The Desert(real-time environment with no Diffuse Maps Technology)

[d1ver]

What's up fellow UDK users!

It's my pleasure to share with you a project I've been working on for a little while:



WATCH THE VIDEO:



Please make sure to watch through the whole video because that's where the whole project is. All the following images are merely a bunch of working materials.
Thank you very much

If youtube is not working for you feel free to check it out on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/43720484

Now, I won't be posting much screenshots for now because this work is not about static images at all and I really want everyone to check the video out.

It's a real-time environment that does not use any dedicated RGB diffuse textures. I thought there was an opportunity for us to improve the way we make our games technically, production-wise and maybe even visually to an extent so with this personal project I really pushed the idea of "procedural" materials. As much as I was working hard making a visual work of art I also pushed it to make a technological statement that says "we could do well without diffuse maps".

Now I've composed a whole paper that describes the technology, the concept and the reasoning behind it: both technical and artistic. Please feel free to get it RIGHT HERE and if you have ideas on the subject I'll be more than happy to discuss them.) I really want to try and figure out why this technology could or couldn't be implemented on a full scale game and your input would be invaluable.
Now for those of you who ain't gonna read the paper I thought I'd post a couple images from it here to give you the gist of it:

[d1ver]

Some sculpts, or Normal Map renders to be precise:








yay goats!

[d1ver]

Sorry had to break it down into so many posts, but you can post more then 9 images per post.

[d1ver]

Yeah my stuff rarely comes without reading material:P




And the crappiest part that I'm actually most proud of Now I know I suck at concept art, but anyway:

[d1ver]

Once again I don't post much stills because that's not what this project was about and hopefully all this production materials will convince you to check out the video(in HD with sound On).

Now if you're interested in all of the shader trickery and technical details that are aplenty in this environment, or concepting and ideation of a project of such scale feel free to check out my making of videos.

It's a bit on the long side, but hopefully you'll get compensated with interesting info for your time.

"Making Of" Videos:

Technical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxFwfZMBxT8

Conceptual:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5ocYJyLcY


Thank you for your attention! I hope you like it.

[Private Tux]

This is very fresh and fantastic art design + the modelling concepts + the video! One of the 'ultimate' rich projects here (like this one), and like the inspiration photos at post #4. Impressive stuffs man!

[DoomTobi]

One of the best UDK scenes I had ever seen. Just awesome!!!

[MOTHERJAVA]

I'm intrigued by this concept. Amazing stuff!!

[Cuplacakes]

Fantastic Work man. I found it an incredibly interesting read as it illuminated a subject that I have always wondered about. I myself often neglect to use a diffuse texture when creating a material that is only a single colour. However, gradient mapping is something I have not tried, and sounds very useful.

[joshua.fontany]

I agree. Really interesting work! Also posting so I can come back and read your technique page in a while.

[Blizzard_Edge]

Outstanding work, and thanks for sharing the making-of information!

[TheAgent]

Very creative and different! Keep it up.

[AlejoS]

Pretty amazing work!! grats!!!

[box-0]

really interesting subject and really well explained, you have a really good point here and the fact that you took your time to write it down and explain it to anyone makes you a legend :P
i'm a big supporter of this way of thinking out of the schemes, going procedural and developing new ways to get better result and not just using higher res textures. kudos to you for this great idea!

[d1ver]

Wow, you guys are all so awesome, I'm sorry I haven't checked this thread for a few days - been busy with something for you.

You are too kind, Tux Android. Thank you.
Btw there are no photos in there. If you are referring to Diary Pages - I threw them together in photoshop. You can tell I did this by the grammar mistakes

Huge thanks, DoomTobi!

I'm glad you are MOTHERJAVA. Feel free to try it out for yourself with what's at the end of this post and also thank you

Huge thanks, Cuplacakes! It is, it is very useful indeed. Feel free to try it out!

Thanks, joshua.fontany. I hope you'll find it useful.

Blizzard_Edge, you're very welcome! I'm glad you like it.

Thank you, TheAgent. I'll try!

Much appreciated, AlejoS

box-0, thank you very much, friend. It's my pleasure to find someone who thinks that way. I do believe that art should be about art and not the tedium of putting every little meaningless detail in, and hopefully someday will have fitting tools for that at our disposal.

And finally, there one thing I wanted to share with you guys...but I can't seem to remember what it is....
...oh yeah, THE MATERIALS!
Click the image to grab them!


There are all kinds of "procedural" materials for you to check out as well as a couple of example textures and meshes. Also there's a .PSD that makes for very smooth gradient map production as it allows you to preview your gradient mapping, normal, specular, damage and diffuse pattern influence right in photoshop! It's like you're painting your gradient map directly in UDK and can immediately see the end result! I've made a little video that will hopefully make things more visual for you:



I hope this will help you guys to do your stuff faster, prettier and more efficient! Though it does take a little getting used to, I can't wait so see what great stuff you awesome people will come up with. Arrrgh

Oh, and just in case, if there's something wrong or I forgot to plug something somewhere - report it here and I'll get it fixed.

