.............Released

 


#4 Mike Jones

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 01:42 PM

Good post DP - Some talented people out there no doubt. It's interesting that many scenes including the demo project for Unity 2018 'Book of the dead' tend to focus on these fairly small forest environments often including a stream or path or some point of interest. 

 

That's all well and good and impressive to say the least in the case of Book of the Dead but but unfortunately unless you spend a lot of time in the woods, it's not that great an environmental workflow for a golf course. Large expanses of open ground are a lot harder to make look impressive as scattering rocks and twigs all over the ground just isn't going to cut it. 

 

It's something all golf games have to  grapple with as let's face it, who doesn't want eye candy in their games/sims? 'Turf effects' ie the 3d procedural grass we have integrated goes a long way to helping with this but even then the points of interest on the actual course lie mainly in the water features and bunkers. The overall lighting of the scene with associated atmospheric effects is a large part of it but any solution has to work over many KM squared and not just in a little 'fairly' glen'.

 

We decided that for PG2 we would go with several different static times of day rather than a dynamic atmospheric solution as it would give us better control over the lighting. I look at the best racing sims out there for inspiration sometimes when it comes to lighting and atmospherics and to me the Forza series and especially Grand Turismo sport look fantastic. They too have an advantage over golf games though in that the main area of detail can be concentrated around a relatively small area ie the track itself. Project cars has a very good dynamic skybox but that's in the realm of a fairly large AAA studio to create and not really possible for us. 

 

Here are a couple of examples of an early evening WIP PG2 scene at Woody's practice area.

 

veWT2kD.jpg

 

4UNDcdE.jpg

 

69HiKIo.jpg

 

Ary1rz5.jpg


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#5 DPRoberts

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 02:11 PM

Awesome! I'm glad my post dug those shares out. That should excite Buck for a day or so.

I would love for you to give us a little post process control of the main camera. It seems everyone is adjusting that to some degree. Even to tint alter to create a mood.

As an aside, I think I'm going to get Substance for a few months and see what textures I can make. In my ideal world, I'd supply a texture pack that includes...

Green, Green Fringe, Fairway, Fairway Fringe, Semi Rough, Rough and Deep Rough. Also, I would include a bunker and bunker lip, and dead grass/divot textures that mirorred the base of the Tee, Fairway and Green to add some less than perfect areas. Each would come with a custom normal and detail texture.

Additionally, I would include 2-4 terrain paint textures.

My goal would be unified "Themes" where colors and grass types play well together. I'll probably start Seaside to push it.

I have such a flow with Photoshop and I think I can do better and then build on a Substance base. Then, with matched normals and detail, I think it might really pop.

All this will be substance based with traditionally exported textures. This would allow anyone as crazy as myself to alter my base textures and hopefully share as well.
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#6 Buck

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 02:26 PM

Awesome! I'm glad my post dug those shares out. That should excite Buck for a day or so.

 

Hey!  At least a few weeks!

:D lol

 

I think I've cooled quite a bit and realized we may be in for a long ride..

Great pics!


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#7 Buck

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 02:28 PM

We decided that for PG2 we would go with static times of day rather than a dynamic atmospheric solution as it would give us better control over the lighting.


Will a user be able to choose from a variety of the static times of day I hope?

I admit I really kind of liked the dynamic thing, but as long as I can choose from several options it'll be great.

#8 Armand

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 08:02 PM

In reading about static times of day in Mike's post, I've become a bit disappointed.  I guess it makes things more the way that PP/Trackman want it to look (and perhaps even better for the game in terms of perhaps consistent FPS), but every course looks differently at different times of day (in different light).

 

I know PP will never please everyone, so I'll just be patient and hope that what PG2 (eventually) brings is to my liking.  I suspect it will be, but I really like the dynamic aspects of JNPG so I might be a tiny bit disappointed with PP's decision.  I would doubt that we'd be able to change the lighting/time of day, but my fingers remain crossed.  



#9 RobC

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 08:18 PM

From a designers Point Of View its far better because we kinda get more control over how the course looks in set lighting situations plus its far better performance wise than Dynamic Skies.... I'd much rather have reflective water over Dynamic Sky

Just my thoughts

Cheers RobC


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#10 Buck

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 08:36 PM

Are we only talking about lighting/time of day and how things look or would we be tying the course conditions to each “scene”?

#11 M Rose

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 09:11 PM

Thanks for this thread and link. I think this is probably the one area where I could use the most improvement as a designer.... I suppose up to this point I've always focused on the golf side of it more than the background. I think the hardest thing for me has always been deciding what to do with open space especially that which is well off the beaten path. Unity is great for that with the ability to layer several brushes on top of each other; Links was always clumsy that way since you had to assign a tiling texture to everything.

 

I'm teaching myself how to use 3ds max; I've managed to make some simple objects. The mapping is tricky; the concept of unwrapping and peeling is definitely challenging. 

 

In regards to lighting I think I'm okay with reduced options as long as there is more than one. Maybe it could be limited to three or four settings like morning, afternoon, dusk, overcast.

 

Mike's screenshots are amazing. I can't wait.


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#12 mebby

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 09:15 PM

Are we only talking about lighting/time of day and how things look or would we be tying the course conditions to each “scene”?


This is important!! I feel like TGC just came out of the dark ages by disconnecting course conditions and time of day from the courses. If JNPG is going to a system like TGC used to have then it will be disappointing.

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#13 DPRoberts

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 10:17 PM

I agree with Matt there in that a switchable skybox seems doable. You could have 4 non changeable that hit the dawn to dusk range and 1 custom. The designer can allow a skybox upload slot just as we do with pins.

In game, your options could be Early Morning, Noon, Evening, Dusk and Custom.

#14 Mike Jones

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 10:17 PM

Just to clarify, although the time of day will not be dynamic ie will not progress through the round, you will have at least two different ones such as afternoon and evening to choose from and perhaps more. 



#15 Mike Jones

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 10:20 PM

I agree with Matt there in that a switchable skybox seems doable. You could have 4 non changeable that hit the dawn to dusk range and 1 custom. The designer can allow a skybox upload slot just as we do with pins.

There is a new CF ability to use multiple skyboxes, lighting settings and post processing settings which are saved to the course file. There are other additions to CF too such as prevailing wind, the ability to copy rotate and resize shapes, and a bunch of other new library functions for Turf Effects.


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#16 Mike Jones

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 10:26 PM

Are we only talking about lighting/time of day and how things look or would we be tying the course conditions to each “scene”?

No, the course playing settings are always a player choice as we considered it a complete no brainer to do it that way in PG1 and that will carry over to PG2.


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#17 DPRoberts

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 10:32 PM

There is a new CF ability to use multiple skyboxes, lighting settings and post processing settings which are saved to the course file. There are other additions to CF too such as prevailing wind, the ability to copy rotate and resize shapes, and a bunch of other new library functions for Turf Effects.


Solid!
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#18 M Rose

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 11:07 PM

Oh yes.


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#19 clubcaptain

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Posted 26 August 2018 - 11:52 PM

The Artstation stuff is awesome but way beyond me. Bringing it down to a simpler level I looked at Gaia to sculpt more varying terrains but heard that "it might include scripts that wouldn't be compatible with CF" but no information as to how there might be a workaround. Has anything changed on that score.

 

I also looked at Noisebrush. Any restrictions with that one ?


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#20 mebby

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Posted 27 August 2018 - 12:26 AM

Good news. Seems like a solid compromise in order to deliver the best experience.

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