WC4 level art

[rober artua]

Hi all. I have decided to make my own version of WC4 level environment on sc2 engine. My main inspiration and reference is the upcoming Heroes of the storm game. So I will try to get as close as possible to it in terms of art style. Of course I am not planning to just copy everything from them as it is kind of pointless since you will probably get your hands an all of their assets as soon as the game will be released. However, the terrain part will be very close to theirs as I love how it looks.

So here is my first grass texture and I am working on second one. Next will be sand terrain and then pine trees.
I am working very slowly and only in my spare time which I have very little. So this will be a long run project but in the end I am planning to release a map full of custom doodads and terrain textures made completely from scratch.

here are some first screens of the terrain.

PS. the footman model is done by Triceron

 

[Dr Super Good]

You may want to set your graphics to extreme when taking in-game shots. Either that or your have your light set so that the units do not produce visible shadows.

 

[rober artua]

Do you know how to set shadows in the editor ? Because this is just a screengrab from the editor. I dont have the game atm and it is not possible to test the level with starter edition.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I dont have the game atm and it is not possible to test the level with starter edition.

As far as I am aware starter edition has unlimited access to Arcade.

Do you know how to set shadows in the editor ?

Under preferences.

Here is an example of what it should look like at Extreme. Notice the shadows. Also notice how less flat the ground looks.

Do note you need a DX10 or higher compliant video card to use maximum settings. Anything less cannot produce SC2 at maximum quality.

It is impossible to do art for SC2 unless you run it at Extreme at least to test it. I know a number of badly made models that were created by people running on low and when used at extreme looked rubbish (glowed a bright colour or were just block filled with a single colour). Most of the graphical powers of SC2 are only used at the higher visual settings.

 

[rober artua]

when I press test dosument in the sc2 editor I get this message

Maybe there is another way to test my map ?

Anyway thx for the info about preferences.

 

[Dr Super Good]

when I press test dosument in the sc2 editor I get this message

You could always buy the game, I mean if you plan to invest several hundred hours making a map it does seem kind of fair... The free arcade is aimed at players and not developers. I mean you had to pay for WC3 before you could do anything with it, at least they let you mess around for free.

If you have paid for it then it should not give you that error (report it on their forums as a bug).

The editor reproduces in game visuals pretty accurately. As long as you have it set to ultra/extreme it should be fine to judge models.

 

[Solu9]

Now I don't have SC2 but when that editor is way more powerful than the WC3 one, I would be surprised if there isn't a "show lightning/shadows" function or a "render shadows".

Edit:
That grass looks really nice.

 

[PurgeandFire]

That looks pretty incredible. I can't see any seams, and yet it still has great tile variation. Good luck on the project! It is great to see you modding.

 

[rober artua]

Ok. Got the game and set it for the extreme resolution.

Here one more pic of the grass. There are actually two grass textures blended together. I will probably make some changes to it later but for now I ll move on to the soil texture.

PS. I hope this is correct now for uploading the images ?

 

[Solu9]

Shiat... looks amazing man.

Oh by the way. Can you throw hidden tags around the picture or upload it as an attachment instead?

 

[Dr Super Good]

It looks very blury and flat. Are you sure the bump map is done correctly?

 

[rober artua]

Good point Dr Super Good. I just noticed that when I take a screenshot it looks a lot blurry than in the game. So here I increased the normal map effect a bit. Also I should say it again that I am going with the Heroes of The storm art style and their grass is flat and blurry at some parts. I think it is a good way to go because it will not distract player from the characters.

Here is my new screen and also Heroes of the storm screenshot just to compare

 

[rober artua]

update

finished soil texture. This one is heavy detailed the second one will be less.

 

[Avex]

Oh my god those textures are to die for.

 

[Heinvers]

wow. those looks.

 

[rober artua]

Ok I am back from holiday and I am almost finished with the pine trees. Here is ingame pic. The ground textures are now quite desaturated compared to the trees and I will fix that. Also need to edit the spec of the trees a bit and make some variations.

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Nice DOTA2!

 

[Idaero Ace]

LOL I never thought that StarCraft have a damn good graphic....
Looks cool! Maybe I should download it... I'm a pirate!

 

[Avex]

Better speed up though. There are some people taking the modding tools of DotA2 to make a "WarCraft" spiritual successor.

Should add, it looks fuckin' fantastic.

 

[rober artua]

Better speed up though. There are some people taking the modding tools of DotA2 to make a "WarCraft" spiritual successor.

Should add, it looks fuckin' fantastic.

Yeah I am trying to do it faster but its quite hard since I work full time. Anyway, if there will be a good wc3 mod in dota2 engine then it is always possible to port my models to dota2 =)

 

[BlinkBoy]

LOL I never thought that StarCraft have a damn good graphic....
Looks cool! Maybe I should download it... I'm a pirate!

