Week 2 - The Tree!!!
- Morgan Jones
- Jan 28, 2018
- 4 min read
This week is where I have started to really draft out the main asset of the scene. That being the giant tree centre piece. To start off, I decided that I was tired of focusing on the tree reference from the film too heavily. I have changed the shape and features enough in the block out stage to require a little more of a refined look on what the tree might look like from this new perspective. This stage actually reassured me on whether the tree would read well in the scene with its new shape which is always a plus.
I then decided to take this forward into Zbrush and start sculpting a more refined tree mesh to go into the scene. After doing some sculpting in Zbrush to further refine the flow of the twisting tree I soon realised that it would benefit from having more branches built into the model instead. This will help with hiding the seams of the modular branches that I will be adding later on. This also helped me visualise the end result at this earlier stage which is awesome. To get these extra branches, I simply blocked them out inside 3DS Max and GOZ'd them into Zbrush to change their shapes and further refine the taper and shapes of the branches.
After a little more sculpting, I wanted to further block out the leaf canopies and Spanish moss elements of the scene. I decided to add the leaves and moss to the branches that I currently have whilst also keeping the assets modular so that I can add it to the tree branches later on inside UE4. I'm not currently sold on the shape of these canopies but the beauty of keeping it modular means that I can keep changing the shapes on the go without worrying about problems with UV'ing or other elements that would require more time for intensive editing.
A large issue that I came across when considering the sculpt for the tree was that I was originally going to bake the details that I sculpt onto the Low Poly asset afterwards. The problem with that method is that the tree is actually very large in the scene and would require a very large normal texture resolution for the normal to read on the tree at the correct texel density. The only route around this that I can think of is to put a lot more detail into the sculpt, then re-top the model with consistent layers of detail at a higher poly count so that the actual model retains the detail that would be captured by the normal map. I would then create a series of tiling textures and blend between them to imply the idea that the asset has been textured uniquely. I believe with the added moss, bark break up and alpha cards that this should be successful but will result in the re-topping stage taking a longer time because it's now a more intensive process than if it were a smaller asset.
As it currently stands, the above image is the high poly sculpt and the bottom image is the current state of re-topology on the tree itself. The main trunk area still requires more detail than it currently has. What I am currently doing is creating a proper edge flow of the larger detail and physically modelling in extra details instead of matching the detail I have created. I may also experiment with auto re-topology in 3D coat to see how much detail it can retain from my original sculpt which may save time. However, I would still have to heavily edit the model because it will likely be too high poly in order to retain the models details. That being said, the model is currently at 7,000 triangles which is ridiculously low given the importance and scale of the model so I still have a lot of polygons to play with. I am going to get this finished and in level at the latest the end of the next week with textures on it so I will have more than enough to get on with alongside further feedback that I receive from the team.
Alongside doing the tree modelling this week I decided to go in and refine the bark texture and start creating the moss textures that will be heavily used in this level. I am currently having a battle with how much detail I should be adding to these textures because the scale is tricky to work out. This is the reason I would like to get the new and improved tree inside the level ASAP because I want to start testing inside UE4. At this stage, I am quite pleased with bark texture and am much happier with the base colour. I think some further colour variation and some extra less detailed bark textures could go along way with this as it could be nice to have simple bark for the branches and more gnarly and broken bark for the trunk. The moss is also nice as a placeholder texture at the moment. I imagine it will need a bit more break up elements and all that good stuff to be successful in the scene but for the time being its purpose is to check out how much it needs in level. I'd like to have a Spanish moss texture in by the end of the next week and start testing how this looks in level also. Overall I am happy with how the model is progressing and I feel like it's finally starting to come together. Back to work!
Comments