I’m back yet again, with more tutoring stuff for CryEngine3, this time around something aimed at artists and for those who want to master the CryEngine3 Material Editor.

Materials has always been a topic that I’m extremely found of, there’s something awesome about going in there and fiddling with the shader and the material editor to get to that specific look you’re aiming for. In this videos, we’ll cover a wide range of materials, from metalic, to wood, cloth, etc, covering every little step of the way, from setting up the material, painting a basic texture, and further tweaks of the material to make it look pimp!
I also cover a few extra things that I’m sure it will help a lot of people, stuff like using an edge decal texture to get rid of ugly hard edges, scrolling textures, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Decals, etc.

Check out Eat3D’s post about the whole bundle with more info, and detailed description of each video:
http://eat3d.com/blog/eat-3d/3-new-dvd-releases-cryengine-3-materials-vol-1-3-introduction-and-application

I want to thank Manuel “katzeimsack” Virks for inspiring me to do this tutorials in the first place, he’s one of the most talented folks I ever worked with, check out his website!

Volume 1:

- Getting Started and Folder Structure
- Overview of the UI
- Customizing the editor
- Viewports
- A quick look at entities
- Overview at panels
- Working with objects
- Your first level – Terrain
- Your first level – Lighting the scene
- Your first level – Terrain
- Your first level – Modeling the terrain
- Your first level – Detailing and painting the terrain
- Your first level – Adding Vegetation
- Your first level – Vegetation details
- Your first level – Detail brush placement
- Your first level – Environment tab
- Your first level – Fog Volumes
- Your first level – Water Volumes
- Your first level – Terrain

Volume 2:

- Your first level – Particles
- Your first level – Boids and Visual Dynamics
- Your first level – Decals and Roads
- Your first level – Prefabs and Archetypes
- Your first level – Doors
- Your first level – Ropes
- Your first level – Sounds
- Your first level – Layers and Organization
- Your first level – Solids
- Your first level – Creating a cave with voxels
- Your first level – VizAreas
- Your first level – Environment cubemaps
- Your first level – Clouds
- Your first level – Detailed lighting

Volume 3:

- Creating a simple interior level
- Creating and adding custom decals
- Creating and adding custom roads
- Creating and adding custom terrain layers and textures
- Deferred Lighting
- Lightbox
- Environment Cubemaps and Probes
- Custom terrain heightmap
- CryTIFF Exporter
- Materials
- Advanced Vegetation
- Creating a prop – Modeling and preparation
- Creating a prop – Materials and Textures
- Creating a prop – Proxy and LODs
- Creating a prop – Material variations and Tips
- Particles overview

I didn’t mention how to instal the exporter plugins in this tutorial, if you know how to, it’s very well documented in the CryDev SDK confluence page, just follow the link: http://sdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC3/Installing+Exporter+Plugins

PS. In the end of the tutorial, I forget to mention the LOD debug command, which is e_debugdraw3 (You’ll see a 1/3 on the objects pivot, meaning you are currently seeing LOD 1 out of 3)

Inspired by the awesome art from Scott Robertson, and made specially for the Eat3D HighPoly vehicle modeling competition, here’s my entry.

Here’s my thread if you’d like to see the WIP’s: http://eat3d.com/forum/contests-and-challenges/high-poly-vehicle-helder-pinto

And the original concept art:

Inspired by the beautiful concept art of Brink (Splash Damage) here’s my recreation of the Ceutaur Defusal bot they got in the game; since I wanted to try out  and practice a few different workflow practices of hard-surface modelling, I decided to go with an already established design that I knew it would work.

Started with a block out to try and get the proportions right, then moved to the high poly, this process took me around a week, and another week of work for the LP, UV and texture; finally I decided to put it on CE3 and take a few screenshots inside the editor.

The whole thing has around 15 000 tris, and it’s using a 2048 set for the body, and a 1024 tillable texture for the tracks. (Difuse, Spec, and Gloss)

Low Poly (~15k tris)

Both the body, and the tracks has got a normal map (The tracks are using a subtle height map too), spec and gloss. Bellow I posted the Diffuse and Spec for the body. (Skipping the other maps as they’re pretty standard)