3D Graphics

The free .fga vector fields work fine with PopcornFX

3D Graphics, Game Effects, PopcornFX / By

Be advised the scale of the vector fields in this pack should be around .01 or so. If your vector field appears odd, try tweaking the overall scale and magnitude of the fields. The orientation of the vector fields may also need to be adjusted, -90 on the x axis should do it. 

PKFX has a very nice vector field visualizer, but some fiddling around is probably going to be needed since each one of these vector fields was built for other purposes and on a different platform.

Once you get dialed in, however, these .fga vector fields are great.

NPR Final Touches

2D Graphics, 3D Graphics, Unreal / By

It’s wrapping up, I’ve added all the bells and whistles – Ambient Occlusion, Depth fading, Image Adjustment, etc. Highlights can now be dialated or eroded. Support for separate outlines of normals. Presets and clean menus. I think this shader is about done.

The shader allows for a pretty broad array of looks, from architectural sketches to classic toon shading. Below is an example of a more painterly rendering.

Here are some presets:

NPR Shading Continued

2D Graphics, 3D Graphics, Game Effects, Unreal / By

I’m continuing to refine the NonPhotoRealistic (NPR) sketch post-process in Unreal. This is using completely different methods now, I’ve changed the method of convolution edge detection for outlines, and am using world-aligned sketch texturing in the shadow and highlight regions.

The background is also given a custom color and texture. The light source is defined through any number of unreal lights.

There is now support for sketchy highlights and varying line colors, and much better response to light. Ideally the post process would support variation in outline width, although I don’t have a good method for that yet.

There are options to use procedural line, dot and crosshatching for a more comic/newsprint look.

The results are very solid and smooth in motion, with no temporal swimming or distractions. I see this shader being ideal for architectural stylization and general NPR usage. 

To get a more chalk-like effect with ink outlines I take this post process and combine it with an NPR painterly process which applies brushstrokes on the image in world space. Here’s the result:

Heightmaps for Unreal

3D Graphics, Environment, Game Effects / By

I’ve released 25 terrain/landscape maps for the unreal marketplace. These are intended to act as starting points for environmental projects, hopefully people will find them useful. All heightmaps are of course made in Houdini, and tend to be several miles across.

The most interesting thing about this project was creating the procedural material in unreal which textures large environments based on criterial like slope, height etc. This project is over 10 gigs of assets!

In all, this was a very fun project, and very rewarding work. I can’t wait to see what people do with these heightmaps.

Niagara Game Effects

2D Graphics, 3D Graphics, Game Effects, Niagara / By

I did a little job for a studio in Prague recently which consisted of a series of “spell” effects for a RPG. I can’t show any of those effects of course but along the way I made a number of other interesting little Niagara effects, here are a few:

The images below are a mixed bag, design wise. But they were fun to make. Oddly the brief was to make effects which were baked down into spritesheets, for a mobile release. It was strange, but it did allow me to up some particle counts and rely less on billboards in Niagara. I’m not sure I like the look but it was nice to be able to explore Niagara in this way.