Hey Tim, these are really cool. Usually tutorials are for really specific things, but your tutorials are more broad and cover the general professional workflow. They feel like more intermediate to advanced, which is rare! Thanks a bunch.
This is really helpful man. I keep seeing tutorials for speed tree this and speed tree that but for some silly reason I feel I have to get my tree card the old fashioned way first before I can truly appreciate what speedtree has to offer somewhere down the line.
Nathan Elliott yea its good to know both but most studios are exclusively using speed tree or tools these days, they just save so much time! Its next on my hitlist of programs to learn
The best thing I learned from this, was seeing how iterative your process was/is. I'm like to do one thing and move in to the next without looking back at what I did before, so this was really helpful for me!
whimzycloud yea its good to work iteratively and get things in engine asap, otherwise you might waste hours on something that is not even noticeable haha
Also very interested in hearing your thoughts on what you mentioned at the end. Environment Art (and really any game dev/art job) can get super stressful at times and i think we all have our own way to deal with that pressure, so it'll be interesting hearing advice from someone in the industry.
Yeaaah! I get so hype when these video come out. I'm not really using the same workflow for alot of the aspects of my challenge but these videos are so rad that i gotta come watch them anyway. Keep it up Tim!
Tom Hanssens dope! Yea its always interesting to see other workflows and just take ideas and apply it to your own here and there. Glad you are enjoying them tom!
Love these videos so much. Very inspiring and helpful so thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to record and produce these. Speedtree is indeed an incredible tool, i'm very glad i learned it as it saved me a ton of time. Especially with its auto generated wind, animation and LOD's.
I would recommend importing and using a simple 3d plane and using it to generate fibers in ZBrush, taking that into Max and doing a bake. It actually turns out quite realistic and personally I loved the results.
Hey Tim, loving these videos. I think I've watched them three times over by now just to understand the mindset and the workflow. Thanks for the series. I was wondering if you could make a video about rock sculpting (the same way you did with the wood tutorial), and if you could go over the Quixel Mixer stuff you spoke about in the beginning of the video? Would love to see more videos from you! Thanks a ton!
Hey Tim, very helpful video. Only step I'm confused with that I've never done before is actually render the geometry in 3ds max to turn into a diffuse map like the one you had for the branches. If you could shed some light on the process there, that would be super helpful.
yea I just used the render to texture tools that you used to normally use to bake normal maps, just search for 3ds max render to texture tutorial, there are tons out there :)
Looks like quite a complicated process to make trees as compared to SpeedTree). Scene is coming along nicely though. Look forward to more updates, Tim! Keep up the good work
Wow huge thanks for this video. I couldn't close it until the very end. I did the same to make some palm trees. However, do you have some tips to place the planes for a proper render of a grass asset ? How many for a good density ?
thanks for the love! glad you enjoyed it. Grass is something I struggle with too, I will try and get some better results and make a tutorial on that soon-ish haha.
Hey Tim, 😃brilliant tutorial... I am new to 3Ds Max and only created a few in game assets so far, for my UE5 Japanese Zen Environment. I am trying to create a really nice Japanese maple tree, and this tutorial is a great help to start me off. . Thank you again. ☺
How did you turn the branches into alphas which were then painted onto the flat surface? Ive been trying everything but I just dont know what to do to turn the branches into a texture which i could apply to a plane?
i used render to texture in 3ds max to bake them down to a plane, the albedo, alpha and normal map. there are a ton of tutorials on that here on youtube :) it's pretty straight forward, hope this helps!
Oh god... I wasn't sure who that was and made the mistake of google image searching. My girlfriend was sitting nearby, she was obviously a little concerned I was searching for that lol!
Hey man ur videos are very helpful , i hope was not so later, but I have a question, for example I have a pine with 11000 tris and I want to make a forest if I apply decimate it will decrease to the half, but if I want to add wind, I will not have problems with the movement of the leaves, since they have lost polygons? I hope u can help
I would use the 11k triangle tree as your LOD 0 and have that and maybe LOD 1 use the wind and then as they get further off in the distance it can be way lower poly through LOD's you can make in unreal as you wont notice the wind moving them after a certain distance.
Thank u very much, and I'm not using unreal like the main engine for video games I usually use unity, and I don't know if exist a big difference between these two engines, well that doesn't matter, but I suppose the asset can be the same, or maybe I'm wrong, But the first problem we face when we want to model something in 3d is the optimization problem. I have searched videos about optimization to video games, or example if ur scene is small it can be very high poly but if we have a bid terrain with a forest-like a far cry, call of duty, or maybe cs go, how do we can optimize assets and how to affect to our assets, Don't u have a course where u teach about optimization, modeling vegetation, rocks to be exactly environment using substance designer or another software? I have followed ur videos and u are the only one who speaks about this matter very well I hope you keep posting new videos.
