Level artist, Amir Abdaoui

Cryengine 3 : Overcast lighting study

2012-11-12T05:32:00.003-08:00

All assets are done by myself. Running at 60+ fps, approx 1500 drawcall.

Cloud painting exercise.

2012-11-01T14:42:00.001-07:00

General texturing process

2012-10-13T08:02:00.001-07:00

This is the kind of setup I use when doing textures.

Image download

Snowy landscape test

2012-10-10T16:15:00.002-07:00

Just a quick fly-through over some snowy mountains in Cryengine 3.
The landscape was extended with some moutain models to give the illusion that the terrain is large.
I'm not fully satisfied with the results yet, there is still some work that can be done texturing-wise.

Arenanet environment test

2012-10-10T16:06:00.003-07:00

Arenanet is now accepting applications for internship so I decided to give it a try.
The goal is to model a stylized house while keeping the polycount under 3000 tris and textures under 2x 1024*1024.

I've started to model the house in maya while making sure that all the verts are stitched together for optimal vertex color painting.

The draw back when modeling in this fashion is that the you tend to use more geometry at the intersection of each element leading to higher polycounts.
The house currently has 2864 triangles which is still under the limit.

I've also started to create the individual textures to be used.

These are all made from highpoly sculpts :


Maya viewport

Highpoly sculpts done in mudbox

Some tilable textures (not final)

I'm planning to make a full scene in Cryengine 3 to give the house more value. There will be a video fly-through of the scene which should be kinda similar to the ones I made in the past (landscape presentations).
I'm still brain storming and doing some planning to see what can be made before the deadline.

early scene test (cryengine 3).

Modular stairs model and some textures

2012-08-30T07:35:00.001-07:00

I made this modular stairs set for the forbidden lands level I've been working on for the past months during my free time.
Each model has around 1k tris and they all use the same texture map (2048x2048).

shaded preview (normals, diffuse)

Wires preview (unlit)

Modularity test in Maya

A few tilable textures I made for the shrine I'm planning to build for the forbidden lands :

in-engine texture test

stone wall texture (diffuse + normals)

high-poly floor tiles used for texturing

CE3 : Forbidden lands videos

2012-08-30T07:24:00.005-07:00

In this post I'll be showing some of the early versions of an environment done in cryengine 3.
All the assets are done by myself, the landscape was directly made with the built-in tools of the SDK.

Cave made using the voxel-based sculpting tool (CE3)

Advanced terrain creation techniques

2012-08-30T07:05:00.002-07:00

In this video I'll be demonstrating a different approach for creating your heightmap based terrain in mudbox :

Sorry for the audio quality btw :)

Previously made work for Primal Carnage (Unigine)

2012-08-30T06:37:00.001-07:00

This was some work I did for Lukewarm media back in 2010.
My job was to build the world for this tech demo, I was also lead 3d environment artist at the time.
I did the lighting, landscape and putting together all the assets in the game engine.
Recorded in realtime on my personal computer :

CE3 : Forbidden Lands

2012-08-30T06:30:00.001-07:00

This was one of the first test scenes I made in cryengine 3.
Took me about a day to create the whole thing.
The landscape was made using a procedural approach (worldmachine).

Terrain test video :

I've also made a series of tutorial regarding the creation of terrains for game engines such as Cryengine, UDK or unity.

check out my youtube channel if you wish to watch all the 8 parts of this tutorial.
Link : http://www.youtube.com/user/wenda111287?feature=mhee

Using low poly models to create tilable textures

2012-08-30T06:02:00.003-07:00

In this post I'll talking about how we can take advantage of texture reprojection techniques by either using lit-spheres shader or using xnormal's "bake base texture" feature to create unique textures.

Lets say that we are in a situation where we have created a set of stone models and a few grass patches that we used in our game environment.
At some point you might want to have a flat tilable texture to blend these assets while still having a good texture consistency, color and shape wise.

Well you got two solutions at this point.
Either you go back to the highpoly models you used to create the original assets and then put them together to create your tilable texture.
Or you can save some time and actually use the low poly models to create your tilable texture.

Baking down the diffuse texture of a bunch of low poly models which were put together isn't that much of a problem, the process is basic since it involves just a simple render to texture with a simple plane set a render target.
But on the other hand the normal map extraction can be rather problematic if the models you used are rotated around and placed differently compared to the orientation of your normal maps.

In order to find a workaround to this problem you'll have two different ways of doing this.

Xnormal :

In xnormal you have the option to actually plug the base texture applied on your render source (highpoly model) The base texture could be either a regular image or a tangent space normal map (swizzle coordinates +X,+Y,+Z).
The resulting normal map is then correctly reprojected.

The other way around would be to use a shader method in maya or 3dsmax.
You will need a litsphere shader that can accept normal maps input.

