Blue Green Rock

Project

This time, I will share some ideas about sculpting stylized stones in ZBrush and texturing with Substance Painter.
With these techniques, we can create more artistic surface effects on stones.

Software

• ZBrush
• Maya
• Marmoset Toolbag 4
• RizomUV
• Unreal Engine

References

There was no fixed original design for creating this stylized stone, as we had previously made too many realistic-style stones.

This time, inspiration came from the photographic memories in my brain and a combination of the game “Genshin Impact” and the most important factor, Studio Ghibli animated movies.

I believe the beauty of Studio Ghibli’s style lies in its unique artistic style and emotional expression. Their works often feature dreamlike visuals and colors, full of romance and fantasy, while also expressing deep emotions and human contemplation.

The beauty of this style immerses the audience deeply in the story, producing strong resonance and emotional experiences.

Furthermore, Studio Ghibli’s works emphasize the natural environment and ecological preservation, prompting the audience to reflect on the relationship between humans and nature, which is also an important aspect of its beauty.

I often observe and remember their characteristics, making it easy for me to recall their unique style.

HighPoly

I have summarized the important characteristics of artistic stones: naturalness is key, and the traces of manual polishing should not be too obvious, otherwise, it will appear unnatural.

Do not make the stone look like the result of Boolean operations. In addition, do not use alpha randomly at the beginning, as this will make your model uncontrollable. I will start with a simple box and then focus on adjusting the silhouette relationship of the object’s shape.

A good silhouette can better reflect the object’s spatial and three-dimensional sense, and further enhance the visual impact and attractiveness of the object.

During the sculpting process, we should always remember a principle, that is, to start with the whole and then handle the details after the large parts are okay.

This is because in the carving process, the whole and the details are interdependent, and the completeness and accuracy of the whole will directly affect the performance of the details.

Therefore, when carving, we should gradually advance, first, ensure the stability and accuracy of the whole, and then gradually delve into the more detailed parts to achieve the final perfect effect.

During the production process, I have summarized some rules as shown in the following figure:

1. Avoid multiple routes intersecting with each other.
2. Avoid overly uniform structures and break parallel relationships.

The brushes used for high-poly sculpting are almost always completed with TrimSmoothBorder, resulting in a high-poly effect.

The brushes used for high-poly sculpting are almost always completed with TrimSmoothBorder, resulting in a high-poly effect.

In the part of creating the high-poly model, I recorded a video which you can watch on YouTube. If you like it, you can subscribe to my channel where I will share more tutorials in the future. Thank you!

Texturing

Before creating texture maps, it is necessary to have a certain understanding of color basics, including the relationships between complementary, contrasting, and similar colors, as well as the effects of brightness, saturation, and other attributes on color relationships.

The proportion and distribution of different colors in the image should be coordinated to avoid overly simplistic or cluttered color combinations.

Balance can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the number of certain colors. Adding different levels of brightness and darkness, as well as color layers, can make the image more vivid and three-dimensional.

Enhancing the sense of layering can be achieved by adding elements such as shadows and highlights. I have chosen images from Studio Ghibli animation films and real-life photos as color references.

When creating stylized textures, I usually spend a lot of time observing the color perception in the Base Color layer. This step is crucial for me because it helps me understand the colors I am using more accurately.

By carefully observing and analyzing, I can ensure that my texture has the desired visual effects and style. Therefore, I believe that this step is essential when creating any type of stylized texture.

I will use a medium gray background color close to 0.6 so that it will not overexpose when lighting.

Now, use Position to generate a gradient and darken the area where the stone meets the ground.
This will add a sense of volume to the bottom.

Add a conversational color at the bottom.

The following is the most crucial step: creating a light generator is a very important step.
By giving the light generator a warm hue, the color and structural relationship between the top and sides can be immediately opened up.

Next, let me introduce a new generator, which also has a warm color tone.
Connect the top and upper parts of the side to add a middle tone.

Next, fill in a texture to enrich the stone blocks and body blocks, and erase any unwanted parts.

Next, let me introduce a new generator and highlight some subtle changes on the side. I will also add a blur slope filter, which will be used frequently later on.

It can produce strokes similar to those in Studio Ghibli’s style very well.

Here, I added a warm color and adjusted the transparency of the layer to 25% to make it a bit deeper and create a gray tone, which I think works well.

This is to prepare for adding a bright color later on.

Let’s apply a gradient fill with 15% opacity below.
This will create new color changes in the top and bottom sections.

Create a new fill layer to mimic smaller stone block surfaces, and apply the “blur slope” filter to simulate the random bumps and roughness of the stone surface, making the fill layer appear more natural.

To make the stone edges more realistic, I used some special production methods. First, I used a Curvature generator to create the stone edges.

Then, I further processed them using blur slope and warp filters to give them a worn effect. In this way, I successfully obtained a very good stone edge effect.

This kind of stone edge looks very realistic and can enhance the realism and texture of the entire scene.

Finally, I used a new generator to create the color blocks for the moss. I made two layers, the first one in a dark green color and the second one in a brighter yellow-green color.

This made the effect more realistic and made the entire model look more natural. With this, I completed the creation of this texture.

In addition, I will export the models and textures to Marmoset Toolbag 4 for simple lighting effect tests, with the aim of testing the effects of various texture layers under lighting.

Although this process may seem cumbersome, it is extremely important. By continuously adjusting and testing, I will reduce or remove poor layer effects.

Therefore, when making textures, it is important to value lighting effect testing and adjustment in order to achieve better results.

Here are some of my testing processes:

Finally, I imported the model and texture into Unreal Engine and applied the simplest material.

By modifying the direction, color, and angle of the lighting, I tested some of the following effects.

Because I wanted to make this stone reusable, I found that the gradient color was too heavy.
I adjusted the intensity of the gradient color and removed the color intensity on the right side of the image.

Finally, some new combinations were made by moving, scaling, and rotating this small stone.

Conclusion

My sharing ends here. If you have any questions after reading this article, please feel free to contact me, and I will answer them as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to GamesArtist for contacting me to write this article. Thank you.