@@mishabytes8209 thanks so much. I dont have a video on optimization yet, but look into LOD generation, it is integrated into unreal and I think unity as well, there are some tutorials out there on it I think but I will try and make one in future.
Wish i knew about the paint on feature, Last time i made a pine tree i had to individually place pine needles on a single stem, then individually place them stems onto a branch to bake my foliage textures. This would have saved me a day. Was a fun experience though.
ouch hahah. yea I am always looking for tools to save time haha. but hey, we all have moments like that! mine was manually unwrapping an entire levels worth of railings and slightly changing the uv placement of the tiling metal texture on them because I thought players would notice the paint chips in the different places.....they did not. hahaha
So when developing a games level, how would you go about setting up the terrain in a manner such as Dark Souls or God of War, where it doesn't rely on an open world terrain with border-like structures to bar your path, but a standalone model that makes the levels terrain with low poly models to fill in the distance? I kind of grasp the concept of creating it but how would you go about giving it the level of detail like this if you have to confine to specific land shapes rather than sculpting on a terrain tool inside the game engine to accommodate your models? For example, if you were to view the terrain models from Dark Souls 1 or 2, they are linear and really consist of the playable area and then no extra space that is blocked off by objects. Sorry if this is a strange way of asking or if its confusing, I am not exactly sure how to ask it but as a game developer trying to get into the level oriented aspect this is my biggest block.
you can create terrain for backgrounds or even gameplay areas with world machine for super nice results, or hand model it etc. Some engines use a terrain system like unreal, while others require it to be modeled in 3ds max or some package and then imported. I would say most of dark souls terrain is probably just modeled in a software package and brought into the engine, same with god of war, they build their entire environments inside of maya.
Did you end up editing the normals for the grass(straight up) or tress(sphere). If you did, do you recommend editing the normals for the branches or editing the normal of the whole tree once the branches are added?
BrianVFX i tried editing the leaf normals with a sphere but it was causing issues, so i disabled that for now, its a great trick but i need to refine it. Id recommend experimenting until you get something you like. Id kep the actual geo branches normals their own, so they shade properly based off the geo. Grass has the default normals for now :)
Hey Tim! hope your'e doing well. well I got a Software situation going on, i mostly use C4d for you know the trendy instagram renders but i want to start practicing to HOPEFULLY become an Environment artist soooo what ive seen so far everyone is using either maya or 3dsmax. Do i need to change my software for the modeling and stuff?
If you want to work in a studio, at some point you will have to use max/maya (depends on the studio which one) but you can for sure start creating environment work with c4d in the meantime if it works for you. But being familiar with max or maya would definitely be an asset!
Hey, thanks for the video, it was really helpful! I've object painted the fibres on my branches, how do i combine the branches and all the fibres into one mesh so i can use render to texture?
Vismay Sinha i hid everything but the branch and fibers, and then selected the branch and hit the options button next to attatch to attach list and then selected all (ctrl + a) in that list and hit attach, took a min to update but then it was all one mesh. Hope that helps!
@@PolygonAcademy oh, wow i feel like an idiot now. The button was right beside it and i was sitting there wondering how i'm supposes to attach them all one by one. Thanks a lot man! Working on my first "big" enviroment scene by watching your(and other) videos. Your wood sculpt video was also invaluable.
Hello ! Love your scene and the tips you give :D Just want to know if you have any link for the shader you used for the moss ? (base on the position of the mesh + texture direction) Thanks
The LOD 0 of a tree could be anywhere from 15k-40k depending on the size of the tree, how many will be on screen at once etc. The more polygons you have, the more agressive your LOD’s will have to be as it gets further away from the camera
I downloaded an atlas flower from Quixel Bridge, cut it in Maya where I applied the opacity and albedo maps, and when I import it into unreal, its invisible. AND I CANT FIGURE OUT WHY
As an environment artist student currently trying to learn a lot at once, do you think it's worth making trees like this, or is it ok to use pre-created trees to fill my environment?
