an alien ship?

[michalis]

I'm not good on imagining space ships, that's for sure. LOL

But I tried something and I like to share it with you.

How to build an alien ship in five mins.*

1. I sculpted/constructed a plate with lot of merging in vox mode.

2. I tried to find a way (in 3dc) to adopt a displacement and a normal map on a single quad. How can this be done?

Anyway, I exported the full mesh in blender and baked the maps there.

3. I constructed a ridiculous donut like 1000 poly mesh.

The rest are tricks on UV blender editor to avoid repetition issues. It's a 1024x1024 only displ and normal map

Rendered in cycles (~2 mins)

*I spent half an hour in voxels room for the basic displ patern. The rest took 5-10 mins

[Carlosan]

YES !!!

outstanding !!!

[Garagarape]

Oh! I Love it!

Could be a big heavy African bracelet too

[wave of light]

Very clever. I really like how it came out.

[michalis]

Thanks.

Indeed an African bracelet, better than the previous donut.

I told you, I don't have the needed talent for such subjects.

Here how a donut looks in blender 3d view. After heavy real displacement.

But I still have a question.

How to quickly adopt a displacement and a normal map in 3dcoat? Using one quad only as retopo. On top of the voxel panel I sculpted the pattern.

[Garagarape]

I have absolutely no idea of how to combine Normal map and displacement map in 3dCoat.

I tried displacement map once in Maya, and it was a long time ago.

Any tutorial about that in 3d-Coat?

I'm sure Michalis, that you have a solution in mind to solve this problem.

[michalis]

I don't know how to bake a sculpted panel, a relief, on a single quad face topology. 3dc bakes nothing, under PPP and fails as usual under MV.

I imported a ~3M vox mesh in blender, placed a quad on top of the "relief" and "baked to active mode" a 32bit exp displ map and a normal map in seconds.

Displacements are a more movie friendly format LOL. It's heavy but results are great, especially if combined with a normal map.

Here's a closer look, in fact I don't know what it is now. Untitled then LOL

[Garagarape]

Baking a complicated geometry volume on a single face (quad) may have strange results.

I don't know enough about baking in 3d-Coat to challenge you in a verbal fight

But the baking of NM is rather speedy than before in 3dC. I go back to by work and will try to

check about displacement maps. But just as you said, it is too heavy to be used on

real time model most of the time (people of Quantic Dream seems to use disp maps, but I don't know if it is only for motion stuff).

[digman]

Your Ship reminds me of the Prometheus alien spaceship from the movie...

You should be able to bake both a normal and displacement map on a single sided reptopo plane... Make sure "use names correspondence for baking" is deslected, Unless you are using that feature. I forgot mine was selected...

I also merged for a displacement map(MV) but turn off smooth object when doing so otherwise your nice square quad will be a circle in the paint room. Of course you have to subdivide the mesh to get the true displacement. 3DCoat also bakes a normal map when baking the displacement map (MV), so you get both but the quality of the regular PPP normal map could be better....

Picture shows a quick render (50 passes) in cycles using the normal map created on a single quad retopo plane over voxel/surface extrusions and merged into the paintroom in 3DCoat...

Not meant to be shown for quality but to show it is possible. Of course you can make a better quality one taking more time...

Hope this helps a little...

[michalis]

Thanks David

Indeed, a thread, (blenderartists.org), the wonderful posts of this russian artist, Gutalin, the one behind the prometheus alien ship version, and some interesting ZBrush experiments of my friend, MealeaYing, inspired me. To search on a collateral approach on this subject. I came to this, very fast, method.

I'm not that a fan of the Giger's alien original work though. I see some other possibilities on using such methods.

What I miss in 3dcoat/UV editor: After unwrapping into multiple islands, a way to convert this 2d geometry to a aligned horizontaly and vertically quad look. To use it on geometrical texture-patterns.

David, I'm getting a grey ochre like nor_map when trying in PPP mode. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, I'll check again.

About displacement, you're right, subd needed for a decent precise map. But we don't really need it. An approximated method can work in this case. A depth map, directly from the renderer or the voxel room view? There was a way to transpose the sculpt to an alpha brush, perhaps? A 32bit alpha is all we need.

[wave of light]

What I miss in 3dcoat/UV editor: After unwrapping into multiple islands, a way to convert this 2d geometry to a aligned horizontaly and vertically quad look. To use it on geometrical texture-patterns.

I usually do one of two things, I will unwrap in Lightwave, using plg plugin and then use UV SetAlign, or I will unwrap in 3DCoat, take it back into Lightwave and then use UV SetAlign to align all my UVs into squares (doesn't always work for detailed stuff and can be time consuming).

Don't know if that helps, or if there's something similar in the packages you use.

Cheers,

Ricky.

[Carlosan]

UV room - mark seams

if you select ring edges -double LMB click-

there is some options below Selected

Horizontal

Vertical

is not enough ?

regards

[michalis]

Yes, carlosa! Didn't know it. Thanks.

Ricky what you do in LW is similar, I also did it in blender. Same tool.

But it's a bit time consuming sometimes.

