Modeling Terrain

[Higuy]

Here is a terrain tutorial I made. Its about 40 minutes long.

http://vimeo.com/11781231

I hope this tutorial will help people create better looking maps. I'm always seeing badly modeled maps that could have more potential. So, I went and created this. Hopefully it will help people in the end.

It covers -

Outlining base mesh
Creating mesh
Smoothing the geometry
Creating terrain/cliffs
What your final outcome should be

Its pretty simple.

Sorry about the voice quality (it is pretty shitty :saddowns:), you can blame my xbox mic since I don't have another.

Thanks to il Duce Primo and Bungie for showing me how to model properly~

-Higuy

[teh lag]

Very nice to see all these video tutorials being posted these past few weeks. Thanks for helping us all keep the faith.

(Moving this to Studio Tuts since it's more of a general modeling thing)

[Longshot]

Excellent tutorial, I've been waiting for someone to release a tutorial like this for a long time now seeing as I can't model terrain to save my life. Thanks a lot!

[ThePlague]

Nice tool usage. This made me want to reinstall 3ds max :)

[Longshot]

How do you get the same result with the cliffs, just use the same method as the terrain? And in regards to you saying this isn't the correct method for next-gen games, what is? I'm keen to learn as much as I can.

[Darqeness]

And in regards to you saying this isn't the correct method for next-gen games, what is? I'm keen to learn as much as I can.

If I was making a cave I was going to put into UDK I'd use a similar method. As for normal terrain, most editors have an in-built heightmap based terrain editor. Although cliffs look like utter crap using it and it's impossible to make caves or overhanging rock formations with it which is mostly done with separate meshes.

[Higuy]

How do you get the same result with the cliffs, just use the same method as the terrain? And in regards to you saying this isn't the correct method for next-gen games, what is? I'm keen to learn as much as I can.
Well as Darqeness said, this can be applied somewhat for next gen. For cliffs and rocks though, I'd really look into using like zbrush for making those meshes.

[paladin]

I always find it interesting how everyone has there or style to modeling. Nice job.

[davidd]

This is great. Thx

[Llama Juice]

He got banned for that post because he encouraged people to cut willy nilly.

When you're in Max you run rampant like an emo with a razor blade...

Make cuts where you want them, not just "to add more triangles"

Also, isn't there some sort of "create polygon" tool in max? In Maya you could just draw out the outline of your map... not drop a shitton of verts and play connect the dots.

Anyhow, thanks for trying to help... but your methods are quite strange.

[neuro]

it's in the graphite tools, called polydraw.

[DEElekgolo]

Graphite tools are awesome compared to maya's tools.

But I honestly hate the whole "cut the fuck out of the mesh so you have more to work with" approach.

[Higuy]

I would never use this method for anything next gen. I just find this easy for me since this is how I've always done it, and its always seemed to work well and have a good outcome. Using the cut tool creates triangles so that you can smooth the map out more. Any excess traingles that aren't needed for the process and are just collapsed into a vertice and haf the time that vertice gets welded to another.

Not so sure how this is a strange method though; its how Bungie did it as far as I know for Halo 1 and 2.

[Longshot]

Not so sure how this is a strange method though; its how Bungie did it as far as I know for Halo 1 and 2.
Are you sure? I've always wanted to know how Bungie constructed their maps and models.

What do you guys think of ZBrush for terrain and cliffs? I've been playing around with it for a while now and you can get some really nice results with it. I think I'll stick with it from now on, well for anything UDK and above.

[neuro]

Zbrush is useful for making highres meshes for normalmaps. not game geometry.

[Higuy]

Are you sure?

As far as I know yes. I've looked at numerous Halo 1 map geometry and they all have the same outcome as what I get. Could be a different method they used; but the only logical way and easiest I'd imagine is to use the cut tool. I've never truly looked at any Halo 2 terrain, but from what I can see somewhat ingame, the outcome looks the same.

[DarkHalo003]

Hmm, I might have to try this tutorial when I get 3ds next year. I can decently model terrain, but I Vert Model and it takes a while in comparison to using tools. If this is a lowpoly and fast way to model maps (my Multiplayer maps at least), then I'd definitely plus rep (if my plus rep did anything).

[LlamaMaster]

Zbrush is useful for making highres meshes for normalmaps. not game geometry.

Zbrush isn't useful for making the base geometry, but it's incredibly useful for sculpting cliffs/terrain after the topology has been created in Max. Zbrush doesn't need a million polys to make something look good.

[neuro]

NOTHING needs a million polygons to look good.

goddamn, if you can't make it look good in one app, it wont MAGICALLY be better in another.

[DEElekgolo]

How would you model terrain neuro?
(Shift+drag)+relax+move vertices?
When I model with quads, I always get talked down that "halo CE isn't a next gen game, people don't expect next-gen detail so don't try to make it. People don't expect to play halo 1 for next gen graphics, they expect halo 1 graphics" though is really pisses me off.

[ejburke]

Anybody ever tried 3D Coat? It's a sculpting program, like ZBrush and Mudbox, except it uses Voxels instead of polygons. The advantage of that is that the sculpts are free of all topological constraints. You do not have to worry about edge flow AT ALL until you're finished. When you have something that is ready to be converted to polygons, there are really cool manual and AUTOMATIC retopology tools. Seriously, the thing is capable of doing all the work for you. Usuaually there are some symmetry errors in the result, but those are easily fixed in a 3D application.

So, if I were going to make terrain, I would go straight into 3D Coat and start sculpting. There's no real reason to do work in a polygon modeling application first. Then I'd autoretopo, export the polygon result, open it in my modeling application of choice, optimize the terrain mesh to a suitable degree. And done.

To be clear, I haven't actually tried this, nor have I messed with terrain in many years, but that's how I'd go about tackling it.

[DEElekgolo]

I've thought about doing the same thing, but I never took the time to get 3d coat.
You can do the same thing in 3ds max using meta blobs, but the topology is horrible which leaves you to re-top it.

[ejburke]

Check out 3D Coats latest Autoretopology tool, which allows you to draw guides that help determine the edge flow of the resulting mesh. You'll notice that it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn cool.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmU95Ciyw_M

This was the guy's first attempt. Some other videos I've seen have come out better, but they aren't on YouTube.

[DEElekgolo]

Hot damn

[neuro]

start with big subdivided plane (50x50?) then cut out your shape
clean up the edges a bit.
create height variations.
add plateaus along cliffs (very halo-style) by cutting them out of the ground, detatching, and moving them up.
then make the cliffs, bu draggin edges in increments, so ou get a decently fair distribusion of quads.
randomise your cliffs some more.
finalise your terrain.
add in some forerunner shit, and weld it all.
etc.

[DEElekgolo]

http://yfrog.com/18file17928z

A quick vid of metablobs I made.

[ejburke]

I wouldn't use that for terrain or any kind of modeling, really. Looks more useful for animation.

Here are some examples of terrain work in 3D Brush, which is 3D Coat's predecessor. Four images on the first post and another about 2/3 down the page.

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=647