R&D 3D handdrawn look

[Falconius]

I don't know why but that ISO shot makes everything looks super flat. Like its a shot of piece of paper with drawings on it rather than a 3d relief. Perhaps it's just the zoom level since the material test one looks 3d. Though the material test one also has a problem in that the darker shading around the forest and the castle thing make them look more substantial than the mountains. Great progress so far, this style looks really good I think.

[Troedel]

Falconius, you are absolut right. I tinkered with the materials a lot trying to improve on that, it was much worse, but there is still much room. It depends very much on th lighting setup. But everytime I change something to improve on the heavy shadows something else breaks. Devil is in the details, as always Thanks for your critique, it´s the only way to make progress.

[Troedel]

I moved on to compositing, cretaed the scroll and border in 3d, too.

hand4.jpg
scroll.JPG

[Falconius]

Oh man, I'm definitely going to take a crack at this sort of thing for my next regional map. It's going very well. I never even thought of doing the secondary things like borders or banners in 3D, though I guess it should be pretty obvious. Although I did consider doing the label texts themselves in 3d for various maps I never got far enough along to test the idea out. I like the mountains peaking up over the top border there.

[Vigilus]

I am really impressed with your work. Can you do sharper mountain peaks too?

[Troedel]

Sry for my late answer, I´m pretty sure I could do sharper mountain peaks. I will give it a shot and post the result

[AaronSchmidt]

This is super cool! I am not a z-brush user but it looks like a good use of it. I likethe way the occlusion works on the mountains but the occluded shadows under the trees are a bit dark.

Do you find this easier than hand drawn?

I imagine a use for this style of map as some sort of video graphic so you can do a camera move around the world.

[jplet]

This is very cool. Are there any plans for a tutorial? I’m primarily a 2D artist but your work here has def piqued my interest in 3D. I’m working on a large-scale map of a continent and trying to get a 3D-esque relief effect on my elevations and terrain is proving tricky.

Also, one thing I’d be curious if you could do with this system you’re working with- your mountains look great, and they have a very Rocky Mountain/Swiss Alps vibe to them, but would you be able to emulate the appearance of the Appalachains? I was reading up on relief drawing recently and saw it mentioned how different they look from the Rockies and I had never realized that before. They’re a totally different sort of mountain! Is that something your system could do? Or would you have to develop a new method to get the appearance right?

[Troedel]

Better late tha never...

@AaronSchmidt This is animateable most certainly but I have not looked into it. Some future project perhaps. Getting the occlusion right was a pita. Is it easier than handdrawn? Depends on your artistic ability. I´ve got to say that a good handdrwan map always will look more authentic. And it is way cheaper . For me it´s the combination of curisity regarding 3D techniques, love of maps and the luxury of not being damned to achieve something sellable. I can wander where I like.

@jplet öhm, I designed those mountains on a whim. But as the handdrawn lines depend on the underlying DEM I would say it´s possible. But recreating correct DEM´s out of nothing is extremly time consuming and, in my opinion, not the way to go for large scale continent maps. If you got a solution let me know...