Hey Tim. Loved the tutorial. Finally got access to Maya after years upon using Maya LT for production. I use to use 3ds Max for the longest time when I had the license, but since im back to having production software, this tutorial REALLY help really refine my skills with foliage and trees. One thing I had a chance to try was Speedtree, but I couldnt get far as I never took the time to review tutorials and classes on it. Were you able to give it a go and successfully implement it into your work? I managed to utilize some precreated assets in speedtree early on in my game's production, but now I have the opportunity to look back on the project and reevaluate as im focused more on my portfolio so I can get an actual job in the industry. So any help would be appreciated.
Awesome stuff as usual, can't wait to see the polishing phase :D. I'm curious about some optimization stuff on the foliage though, would it be better performancewise to make the branches that are higher up in the trees leaf cards or to just lower the polycount and keep the geometry? I've always been kind of perplexed with this sort of optimization, is overdraw and alpha transparency heavier than high polycount or the other way around? And what sacrifices need to be made for the sake of performance?
It's really a great video, like the others. It helps a lot. I hope to make maps as interesting to browse as yours. Speedtree is really great software, but I do not use it much yet.
Love & Respect for your work bro. Just found your channel. I'm a civil engineer with a passion of game development. The things that I pic From your videos are how to work efficiently 😊
Thanks for the video, So the question is, I can create trees both in ZBrush and Maya, But I highly prefer to do it in ZBrush, But mostly I see professional people in industry use Maya/3DsMax, Is there an reason for it? Or it's just optional/Taste/Style ?
Saeed Pasafkand you can definitely use zbrush to create assets id thats what you are most comfortable in, most studios use zbrush for highpoly work. If you are able to create your lowpoly and do everything in zb then i dont see that being a problem. Its good to be comfortable in either max or maya because you are most likely gonna have to use one of those because of the studios pipeline to get things into the game, lots of studios have custom tools or export plugins that tie into max or maya. The god of war team uses maya as their level editor for example.
Ive never really used blender unfortunatley, but i’m sure there are similar tools in there that you can get the same results, i would ask in some of the blender communities, they could probably help you out :)
@@nerdgrenade4365 you're welcome :) I try and keep my content more of the high level theory because at the end of the day you can acomplish the same tasks with different software :)
The only part that's probably non-trivial in this video is the branch painting part. You can do it in the following steps. 1. Creating the leaf blades just like he did, super quick and simple. 2. Adding them to a collection, easy as Shift+M and new collection. 3. Using the collection as a particle system (Create particle system on the branch and in particle settings under Render, Set render as "collection" and choose the leaf collection you just made) 4. Enter "weight paint" mode and paint the areas where you want the leaves. 5. Randomize scale and rotation in the particle settings to give more variation to the leaves. I'm not sure if there's a ramp type setting but you can google that and clarify :) 6. Change the number in Emission to the desired amount of leaves you want. 7. If exporting that to a game engine like he does, just render out the branch in all its leafy glory with transparent background (you'll get that option under Render Tab, Film->Transparent, check that option) 8. Profit
@@RuthwikRao wow that's sounds good I'll try it and let you know
4 года назад
Nice video! But why not just take a photo with a greenscreen/bluescreen of some grass/bark/twigs and then assemble them together? Instead of first making a 3d model, and then a texture out of the model?
Hope you dont mind me saying this, but i noticed you have a cauli flower ear, you do Jiu Jitsu or Wrestling? Fist bump to Martial Artist - Artists hahaha!
ficoreloj hahaha i wish i was that tough/cool! Its from fighting with my brother when i was younger and he cracked me one with a ps1 controller in the ear 😂
Hello Tim! Your Videos are super helpful, Im an aspiring 3D environment artists so your stuff is exactly what i was looking for. Anyways, i wanted to ask you how you did the stairs...Did you sculpt 2-3 pieces and then assembled them in Max? (Just like stone walls?) Thanks a Ton!
@@PolygonAcademy Super simple indeed. I think the saying "work smarter, not harder" fits perfectly here. Thanks for the tips and insight man. I really appreciate it. Looking forward on your new stuff!
5 лет назад
Hi! first of all thanks for sharing knowledge. I've a question , what texture format you prefer to use for game engines (Unreal, Unity etc.), especially AAA productions ?
