Category Environment Modeling

Topics about modeling levels and environments in games.

Pages in this category:

Environment Workflow & Modularity

• Working with Modular Sets - by Philip 'PhilipK' Klevestav<
  >How to design and texture modular sci-fi wall panels.
• Working with Modular Rocks - by Philip 'PhilipK' Klevestav<
  >How to design, model, and texture modular rock assets, using Crazy Bump, Photoshop, and 3ds Max.
• Workflow techniques and modularity with Unreal game technology - by Epic Games<
  >A guide to setting up your art-to-level-design pipeline and designing modularly.
• Environment workflow @ EpicGames - by Kevin Johnstone<
  >A summary of the modular workflow used at Epic on Unreal Tournament 3.
• Gears of War 2 modular modeling - by Kevin Johnstone <
  >Tips and screenshots of using the grid for modular work, as well as a ton of useful insight into the Environment worflow at Epic. A highly recommended read!
• Modular brick wall tiling - by Glynn Smith<
  >Tips and screenshots for sculpting modular brick walls.
• Generic wall tutorial - by Bram "Peris" Eulaers<
  >Using 3ds Max and Mudbox to sculpt tilable modular sections for a stone wall.
• Rock modeling approaches - a Polycount thread <
  >A variety of approaches for sculpting individual rocks and tilable cliffs.
• Creating Perfectly Tiling Meshes in Zbrush for use in Videogame Environments - by Owen "SHEPEIRO" Shepherd<
  >Using ZBrush's 2.5D canvas to tile stamped meshes, then using Maya to model tilable geometry.
• Unreal Engine 3 tutorials, game industry articles, level design/art/technical tutorials - by Sjoerd "hourences" De Jong<
  >A ton of tutorials and articles about designing levels with the Unreal Technology.
• Environment workflow from an artist working on a Crysis mod - by Stefan Morrell<
  >A modular city building and its texture sheet.
• Mod Facade Challenge - by Joe "EarthQuake" Wilson<
  >Breaking up a building into modular pieces and designing the texture sheet.
• Maintaining the suspension of disbelief... Polycount thread<
  >Discussion about the importance of using imperfection to create believable worlds.
• Adam Bromell's sketchbook thread - by Adam "adamBrome" Bromell<
  >Breaking an environment down into modular pieces.
• Chris' sketchbook thread - by Chris "cholden" Holden<
  >Environment design & modular workflow.
• Level Design Video Tutorials - from 3DBuzz<
  >A ton of useful tutorials and design tips about creating levels.
• Visually Appealing Building Guide - by Christopher Albeluhn<
  >An excellent breakdown of how to create visual interest with game buildings. Additional tutorials here.

.Template:Http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon arrow.gif The Digital Sculpting section has more tutorials about modular workflow.

Environment Modeling Tutorials

• Gears2 Environment Art - by Kevin Johnstone
• UT3 & Gears Environment Art - by Kevin Johnstone
• SciFi Support Beam PDF - by Kevin Johnstone
• Environment tutorials - by Chris "cholden" Holden
• Environment modeling basics - from the Polycount boards

.Template:Http://boards.polycount.net/images/smilies/pcount/icons/icon arrow.gif The wiki section has more modeling tutorials.

Environment Foliage

• 3D TreesTutorials thread from the Polycount boards<
  > Multiple methods.
• Trees for Beginners in 3ds Max Tutorial - by "braveryd"<
  > Using the AEC Extended: Foliage tree generator in 3ds Max.
• Tree creation using particle generator - by Andy Zibits<
  > Using a particle system in 3ds Max.
• Sprite-Based Particle Trees - by Steven J. Tubbrit<
  > Using a particle system in Maya.
• Ultra-efficient tree texturing and modeling - by Andy Zibits<
  > Using Paint Effects in Maya to create the foliage texture and branches.
• Low-poly Tree Using Maya PaintFX - by Jeramy Cooke<
  > Using Paint Effects in Maya to create the foliage texture, then hand-modeling the tree.
• Bending vertex normals and using vertex color - by Eric Chadwick<
  > Using the Edit Normals modifier in 3ds Max to bend the vertex normals of low-poly foliage planes.
• Bending the vertex normals with Normal Thief - by Eric Chadwick<
  > Using the Normal Thief script in 3ds Max to bend the vertex normals of low-poly foliage planes.
• Vegetation Procedural Animation and Shading in Crysis - by Tiago Sousa<
  > A detailed overview of Crytek's process for vegetation shading.
• Tree Modeling Techniques and Principles (PDF) - by Matthew D'Onofrio<
  > Modeling efficient low-poly branches in 3ds Max using Extrude Along Spline.
• Hedges and Topiary a quick tutorial - by 'Vig'<
  >Modeling and texturing method for stylized bushes.
• Tree making fast technique? thread on Polycount<
  > Tree modeling techniques discussed.
• Tree texturing thread on Polycount<
  > Tree texturing discussed.
• Real quick tree texturing question thread on Polycount<
  > More tree stuff.
• Stuff to research:
  • Warhammer Online trees?
  • RexM trees?
  • Adam trees?

Foliage Modeling Tools

There are a lot of tools for modeling high-resolution plants, but few for modeling game-resolution models. Here are a few...

• ngPlant
• frecle tree[d] (exports formats .B3D, .OBJ, .X)
• TreeMaker script for 3ds Max
• Branches script for 3ds Max
• SpeedTree in UDK ($)

More Information

• EnvironmentSculpting