A litsphere

Top down view of a bunch of low poly models put together in maya :
Hardware preview with SSAO filter applied (viewport 2.0)

After applying a cgfx material to the models :

Quick test in maya to see how the extracted texture looks like :

With this technique you can save some precious time and use an almost fully realtime workflow since its a "what you see is what you get".

Links to litsphere shaders :
This shader works with maya only and it was made by Leo Covarrubias (blog.leocov.com)
link for download : https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53969153/litsphere/lcReproject.zip

This is another shader which was designed by myself and Drew Watts (he did the coding)

link for download : https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53969153/litsphere/litsphere_07.cgfx

Using the merge tool in 3dcoat

2012-08-30T05:14:00.001-07:00

In this post I'll be talking about how we can take advantage of the merged tool in 3dcoat's voxel based sculpting system.

The merge tool in 3d coat allows you to merge highpoly model together into a single shape which make things easier for us if we are planning to create a low poly model through decimation.
I works exactly the same way as booleans in 3dsmax or maya for example.
You can easily achieve some very complex models very fast allowing us to save some time.

The goal here is to use some pre-modeled stones and then put them together in 3dcoat to get a single closed mesh.
The traditional approach would have been to put these together in your DCC package and then create your low poly model with a retopology tool such as topogun or with the built-in tools in maya/3dsmax.


3dcoat merging process

After creating your highpoly base mesh, you can then start detailing the mesh with some stencil brushes and add some extra damage.

highpoly mesh detailed

Once you're done detailing your model, you can send it to Meshlab where you'll generate a low poly model by using the Quadric edge-collapse filter (decimation).

A few other models made using the same process

Low poly model test in maya (normal map and AO)

3dcoat can also be used to create tiled meshes or tiled textures in 3d space.
The advantage compared to zbrush's 2dcanvas is that you get a full 3d preview of what your texture looks like when putting together parts that compose your texture/model.

Here is a quick demonstration of how it works :

The technique relies on mesh instancing, which means that every change I do on the original is translated to the other instances of the same mesh allowing me to get a tiled preview.

UDK fantasy environement 1

2012-08-30T04:30:00.004-07:00

In this post I'll be showing some images of a fantasy landscape which I've made in UDK (wip).
Everything in this scene was made by myself, I also used some custom shading techniques to fake out environmental reflections on the landscape and rock formations.
I've also created a custom shader which allowed me to blend the grass models with the terrain color.
Day lighting setup :

Night time setting :

How to blend rock models with terrain :

And here are a few assets I made for the environment :
These textures where made in zbrush using the 2.5d canvas.
I then used the Mrgb grabber to extract the textures.

ground stones texture (zbrush)

cliff texture (zbrush)

The rock models are all using a single 2048x2048 texture (none-overlapping UVs).

Grass texture creation process

2012-08-30T04:00:00.004-07:00

In this post I'll be talking about the different techniques that can be used to create a realistic grass texture.
There are a bunch of ways that you can use to create a vegetation texture which you can then apply on a plane to fake out leaves or blades of grass.

The first technique that comes in mind is photo-sourced texturing where you basically grab a photo of some leaves and then create an alpha for the leaves and rearrange them in photoshop to get your final texture.
While this technique is fast, then resulting normal map generated from the diffuse texture can sometimes be unusable.

Another way of doing things would be to actually model these leaves in maya or 3dsmax (highpoly modeling) with a texture applied to it and then rearrange them to bake out the diffuse/spec and normal map.
Adding an ambient occlusion pass is also highly recommended if you want to add some extra depth to your texture.

On the other hand, mudbox has a really nice feature involving post process filters which can be used to our advantage to save some time.

Lets say that we've created a set of highpoly grass blades and we want to turn these into a texture.
In mudbox you can render out whats on your screen at x4 or x8 the resolution (you can also use custom resolutions if needed).
With the feature mentioned above you can simulate super-sampling by downsizing the final output from mudbox.
Every screengrabs from mudbox comes with a transparency alpha map.

Below is the Highpoly grass model made in Maya :

Screenspace ambient occlusion :

Screenspace normal map filter:

Tweaking the material can also allow you to extract a specular map :

And the final resulting texture combined in photoshop :

The advantage of using a highpoly vegetation model is that you can render out textures from different angles allowing you to make multiple variations of the same texture.

Lets say for instance that I want to create a tilable texture which I will use on my terrain.
In mudbox I can easily do a top-down screengrab which will give me a nice stencil texture that I can use to paint my grass texture :

There is also another quick way for creating these types of textures in maya exclusively.
Maya has a paintFX feature which allows you to procedurally paint objects such as vegetation, clouds etc...
We can very easily paint down a few grass patches in our scene and then render out the final texture in maya with its respective alpha map.


Maya paintFX grass 3d window

Or you can use the paintFX window to directly paint you grass on a 2d canvas.
The image can later on be saved with alpha map stored in it for transparency.
Maya comes with a bunch of paintFX brushes which can be accessed in the Visor.

