Day: April 21, 2019

3D Map Generator – ATLAS, TERRAIN & GEO

While completing my own experiment with height map made from an Google Earth image, I came across a Photoshop plugins, that help to generate those maps. It seems to be a very useful tool, which helps a lot whit the process. I know that not many GAME environment artists use height maps for a base of heir levels, but these software may allow them to start doing so.

Although the different versions of this plugin are on the market for a while, the most recent version gain a huge interest recently. The company advertise their software as a game-changing products for creating professional and high-quality maps in no time, so the industry started to put some interest into that.

The example of ‘hot it works’ image from the official website

The plugins are suppose to generate a grayscale height maps and it looks like it’s doing a job pretty well. The images provided by the official website are really impressive. However, not many of them provided a close up of how the actual terrain looks like. This is an important factor for the game designers, less for other artists, so probably that’s the main reason behind it. Even if there is something wrong with the actual density of the close up geometry, I believe this could be easily edited inside the Unreal Engine 4.

A comment provided by the used of the plugin

The software seem to add seamless textures to the terrain as well. I’m not exactly sure how would that work for the game environment, but I hope it could be used in the game at the end.

Would this plugin change the entire process of creating the levels in games? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely worth trying out. However it’s not a free software and have its price (not that high), it may become a time saving tool for any artists.

A comment provided by the used of the plugin

REFERENCE LIST:

3D Map Generator, (2018), Available at: https://www.3d-map-generator.com/ (Accessed: 20 April 2019)

Envato Market, (2019), Reviews for 3D Map Generator – Atlas – From Heightmap to real 3D map, Available at: https://graphicriver.net/item/3d-map-generator-atlas-from-heightmap-to-real-3d-map/reviews/22277498?page=2 (Accessed: 20 April 2019)

Horizon Zero Dawn

This game is amazing on many levels, but the most beautiful part of it was the environment itself. While playing the game, I was so amazed with the world created by the developers, that I sometimes forget about main objectives. That’s my main reason why I’ve decided to focus my research on this game, as I really love the work they’ve put into it to create this vast and divers world.

I was surprised to see that many plants were made from an actual geometry rather just simple plain shapes. The base of each leaf has its own tube-like base to go with. Most of the games use low polygon alpha planes for the plants like these. In Horizon Zero Dawn even the smaller plants on the ground had their own geometry.

Another interesting point was, that most of the trees had some plants growing on their sides. This gave a nice effect of a fully-grown jungle and add to the realism. I’ve also noticed that most of the materials have been using an effect called a ‘subsurface colour’, which affected in a more realistic shading effect.

On the other hand, the trees and plants weren’t that carefully placed, so many leaves were overlapping with others. This slightly destroyed the effect of the realistic environment, but it’s only a small downside to the entire amazing effect.

The game run in a day and night circle as well as has multiple weather conditions, so the materials responds to those with appropriate effect. During the rain the leaves were appropriately shiny to give an effect of wetness. This gave me a better understanding on how I wan my own leaves to looks like if I decide to have a rainy weather.

The game have also multiple interior environments (which I don’t have screenshots of), which could have also influence my own design. However, most of the interiors was so destroyed by the nature, that it probably wouldn’t perfectly suit my own idea (my lab will only be abandoned for few days). This is why I haven’t focused on that area of the game for my research.

REFERENCE LIST:

Horizon Zero Dawn, (2017), Sony Playstation 4 [Game]. Sony Interactive Entertainment.