Batuhan Küçük in terms of export? Like tga or png? Depends on the studio or pipeline but most of the time ive been using .tga we also pack our metal/roughness/ao into a single texture in the rgb channels
I'm a student. I want to learn environment design and level design, I have skills in modeling I use both 3ds max and Maya.. To get junior level artist do i need work experience in modular and Retopolgy artist in big game studios. Sorry for my bad english..
yea having experience with modular kits and showing you know how to use them is good. to get a junior artist position, it is all about your portfolio. i would start an artstation account and put your environment/level design work on there! The only thing that matters is what you can show you can do! so just keep practicing and making new work :) thanks for watching
@@PolygonAcademy I really appreciate your having taken time to answer my question, Now I'm learning Unreal Engine I'm just getting started with it. I haven't done any project yet.. I did some blocking things that's it.. Your videos are helping me a lot.. 👍👍
Adam De oh absolutely, but for this challenge we were not really allowed to use megascans assets, like foliage atlases. If this was a personal project, id use megascans for sure, saves time and looks great
SAM VORTEX nah, most level designers i have worked with work in greybox almost entireley. They might place assets in the world from time to time but i have never seen a LD making assets. Their focus should be on gameplay and layout. Having overlap skills never hurts but i have never worked with a level designer who was modelling and texturing stuff. This video is more about level art, but like i said, being able to think like an Designer or an Artist in terms of layout and design is a good skill to have.
@@PolygonAcademy man's that's actually very motivating to me I have never worked with greybox i mostly use free asset for design,its going to hard for me with greybox but totally worth it I m going to learn modelling and animation stuff after graduation (computer science) ,do you think it will worth for a level designer?
SAM VORTEX animation...probably not. I would look for some senior level desingers portfolios and websites and see how they are showcasing their work. Probably some 3/4 view layouts with documented stuff like combat spaces and level flow etc. Thats way more relevant than learning animation i would say
@@PolygonAcademy Its my strange british sense of humour kicking in again! Its safe to say i've watched Predator more times than is healthy for one human...
@@PolygonAcademy Ok. I have worked with BlitzBasic. So the processing power was really limited. I am learning each part of unity. So it is a new world. So easy like unreal. Thanks. :)
You definitely skipped over something. I'll reveal the answer in the form of a riddle: No one ever needs me always, But when you start to walk away I will sneak into your vision quickly usually somewhere that see's the light of day there is not a single way to make me and when you make me you should hope and pray that I do not give away the secret when fools decide to buy and play
Hey Tim, these are really cool. Usually tutorials are for really specific things, but your tutorials are more broad and cover the general professional workflow. They feel like more intermediate to advanced, which is rare! Thanks a bunch.
This is really helpful man. I keep seeing tutorials for speed tree this and speed tree that but for some silly reason I feel I have to get my tree card the old fashioned way first before I can truly appreciate what speedtree has to offer somewhere down the line.
Nathan Elliott yea its good to know both but most studios are exclusively using speed tree or tools these days, they just save so much time! Its next on my hitlist of programs to learn
The best thing I learned from this, was seeing how iterative your process was/is. I'm like to do one thing and move in to the next without looking back at what I did before, so this was really helpful for me!
whimzycloud yea its good to work iteratively and get things in engine asap, otherwise you might waste hours on something that is not even noticeable haha
this is pure gold
Also very interested in hearing your thoughts on what you mentioned at the end. Environment Art (and really any game dev/art job) can get super stressful at times and i think we all have our own way to deal with that pressure, so it'll be interesting hearing advice from someone in the industry.
Michael Pearce cheers, yea my next video should be a heavy hitter for sure
Yeaaah! I get so hype when these video come out. I'm not really using the same workflow for alot of the aspects of my challenge but these videos are so rad that i gotta come watch them anyway. Keep it up Tim!
Tom Hanssens dope! Yea its always interesting to see other workflows and just take ideas and apply it to your own here and there. Glad you are enjoying them tom!
Love these videos so much. Very inspiring and helpful so thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to record and produce these. Speedtree is indeed an incredible tool, i'm very glad i learned it as it saved me a ton of time. Especially with its auto generated wind, animation and LOD's.
Michael Pearce awesome, i cant wait to dive into it after the challenge is done 🔥🔥
I would recommend importing and using a simple 3d plane and using it to generate fibers in ZBrush, taking that into Max and doing a bake. It actually turns out quite realistic and personally I loved the results.
Casey Sharer cool ill have to try that method out, thanks dude!
1:57...respect...some of the hardest models to get the 'look' right with...
Hey Tim, loving these videos. I think I've watched them three times over by now just to understand the mindset and the workflow. Thanks for the series. I was wondering if you could make a video about rock sculpting (the same way you did with the wood tutorial), and if you could go over the Quixel Mixer stuff you spoke about in the beginning of the video? Would love to see more videos from you! Thanks a ton!
