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I have finished my research, quick essay writting and it's good to go. I thought I would share the final environment, I created the whole using dDo and nDo2 only. Due to some unfortunate (well for the uni stuff, but getting a job might not be as unfortunate) events I spent only 5 days together on building this scene, so PCG really proved its value for me. It is always hard to make accurate guesses but I would say if I had to build this in Zbrush it would have taken at least double the time or even more depending on the problems during the process. And there are always much more problems with a more complicated process.

Also, the Messiah hasn't come as Quixel Suite hasn't been released yet. Although they released a new video, that proves that it will be brutal. I just got a job, why do I have to lose it immediately??? Okay, that might not be the case, but it is sure that it will be piece of cake to make awesome looking assets with it.

Comparison 2

I chose my old Impala to make a new version of it in dDo. It turned out to be even more amazing than I expected. In under just 2 hours it is already lightyears from the original.

Comparison

I decided that I need some sort of comparison, but sadly I don't have time to create two assets from the ground using sculpting. So I will use one of my old assets and try to recreate it in dDo and nDo2.

Door

Ddo is amazing, it gives an incredible boost to the workflow.








The only problem was figuring out how the colour map works. This map is contains simple colours which are read by the program and it decides what material to use for each block of colour. All the tutorials showed how to set and bake the colour in the modeling package but that wasn't working for me. I had to figure out on my own that I can simply draw the colours in photoshop and that still works.

After this it was simple, I just clicked the templates, that gave plenty of effects that I was able to tweak. Also I could add more effects as I wish. Then it's just hitting export and it bakes all the necessary maps.

I also finished a door and a doorframe for the scene.

First wall asset

First wall piece! 

Substance designer and Ddo

Well Substance Designer is a one though program to use. The lack of learning materials won't help either. I think I will deal with dDo instead. It was hard to crack too, but after a while working with it is rather smooth.

I also decided to merge this research with the Spatial Construct submission where I have to make a 3D environment. This will be the perfect playground to test out the new programs.

I also figured out that some of the high end companies also started to use these kind of workflows. DICE also used dDo in creating the weapons in Battlefield 3 and 4.

No more New stuff... but at least more PCG

I have looked into the world of Procedural Content Generation. There are actually more stuffs out there than I was aware of. I knew SpeedTree and WorldMachine but there is a company called Allegorithmic specialised for the kind of stuff I'm interested in: procedural and node based texture creation FTW!

I also looked further into dDo, I think I have to try these out immediately.

New Directions

I have talked with Chris Lowthorpe and he mentioned that my research lacks depth and meaning. He helped me to find new questions. I'm really interested in the new texturing workflows offered by Quixel's nDo2 and dDo so I will probably look into them more.

Also, I was working on the low poly version of the car with baked normal maps prior to this and although it isn't that relevant any more I still wanted to share it.

It is in a rather rough stage, it could be iterated for a few times until it can be used anywhere.

New design

I decided to redesign the car as I was too plain and boring to be a portfolio piece and also it wouldn't help me reach the depth of hard surface modeling in Zbrush.

I also endend up using 3DS Max for some of the pieces. Zbrush is unmatching tool for subtractive modeling, but for more coherent pieces it is easier an faster in Max. But the ultimate difference is in the iteration capability, once you have done something in Zbrush it is rather hard to go back and make changes unlike in Max. One example for this is the brake wing above the front engine.