Blender has an excellent tool. Select one only quad, Unwrap it, align its edges. As this was the last selected face, is considered as the "active quad", so select all the island and ask for Unwrap to active. This produce an aligned full island automatically. Very useful on shirts combined with tartan like patterns etc etc .

There're a very interesting plugins in 3dmax...

[digman]

To get an alpha of the sculpt. Export the sculpt as a Obj.

Now in the Strip brush section open the obj file. Largest image size is 512 x 512. Adjust the depth to see the effect and transposed the model as necessary.

Save the strip brush alpha as PSD file.

Next load the PSD strip brush alpha as a regular alpha brush.

You can edit the alpha brush in the external editor to make it better. I also always put a little blur on it, It softens the edges slightly and makes cleaner edges when you stamp or brush the alpha in 3DCoat.

Last delete the strip brush alpha unless you plan on using it as a strip brush...

Whether you can get a 32 bit alpha I do not know, as I have not checked.

You will just have to test it to see if it makes a good enough alpha brush for you...

The below were quickly done.

[michalis]

It has to be an exr 32 bit. It also has to be 1024 or 2048 px.

Thanks David, I remembered now.

Another test, solving UV unwrapping issues. Now my workaround in blender is ready. And it's fast.

[digman]

))))))) very nice indeed....

[michalis]

Hey, thanks David.

Let's forge the use of normal maps in this case, of using a pattern on random positions. It destroys the "space where n map is baked, so expect unpleasant results.

After heavy displacement, of course, you can bake a decent n_map. UVs are there already.

[wave of light]

It's the BORG Christmas bauble - now that would look good on our tree!

[michalis]

It's the BORG Christmas bauble - now that would look good on our tree!

Just wait to see my Santa version, this year.

[michalis]

Another test.

It's all about constructing a panel, a relief, and adopt a displacement map. The rest is UV unwrapping methods. Sculpting with UVs then. lol

A small tutorial for blender users here

Another test on a UV sphere. Difficult situation, see how I avoid stretching and reputations. Sometimes I like some stretching of the texrure. It's like painting.

[Britain]

Very good tutorial you posted on the other forum!

[michalis]

Thanks britain

there are more. Now I added a second displacement-map, a second pattern (as fine details bumps).

I start being addicted on this technic. It's like painting. Mixing all these UV maps, playing with the scale of these patterns, the values... all in the render engine, in real time. Madness.

[Garagarape]

I want this in 3d Coat !

[michalis]

It is in 3dcoat.

If you read the blender tutorial, I used an internal blender method. It supposed to be for bl users.

1. You construct a simple form, simple quad topology. No need to be done it in 3dcoat but you can sculpt the concept there.

2. You start sculpting reliefs-panels, after a few models, you have a library.

3. Find a way to bake them on a depth map, 32 bit. 3dcoat does not have this tool, I'll keep asking for this. It could exist in the render room for instance. It exists under creating alpha brushes but it's limited. All the code exists already, why not to have it?

I exported the vox mesh in blender and baked the displ-depth map there. (On a single square plane in front of the vox mesh). You can also bake normal map but it won't work on this workflow as you change rotate islands in UV map. It kills the "space of the n_map". A Normal_map serious limitation.

4. All the rest are games in the blender UV editor. Which happens to be more powerful than in 3dcoat.

The important work takes place in 3dcoat though. I can spend hours on sculpting such patterns.

Having such a depth maps library, it takes minutes to construct and render any spaceship or other more interesting scenes.

(I have something like this in mind he he)

If you could sculpt the whole thing in 3dcoat, what you could do next? Retopo it? Why?

It's already retopo, it has UVs, you can bake the huge displacement into a typical UV map as n-maps in the end.

Anyway, you can't expect a VGAme engine to render such constructions. N_maps aren't enough.

[Garagarape]

Thanks for the explanation Michalis!

All right, there's not what is needed to bake a 32 bit depth map in 3d-Coat. I can probably do it in Maya.

I'll have a look after the Dragon's done.

I'd like to do something close to Piranese carvings with your technique!

[michalis]

Another one, noticed the stretching of a secondary added bump? Because of the real displacement of the first, basic bump-displacement map.

It won't happen again, but I like it.

In this case, mesh (after displacement counts only 100k) , goes to the renderer, 30 seconds render time. (cycles)

[Britain]

I must admit you certainly take the task to hand. Your correct about the movie space ship there's no detail. I believe you have shut up the critics. Looking forward, time permitting, going through your tutorial. Are you going to post the material node set-up for this ?

[michalis]

@carlosa

Why do you need this? OK, if it could also render a depth map.

in ten minutes

Daedalus

OOPs I forgot to reply

@Britain

thanks

Here's a cycles node setup.

Try the red combo. Fine tune it on layerweight value, playing with coloramp and changing mixed colors. Avoid assigning these colors directly to coloramp. Keeping it in grey might help you to drive some other nodes, like mixing different textures. This is all about Cycles UI magic.

[michalis]

Another one, 10 mins doodling.

Testing loops and UV tricks.

[michalis]

Understanding UVs, this is what I learned.

And more giger like results. Unfortunately LOL