Yazan Yazan gonna do a rock sculpting one soon i think ;)
Hey Tim, very helpful video. Only step I'm confused with that I've never done before is actually render the geometry in 3ds max to turn into a diffuse map like the one you had for the branches. If you could shed some light on the process there, that would be super helpful.
yea I just used the render to texture tools that you used to normally use to bake normal maps, just search for 3ds max render to texture tutorial, there are tons out there :)
press "0" in 3dsMax to open the tool. That's your start, Good luck ;)
Looks like quite a complicated process to make trees as compared to SpeedTree). Scene is coming along nicely though. Look forward to more updates, Tim! Keep up the good work
Artem Mykhailov yea brute forcing things when there are tools for it isnt my isual recommndation haha. Thanks!
Great video Tim! Love the feel of the scene. Keep up the good work! 👊
SidSmarthouse thanks sid, excited to finish this up strong!
Wow huge thanks for this video. I couldn't close it until the very end. I did the same to make some palm trees. However, do you have some tips to place the planes for a proper render of a grass asset ? How many for a good density ?
thanks for the love! glad you enjoyed it. Grass is something I struggle with too, I will try and get some better results and make a tutorial on that soon-ish haha.
Fantastic videos! If you do more explanation videos could you do one explaining alpha maps and the pros and cons of using them?
cool, I will put it on the list for a future video :D
Hey Tim, 😃brilliant tutorial... I am new to 3Ds Max and only created a few in game assets so far, for my UE5 Japanese Zen Environment. I am trying to create a really nice Japanese maple tree, and this tutorial is a great help to start me off. . Thank you again. ☺
Awesome! Happy to hear that! Good luck on your project!
these videos are coming up pretty tight! Really inspiring and some nice tips :)!
Vitor Guerreiro thanks victor, glad to know they are helping to inspire you to create 🔥🔥
how did you do the texture for the actual tree base and branches ?
Sculpted a tiling texture in zbrush with some wood alphas and did the material in painter, pretty basic but it worked ok :)
How did you turn the branches into alphas which were then painted onto the flat surface? Ive been trying everything but I just dont know what to do to turn the branches into a texture which i could apply to a plane?
i used render to texture in 3ds max to bake them down to a plane, the albedo, alpha and normal map. there are a ton of tutorials on that here on youtube :) it's pretty straight forward, hope this helps!
@@PolygonAcademy In the end I went the Photoshop way,but thank you very much for the help and quick response!
thx johnny sins for this video, but its weird to see you without any women
[3D ART]KLUST3R 😂 nearly choked on my morning coffee, thanks for the laugh 🤛
Oh god... I wasn't sure who that was and made the mistake of google image searching. My girlfriend was sitting nearby, she was obviously a little concerned I was searching for that lol!
thank you so much, your my superhero
DanDi Lee cheers dandi!
Hey man ur videos are very helpful , i hope was not so later, but I have a question, for example I have a pine with 11000 tris and I want to make a forest if I apply decimate it will decrease to the half, but if I want to add wind, I will not have problems with the movement of the leaves, since they have lost polygons? I hope u can help
I would use the 11k triangle tree as your LOD 0 and have that and maybe LOD 1 use the wind and then as they get further off in the distance it can be way lower poly through LOD's you can make in unreal as you wont notice the wind moving them after a certain distance.
Thank u very much, and I'm not using unreal like the main engine for video games I usually use unity, and I don't know if exist a big difference between these two engines, well that doesn't matter, but I suppose the asset can be the same, or maybe I'm wrong, But the first problem we face when we want to model something in 3d is the optimization problem. I have searched videos about optimization to video games, or example if ur scene is small it can be very high poly but if we have a bid terrain with a forest-like a far cry, call of duty, or maybe cs go, how do we can optimize assets and how to affect to our assets, Don't u have a course where u teach about optimization, modeling vegetation, rocks to be exactly environment using substance designer or another software? I have followed ur videos and u are the only one who speaks about this matter very well I hope you keep posting new videos.
@@mishabytes8209 thanks so much. I dont have a video on optimization yet, but look into LOD generation, it is integrated into unreal and I think unity as well, there are some tutorials out there on it I think but I will try and make one in future.
oh, I see, it sound well, I'm going to search about that and I Will be wait ur your new videos . thank u so much
super useful, thanks for making these videos.