Have fun!

[stevelois]

Fantastic project ! Really well done & executed form the concepts to the final result

Love everything in this pure work of art. 7:41 of awesomeness, THX you !

[ambershee]

Thanks for sharing the package! I love disassembling this kind of stuff, and I'm sure others will also find it inspiring.

[DoomTobi]

There is missing one material function in the package, I think.

[UDKStormed]

Great work!!! Thank you for sharing.

[Chosker]

indeed there's something missing in the package. says d1v_ProcMat_Demo.upk is missing which leads to d1v_Desert.Materials.Functions.SpecFromDiffuse to be missing. therefore nothing works

great stuff btw, the kind of technology I like: easy to implement, boosts productivity, looks nice, and optimizes performance

[d1ver]

Wow, stevelois, thank you very much, man. I'm glad you like it

You're most welcome, ambershee, I'm sorry there was a tiny little function missing.

Thank you very much, DoomTobi. You're totally right. I think I fixed it. Feel free to check it out and tell me if I really did

Thanks, UDKStormed. You're welcome!

Thank you for the pointer, Chosker. Made it easier and faster for me to fix. I hope I did - feel free to check it out. I appreciate the kind words, btw.

[geodav]

sometimes i hate living in germany, the video is blocked due to the music

Hey guys have you checked his website AAA if you ask me, i'll check the package tomorrow

[d1ver]

geodav, Germany is a great place to be. Enjoy it I just have to make this link a bit bigger in the original post:
https://vimeo.com/43720484

Cheers!

[stevelois]

A little stopping by to tell you that I just browsed your website, looking at all of what you've made & I'm deeply impress by the quality & the details of your projects !!!

I add 2 of your previous projects (the dock + water mill valley) & I would also add the robot room but there is no video of it (shame because it is also another awesome project)

My blog is dedicated to UT3/UDK & previous UT's. I'm in the Unreal word since 1998 so after seeing so much stuff (private & public) I share everything that I classify to be way above the average like 7/10 to 10/10 stuff. It can be textures, tuts, vids, etc. I love your work & it's all 10/10 from my pov & I'm more than happy to share your project on my blog

THX for showing us your work, it is all fantastic & very inspiring

[geodav]

thank you for the link, loved the video, had a quick look at your material package i'm completely lost but thats nothing new, i'm going to take time to watch the making of videos i hope to learn more about materials

again a fantastic job well done

[d1ver]

Wow, merci beacoup pour vos aimables paroles, stevelois. I feel incredibly humbled by this. I'm very glad you like my work and I endlessly appreciate you sharing it. Thank you very-very much.
You're doing a great work with your blog and I wish you all the best with it

You're very welcome, geodav. Thanks for your kind words!
I hope those additional videos will make things clearer for you. But just in case feel free to post right here if you have some questions that weren't answered there or in the paper.

Viel Glück!

[makan ansari]

I already congratulated you on Eat3D buddy really nice job

[Chosker]

I want to thank d1ver again for such a great concept and work

here's the result of my WIP Master Material applying these new techniques:


As an improvement I did some edge-detection using the HeightMap (GradientMap) texture, which I use as alpha to lerp between what came out of the GradientMapping and an extra "worn out" color. Notice how the bricks in my image are worn out at the edges?

here's how I did it.
EdgeDetection.jpg
oh crap! I forgot to add a red line to indicate an extra "Your UV's" at the input of the topmost "CustomTexture" node.
in any case what matters is that I'm subtracting a 4 UV-offset versions of the heightmap off the original heightmap, then using a Power and then a Multiply node to find the edges of the HeightMap. Then comes the Lerp.

[joshua.fontany]

Andrew, I had a chance to check out your materials webpage. I also just saw that you posted a video and the .pkg files. Awesome.

I am familiar with gradient mapping from GIS (sattilite data & mapping) software. It is common to color-grade the output of various mathematical functions, etc (which usually get output as another heightmap), to make it a bit more readable to the human eye. Your use of the technique to procedurally generate materials is novel, very well thought out, and successfully implemented. Thanks again for sharing your techniques!

[d1ver]

Makan Ansari, thanks, bro. I'm glad you liked it enough to congratulate me twice

Chosker, this is very awesome, man! Kudos to you for getting down and dirty with it. I love where you're going with this! I made myself a little blog where I'm hoping to keep track of how people are going to use proc. mats and feel free to take pride in knowing that you'll be the first one there) Though I'll be extremely busy for around a month so there's nothing to link you to here yet. But when I'll be back I also promise you another way to do what you're doing there.) Also maybe some new tips and trick for gradient mapping and proc. mats.

Cheers!

Hi, Joshua, thank you very much for the kind words. Yeah, gradient mapping is nothing fancy, really, but I'd love to see it help us out in a more direct way and real-time way
And you're very welcome!