Just get the Starcraft 2 Starter Edition. You get all you need for free: Arcade, map editor, free custom games. Just no Campaign and ladder.

 

[LordDz]

Just get the Starcraft 2 Starter Edition. You get all you need for free: Arcade, map editor, free custom games. Just no Campaign and ladder.

when I press test dosument in the sc2 editor I get this message

Maybe there is another way to test my map ?

Anyway thx for the info about preferences.

just throwing this here

 

[BlinkBoy]

probably that's to avoid starter edition players from executing campaign maps. I think thta maps must be tested through private publishing.

 

[rober artua]

Ok forest is here. I did some tree variations and now I am moving to the next things which are stone terrain texture and house doodads.

 

[Vinz]

This looks awesome. The model in particular.

 

[Avex]

Super stoked, you have my support.

 

[Zzonehardy]

My goodness this is beautiful, i'm supporting this comepletely,

You will update the UI yes? I know you are working on textures right now, but just throwing that out there.

Is this a single project or are you making a legit warcraft IV, if so do you need campaign ideas? if so I have a knack for lore and would be honored to help out! Even if not I still support this... looks sexy keep it up!

 

[rober artua]

My goodness this is beautiful, i'm supporting this comepletely,

You will update the AI yes? I know you are working on textures right now, but just throwing that out there.

Is this a single project or are you making a legit warcraft IV, if so do you need campaign ideas? if so I have a knack for lore and would be honored to help out! Even if not I still support this... looks sexy keep it up!

Well as the topic states it is all about level art. I know how to do art since its my job but I have almost 0 experience in coding or programming things. My goal is to make a basic level art which has wc4/ heroes of the storm art style. As soon as I get plenty of stuff done I will publish it here as one map/mod for everyone's use.

Here is my to do list for now:

-roman stone pavement (terrain)
-human houses (doodads)
-alliance stone statues (doodads)
-cliffs(terrain)
-vegetation(doodads)
-stone bridge
- grass texture and soil texture fixes

P.S. I will add more stuff to this list as soon as I get all this done and if you have any suggestion about good useful doodads then let me know !

 

[Zzonehardy]

So you didn't make the footman? Or am I just seeing this all wrong, either way the grass looks great! Thanks for sharing!

 

[rober artua]

The footman is just a placeholder model to give it a feel of warcraft universe and it is not done by me. My goal is terrain and doodads. I have mentioned about the footman in the first thread. "PS. the footman model is done by Triceron " Basically I have done grass, soil and trees for now. I am working on stone texture atm.

Sorry for making it so complicated to understand.

PS. there are a lot of converted wc3 models available for sc2 modders here

http://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/warcraft-footman-model/

 

[Zzonehardy]

Lol I don't think you made it complecatied I think it's that I didn't read this thread completely anyway Good job

 

[rober artua]

Update.

I am slowly working on the map. I finished some huge plates for terrain texture. Also remastered elwynn farm houses. I did it so that most of the parts are tileable textures and you will be able to build many variations from it. It is like lego =)

PS. just to mention, the footman and the gui is not done by me, everything else is.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The scale of the houses is wrong compared with the footman. Unless they are meant to be dwarven houses...

 

[rober artua]

The scale is the one thing I am still thinking of. For instance, wc3 peasant is almost as tall as a farm house which is wrong too but it looks quite ok to me at least. Then again, Heroes of the storm houses are bigger than peasants but smaller than some of the creeps. Good thing is that the scale can be adjusted very easily.

Here is another example of scale

---Edit---

I have also attached some wip images for those who are interested in the making process

base done in max
sculpted high details in zbrush
baked with xnormal
painted with 3d coat and ps

 

[Dr Super Good]

One suggestion would be to animate the windows so they have a day and night version (with maybe some actor support to change over automatically). During the day it makes no sense for bright lights to be coming out of them (they should appear dark as the ambient is much brighter). At night on the other hand they should glow and be visible (the ambient is much darker). This would be a cool little detail that some people might enjoy.

 

[rober artua]

yeah good one. I will think about it but first I would like to finish the static art and then I could try to add some moving stuff like the window glow and probably smoke from the pipes.

 

[Heinvers]

Might be a good idea to show some animated lanterns too after you get the houses done.

 

[Celaquil]

Well, this is great.

If you ever get done with this, you might just open up Sc2 for us terrainers.
Although, we'd still lack the essential must-have stuff like glow, alpha tiles,
flares... And, well. A decent sky and fog editor.

 

[Heinvers]

As for the alpha tile, you can actually hide the terrain mesh by default in sc2. The rest is true though ;~;

 

[Dr Super Good]

In Heroes of the Storm (possibly LotV as well, not sure about SC2 2.0) it is possible to have models with physically animated parts. These are not deterministic but are interacted with by any model that does have a physics presence. For example if your hero is on a mount and walks under a hanging lantern you will knock the lantern which will then swing like a pendulum.