Grass test in Cryengine 3 SDK :

CE3 grass test (realtime)

Realistic textures to semi-stylized textures

2012-08-30T02:51:00.001-07:00

In this post I'll be talking about the approach I used to add a stylized touch to some tilable textures.

Creating stylized/hand painted textures can be very time consuming but if you are working on a game environment and looking to save some time, then editing photo-sourced textures can allow you to save some of that precious time.

When looking at hand painted textures, the first things that you notice are the exaggerated shapes (in some cases) the color, and shading information which is directly painted on these textures.
Hand-painted textures are useally very simple but very efficient in way that allows the player to directly identify which material is displayed on that texture.

In order to get some of the qualities of a fully hand-painted textures applied on a photo-sourced texture. You will have to edited your texture in photoshop by using some filters and a few brush stocks to exaggerated some features.

Below, you can see the original texture (from cgtextures.com) before editing in photoshop.

And after applying surface blur and edge sharpening filters + some brush strokes to add some highlights around the cracks :

Some more tests in the flowing images showing a before and after editing :

Same technique applied to some sky textures :

In the end this technique showed its-self to be very efficient and fast (around 10 minutes spent on every texture) Spending more time on these could allow to get some better results obviously.

Skybox creation

2012-08-30T02:15:00.003-07:00

In this post I'll be talking about the approach I used to create the sky texture for the floating island environment.

There where multiple approach I could use to create the sky texture.
The first thing that came in mind was to use a procedural approach with Vue to render out a sky texture.
While this method allowed me to get some very realistic looking skies, the render time was extremely long (over 10 hours for a 4096x2048 texture !).
So unless you have a render farm or a set of computers dedicated to do work for you, the Vue approach showed its self to be too slow especially when the results are sometimes unpredictable.

Some sky textures made in Vue :

So I decided to grab a photo-sourced spherical dome texture (cgtextures) and tweaked it a bit in photoshop to give it a bit of a stylized feel to it.


the sky texture used in UDK

This technique was faster and it allowed me to be a bit creative on the artistic side.

Another method which I tried out, was to directly paint the whole texture in mudbox (on a half sphere).
The approach show it-self to be very fast and I had a lot of control over the outcome of the final texture.


Skydom creation in mudbox


some handpainted stencils used to paint the sky texture

Break down of the floating island

2012-08-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

In the post, I will do a quick break-down of how the floating island was made.

There where multiple approaches available to make such a large model.
The first one that comes in mind, would have been to directly model the whole thing in your 3d package (maya, 3dmax etc...) and then assign multiple materials on the mesh (in this case : grass and rock).
While the method previously mentioned is fast and efficient performance wise, you would end up getting some seams around the areas where the material changes from grass to rock for example.
A viable solution for that would have been to cover up the seams with some decals. But it really all depends of how much the player can see of the underlaying area of the floating island.

I wanted to achieve a technically seamless terrain so I had to use a more expensive approach.
I used a highpoly to lowpoly approach commonly called next-gen modeling (now called current-gen).
I sculpted the entire island in 3dcoat and then added some fine detail in mudbox.

Blocking out the main shapes in 3d-coat

I used 3dcoat to quickly create a block-out of the island. The reason why I used 3dcoat was because it has a very powerful voxel based sculpting system which allows you to sculpt without having to worry about the polygonal topology of the mesh.

After doing the blockout of the mesh, I exported the model as a dense quads mesh to mudbox where I added the final details.


Mudbox sculpting

When the fine detail scutlping was done, I then quickly created a low poly version through decimation in Meshlab.


Low poly model with normal map and AO baked

I used xnormal to bake down the normal map and ambient occlusion at 4096x4096 resolution.

Later on, I used mudbox's ability to directly paint the texture on the model.

The floating island

2012-08-30T01:34:00.003-07:00

This was a project I started working on a few months ago on UDK (unfinished).
The goal was to create a fantasy environment on a floating island.

I spent a lot of time trying to create a fast process allowing me to achieve paintry texture through photoshop filters. (mostly using surface blur and edge detection).

The whole island has 2 UV sets, the first one was used to bake down the detail (normal map and ambient occlusion map) from which I create the diffuse texture which you can see on these screenshots.
The secondary UV channel was made in a way that would allow me to use seamless tiled texturing.
In the end, I would then overlay the color map (from the 1st UV channel) on the gray scale tilable textures stored in the RGB channels of a single texture (to save some texture memory) in order to get the final detailed texture.

Quick test when overlaying the color texture over some gray scale detail textures.

2012-08-30T01:15:00.001-07:00

Hey there !
I decided to open up this blog to post the progress regarding my work since I don't have my portfolio yet.
I'll try to keep this blog up-to-date as much as I can and put some useful information regarding the process involving some of my creations.