Tim Nijs your welcome bud :)
Wish i knew about the paint on feature, Last time i made a pine tree i had to individually place pine needles on a single stem, then individually place them stems onto a branch to bake my foliage textures. This would have saved me a day. Was a fun experience though.
ouch hahah. yea I am always looking for tools to save time haha. but hey, we all have moments like that! mine was manually unwrapping an entire levels worth of railings and slightly changing the uv placement of the tiling metal texture on them because I thought players would notice the paint chips in the different places.....they did not. hahaha
So when developing a games level, how would you go about setting up the terrain in a manner such as Dark Souls or God of War, where it doesn't rely on an open world terrain with border-like structures to bar your path, but a standalone model that makes the levels terrain with low poly models to fill in the distance? I kind of grasp the concept of creating it but how would you go about giving it the level of detail like this if you have to confine to specific land shapes rather than sculpting on a terrain tool inside the game engine to accommodate your models? For example, if you were to view the terrain models from Dark Souls 1 or 2, they are linear and really consist of the playable area and then no extra space that is blocked off by objects. Sorry if this is a strange way of asking or if its confusing, I am not exactly sure how to ask it but as a game developer trying to get into the level oriented aspect this is my biggest block.
you can create terrain for backgrounds or even gameplay areas with world machine for super nice results, or hand model it etc. Some engines use a terrain system like unreal, while others require it to be modeled in 3ds max or some package and then imported. I would say most of dark souls terrain is probably just modeled in a software package and brought into the engine, same with god of war, they build their entire environments inside of maya.
Thanks man! Great videos, keep doing!
thanks for watching, more videos to come :)
Great video! Do you have any good tutorials on how to upload tree models to UE4 and adding wind to the trees?
Did you end up editing the normals for the grass(straight up) or tress(sphere). If you did, do you recommend editing the normals for the branches or editing the normal of the whole tree once the branches are added?
BrianVFX i tried editing the leaf normals with a sphere but it was causing issues, so i disabled that for now, its a great trick but i need to refine it. Id recommend experimenting until you get something you like. Id kep the actual geo branches normals their own, so they shade properly based off the geo. Grass has the default normals for now :)
This was really helpful, thanks man!
Joel Norgren thanks for watching joel :)
Hey Tim! hope your'e doing well. well I got a Software situation going on, i mostly use C4d for you know the trendy instagram renders but i want to start practicing to HOPEFULLY become an Environment artist soooo what ive seen so far everyone is using either maya or 3dsmax. Do i need to change my software for the modeling and stuff?
If you want to work in a studio, at some point you will have to use max/maya (depends on the studio which one) but you can for sure start creating environment work with c4d in the meantime if it works for you. But being familiar with max or maya would definitely be an asset!
@@PolygonAcademy Thanks for the Advise! :)
Hey, thanks for the video, it was really helpful! I've object painted the fibres on my branches, how do i combine the branches and all the fibres into one mesh so i can use render to texture?
Vismay Sinha i hid everything but the branch and fibers, and then selected the branch and hit the options button next to attatch to attach list and then selected all (ctrl + a) in that list and hit attach, took a min to update but then it was all one mesh. Hope that helps!
@@PolygonAcademy oh, wow i feel like an idiot now. The button was right beside it and i was sitting there wondering how i'm supposes to attach them all one by one. Thanks a lot man! Working on my first "big" enviroment scene by watching your(and other) videos. Your wood sculpt video was also invaluable.
Hello ! Love your scene and the tips you give :D
Just want to know if you have any link for the shader you used for the moss ? (base on the position of the mesh + texture direction)
Thanks
Defcon its one my friend made, he will be putting it up for sale soon, ill leave a link when he does, its gonna be awesomely useful :)
@@PolygonAcademy Great thanks :D
So am I right in saying you don't texture the pine needles? just use max colouring?
yea exactly, i just gave the needles a subtle gradient with a baisc material and rendered to texture the diffuse based on that.
How many polygons should one tree have?
The LOD 0 of a tree could be anywhere from 15k-40k depending on the size of the tree, how many will be on screen at once etc. The more polygons you have, the more agressive your LOD’s will have to be as it gets further away from the camera
@@PolygonAcademy thank you so so much!!
@@PolygonAcademy for example, a small forest?
I downloaded an atlas flower from Quixel Bridge, cut it in Maya where I applied the opacity and albedo maps, and when I import it into unreal, its invisible. AND I CANT FIGURE OUT WHY
As an environment artist student currently trying to learn a lot at once, do you think it's worth making trees like this, or is it ok to use pre-created trees to fill my environment?
either or is fine, i know a lot of people use speedtree and get awesome results. nothing wrong with that either.
tutorial on vertex painting soon?
"soon-ish" hahah when I have some free time its near the top of my list to do!