Using such features for key items (maybe signs, etc) could add some fine detail. Especially if it works with wind you could have visual queues that it is windy etc.

 

[BlinkBoy]

In Heroes of the Storm (possibly LotV as well, not sure about SC2 2.0) it is possible to have models with physically animated parts. These are not deterministic but are interacted with by any model that does have a physics presence. For example if your hero is on a mount and walks under a hanging lantern you will knock the lantern which will then swing like a pendulum.

Using such features for key items (maybe signs, etc) could add some fine detail. Especially if it works with wind you could have visual queues that it is windy etc.

That's already on Sc2. It's called partial ragdolls. Just rig a ragdoll to the lamp and make it interact with the enviroment.

 

[rober artua]

That's already on Sc2. It's called partial ragdolls. Just rig a ragdoll to the lamp and make it interact with the enviroment.

Thats really cool! I will try to use this stuff when I get the art part done. By the way, is there something similar to a sway effect ? So like if I make a flag and I want it to have basic sway kind of movement. Is it possible within the engine ?

Any way, I decided to make a small video tutorial about how I do these assets. Here is the concept of the object I will be doing for this tutorial.

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Where do you get those textures?

 

[BlinkBoy]

Thats really cool! I will try to use this stuff when I get the art part done. By the way, is there something similar to a sway effect ? So like if I make a flag and I want it to have basic sway kind of movement. Is it possible within the engine ?

Any way, I decided to make a small video tutorial about how I do these assets. Here is the concept of the object I will be doing for this tutorial.

There are 4 ways to do it:

1st Again with partial ragdolls setting the physics elements to be affected by wind channel. This is pretty much how Valla's cape works in Heroes of the Storm, before cloth physics were introduced. It also isn't very accurate.

2nd Classic animation techniques, like aplying a cloth simulator and then baking vertex animations (NeoDex's VA baker does the job). this one is precise but clearing it up can be hard, I've done it once and I really regret going that path.

3rd Doing a simple IK Limb rigg in 3dsmax and then animating with all helpers selected and using rotation affecting pivot instead of group.

4th waiting for Sc2 LotV and applying cloth physics constraints. This feutures is not implemented in Sc2 HotS.

Where do you get those textures?

If you look at his website he's college student specialized on 3d art. So he makes everything himself. Is weird to see professional artists around the modding community. i think he should send his resume to blizzard entertaiment, he has skills for actualy working there.

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Okay I looked at the site now, still not convinced he made all those textures himself, they look like studio level stuff.

Edit: Guess I just gotta believe it..

 

[rober artua]

There are 4 ways to do it:

1st Again with partial ragdolls setting the physics elements to be affected by wind channel. This is pretty much how Valla's cape works in Heroes of the Storm, before cloth physics were introduced. It also isn't very accurate.

2nd Classic animation techniques, like aplying a cloth simulator and then baking vertex animations (NeoDex's VA baker does the job). this one is precise but clearing it up can be hard, I've done it once and I really regret going that path.

3rd Doing a simple IK Limb rigg in 3dsmax and then animating with all helpers selected and using rotation affecting pivot instead of group.

4th waiting for Sc2 LotV and applying cloth physics constraints. This feutures is not implemented in Sc2 HotS.



If you look at his website he's college student specialized on 3d art. So he makes everything himself. Is weird to see professional artists around the modding community. i think he should send his resume to blizzard entertaiment, he has skills for actualy working there.

I see. I know one technique in the trine engine where it is possible to make a procedural looping animation by just editing the values of the "sway" component. So you can make changes directly in the engine by adding different values. It will then move vertexes of the object in a looping way. So I guess the vertexes are coded somehow. It is really simple and a ncie feature. You can then apply it to what ever obects . Like trees, signs, lanterns...

trine engine
http://steamcommunity.com/games/35720/announcements/detail/147816647670646098

@Zzonehardy, I am working at Frozenbyte studio here in Helsinki for two years now.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Okay I looked at the site now, still not convinced he made all those textures himself, they look like studio level stuff.

Edit: Guess I just gotta believe it..

If you move outside the little microcosm of the Hive, you'll find that there are immensely talented individuals creating art like this. Check out http://www.polycount.com/forum/ for starters.

In either case, great looking art Rober Artua. Keep it up!

 

[PurgeandFire]

Man, these assets look amazing. Hopefully you'll keep us updated, I'd love to see as many updates as possible!

 

[rober artua]

Thanks man! I am actually working on a video tutorial where I will try to describe the whole process of creating these type of assets for sc2 engine.

 

[Vinz]

Very nice, those latest pictures.