Creating Materials
GoW Inspired Cement Cover
This was a quick piece for fun. I was inspired by all of the heavily destroyed cement cover in Gears of War. After posting, information on how it was created was request, so I documented the process. This could all be optimized further, but again, it was a quick fun piece not originally intended for any use or tutorial creation.
Base Mesh
Block out a simple shape. It's important to keep it all quads of equal size before sculpting to get the best results out of Zbrush or Mudbox.
Sculpt
With simple sculpting, it's easy to get a rocky organic shape. Start with the largest shapes and slowly reduce your brush shape (note: if it doesn't look right with the large scale details, adding smaller details probably won't help). Finalize with a stencil/stamp detail for the smallest details.
Close-Up
The high detail mesh is just under 400,000 triangles. Working with a mesh this detailed can be a headache, so it's good to get used to it now. Up close, the mesh is incredibly detailed.
Low Poly
Build a low poly mesh based closely on the high detail. It may help to copy the high and optimize it. Not for the final low, but to use as a base that isn't such a system hog. A low poly mesh with normal maps needs to be rounder than a regular low poly mesh, and a single smoothing group. This is so that lighting can hit the normal from as many rounded angle as possible. Any hard edges should be on the normal map itself. UV's need to be as seamless as possible with minimal stretching.
Diffuse
I created a destroyed cement texture in Photoshop by touching up several cement photos. Heal brush the edges where the seams are with the same sections of the overlay to reduce seams.
Specular map
created by taking the diffuse > contrast +50 > hue +180
Normal map
For information on how to generate a normal map in max from a high detail mesh, read this spotlight article
[url]http://www.game-artist.net/forums/showthread.php?t=43[/url]
I generated a normal map for this using CrazyBump beta. The main site allows you to sign up for the beta, but more info and a download can be found in this thread
[url]http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=148897[/url]
Always render out a Height Map. While not used in this example, it can always come in handy.
Ambient Occlusion
Be sure to: Create > Lights > Skylight
In Max, same as rendering a Normal Map
but when you get to the Add > NormalsMap step, also Add > LightingMap
and finally, render as you would the normal map
This process can be done at the same time as normal map rendering also, and this is usually when I do it.
This will create a white material with depth and shadows based on the high detail mesh.
Multiply this over your diffuse in photoshop (or vise versa), adding an incredible amount of depth and quality to your material.
Final Materials
As always, with these materials, it's all about testing and looking it over from all angles
Final result
(all renders are print screens from max viewport)
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