Hey Tim. Loved the tutorial. Finally got access to Maya after years upon using Maya LT for production. I use to use 3ds Max for the longest time when I had the license, but since im back to having production software, this tutorial REALLY help really refine my skills with foliage and trees. One thing I had a chance to try was Speedtree, but I couldnt get far as I never took the time to review tutorials and classes on it.
Were you able to give it a go and successfully implement it into your work? I managed to utilize some precreated assets in speedtree early on in my game's production, but now I have the opportunity to look back on the project and reevaluate as im focused more on my portfolio so I can get an actual job in the industry. So any help would be appreciated.
Where should branch normals face?
Awesome stuff as usual, can't wait to see the polishing phase :D. I'm curious about some optimization stuff on the foliage though, would it be better performancewise to make the branches that are higher up in the trees leaf cards or to just lower the polycount and keep the geometry? I've always been kind of perplexed with this sort of optimization, is overdraw and alpha transparency heavier than high polycount or the other way around? And what sacrifices need to be made for the sake of performance?
Awesome! Really helpful, also to get into level/environment design! BTW what's that background music?
thanks! its music from Artlist.io
It's really a great video, like the others. It helps a lot. I hope to make maps as interesting to browse as yours.
Speedtree is really great software, but I do not use it much yet.
Chrys Gaman yea! Just practice and you will be making cool environments soon :)
@@PolygonAcademy
That's right, I'll practice again and again. Thank you
Sir, I would like to ask you what computers you use and all the tools if you can remember them and also what a program needs
Great ! Keep up !
emmanuelebiondi47 another vid coming on weds for you :)
Love & Respect for your work bro. Just found your channel. I'm a civil engineer with a passion of game development. The things that I pic From your videos are how to work efficiently 😊
So nice! :D
antonio_linares thanks antonio :)
Thanks for the video, So the question is, I can create trees both in ZBrush and Maya, But I highly prefer to do it in ZBrush, But mostly I see professional people in industry use Maya/3DsMax, Is there an reason for it? Or it's just optional/Taste/Style ?
Saeed Pasafkand you can definitely use zbrush to create assets id thats what you are most comfortable in, most studios use zbrush for highpoly work. If you are able to create your lowpoly and do everything in zb then i dont see that being a problem. Its good to be comfortable in either max or maya because you are most likely gonna have to use one of those because of the studios pipeline to get things into the game, lots of studios have custom tools or export plugins that tie into max or maya. The god of war team uses maya as their level editor for example.
Thanks, Tim! Great info for newbs like me! :)
How can I do this in blender
Ive never really used blender unfortunatley, but i’m sure there are similar tools in there that you can get the same results, i would ask in some of the blender communities, they could probably help you out :)
@@PolygonAcademy tnx Tim I was stuck here for sometime
@@nerdgrenade4365 you're welcome :) I try and keep my content more of the high level theory because at the end of the day you can acomplish the same tasks with different software :)
The only part that's probably non-trivial in this video is the branch painting part.
You can do it in the following steps.
1. Creating the leaf blades just like he did, super quick and simple.
2. Adding them to a collection, easy as Shift+M and new collection.
3. Using the collection as a particle system (Create particle system on the branch and in particle settings under Render, Set render as "collection" and choose the leaf collection you just made)
4. Enter "weight paint" mode and paint the areas where you want the leaves.
5. Randomize scale and rotation in the particle settings to give more variation to the leaves. I'm not sure if there's a ramp type setting but you can google that and clarify :)
6. Change the number in Emission to the desired amount of leaves you want.
7. If exporting that to a game engine like he does, just render out the branch in all its leafy glory with transparent background (you'll get that option under Render Tab, Film->Transparent, check that option)
8. Profit
@@RuthwikRao wow that's sounds good I'll try it and let you know
Nice video! But why not just take a photo with a greenscreen/bluescreen of some grass/bark/twigs and then assemble them together? Instead of first making a 3d model, and then a texture out of the model?
Hope you dont mind me saying this, but i noticed you have a cauli flower ear, you do Jiu Jitsu or Wrestling? Fist bump to Martial Artist - Artists hahaha!
ficoreloj hahaha i wish i was that tough/cool! Its from fighting with my brother when i was younger and he cracked me one with a ps1 controller in the ear 😂
Hello Tim! Your Videos are super helpful, Im an aspiring 3D environment artists so your stuff is exactly what i was looking for. Anyways, i wanted to ask you how you did the stairs...Did you sculpt 2-3 pieces and then assembled them in Max? (Just like stone walls?) Thanks a Ton!
yup, exactly! just sculpted 3 different sized blocks and put them together in max, super simple :)
@@PolygonAcademy Super simple indeed. I think the saying "work smarter, not harder" fits perfectly here. Thanks for the tips and insight man. I really appreciate it. Looking forward on your new stuff!
Hi! first of all thanks for sharing knowledge. I've a question , what texture format you prefer to use for game engines (Unreal, Unity etc.), especially AAA productions ?
Batuhan Küçük in terms of export? Like tga or png? Depends on the studio or pipeline but most of the time ive been using .tga we also pack our metal/roughness/ao into a single texture in the rgb channels
@@PolygonAcademy Thanks!!! :)
I'm a student. I want to learn environment design and level design, I have skills in modeling I use both 3ds max and Maya.. To get junior level artist do i need work experience in modular and Retopolgy artist in big game studios. Sorry for my bad english..
yea having experience with modular kits and showing you know how to use them is good. to get a junior artist position, it is all about your portfolio. i would start an artstation account and put your environment/level design work on there! The only thing that matters is what you can show you can do! so just keep practicing and making new work :) thanks for watching
@@PolygonAcademy I really appreciate your having taken time to answer my question, Now I'm learning Unreal Engine I'm just getting started with it. I haven't done any project yet.. I did some blocking things that's it.. Your videos are helping me a lot.. 👍👍
2:50 - 2:58 at 0.5x speed
Круто. Очень полезное видео!
For me speedTree and megascan vegetations pack to result best quality enviro :)
Adam De oh absolutely, but for this challenge we were not really allowed to use megascans assets, like foliage atlases. If this was a personal project, id use megascans for sure, saves time and looks great
nice
zyangpointer thanks!
Urgh,to be level designer i also have to learn modelling and texturing and all the other stuff ? /:
SAM VORTEX nah, most level designers i have worked with work in greybox almost entireley. They might place assets in the world from time to time but i have never seen a LD making assets. Their focus should be on gameplay and layout. Having overlap skills never hurts but i have never worked with a level designer who was modelling and texturing stuff. This video is more about level art, but like i said, being able to think like an Designer or an Artist in terms of layout and design is a good skill to have.
@@PolygonAcademy man's that's actually very motivating to me
I have never worked with greybox i mostly use free asset for design,its going to hard for me with greybox but totally worth it
I m going to learn modelling and animation stuff after graduation (computer science) ,do you think it will worth for a level designer?
SAM VORTEX animation...probably not. I would look for some senior level desingers portfolios and websites and see how they are showcasing their work. Probably some 3/4 view layouts with documented stuff like combat spaces and level flow etc. Thats way more relevant than learning animation i would say
@@PolygonAcademy Noted
Thank you alot for replying ! :D
Sorry, but for that little clip I have to say this: 'What's the matter tim, UE4 got you pushing to many polygons?'
hahaha thats amazing and actually the first time I've heard that one, love it :D
@@PolygonAcademy Its my strange british sense of humour kicking in again! Its safe to say i've watched Predator more times than is healthy for one human...
@@Barneschild hahah one of my fave films for sure!
Love/hate relationship with Max autosaving :/
Dani Baena it always feels like russian roulette hahah
@@PolygonAcademy Yes! also loved that moment when you kind of stop talking... *cough,cough* ahaha, totally get that feeling
DYLAN! You son of a bitch! nice work Tim!
Hahah i actually have a tshirt with that on it and the 2 flexing biceps closeup in the middle of the text. Its amazing
oh god i came here to learn but i fell for the teacher classic me
Indonesia comment: bagaimana membuat pohon sendiri dan memasukannya ke dalam sebuah game
you should do a collaboration with BAM animation. You are brents clone.
Looks like the character's floating.
Horst Heberle yea i think so, i havent made proper collison for anything yet, just quick auto gen stuff 😂
Too much poly.
Vinnicius Rosa its pretty high but i optimized it later, its fine. On farcry 4 each tree was around 30k triangles for the highest LOD.
@@PolygonAcademy Ok. I have worked with BlitzBasic. So the processing power was really limited. I am learning each part of unity. So it is a new world. So easy like unreal. Thanks. :)
Yea you have to work within each engines strengths :) unity is powerful as well!
You definitely skipped over something. I'll reveal the answer in the form of a riddle:
No one ever needs me always,
But when you start to walk away
I will sneak into your vision quickly
usually somewhere that see's the light of day
there is not a single way to make me
and when you make me you should hope and pray
that I do not give away the secret
when fools decide to buy and play