Anonymous at Sat, 23 Apr 2022 02:53:02 UTC No. 893323

Its all because of their engine. They didnt use unreal, much to the disbelief of all you NPC's following along at home

Anonymous at Sat, 23 Apr 2022 04:57:13 UTC No. 893325

>>893322
Yes, doesnt even look that impressive

Anonymous at Sat, 23 Apr 2022 06:36:21 UTC No. 893335

>>893322
That type of frequency of details is typically achieved with stacked maps.

If you combine your main normalmap with another normal map that tile several times across the surface you achieve have something that looks very rich in detail.

Trick is to combine the normals so that the extra layer really look like it sits ontop of the geometry of the the baselayer - bending the normal of the already bent normal.
Simplistic blending mode combination such as running 'overlay' etc on the channels of 2 normalmaps wont look very impressive.

Rest is just good art direction. That is the main thing about Elden Ring, shading wise I think it looks quite flat and dated.
But it has timeless art direction and loads of great design based on real historical artifacts, as someone who's studied armor quite extensively
I recognize a lot of their inspiration from the collections at Royal Armories and the Met.

Anonymous at Sat, 23 Apr 2022 22:27:13 UTC No. 893468

>>893335
Thanks for the post.
So, in essence, normal maps with their own normal maps, is that what you're getting at? Is there a name for this kind of technique?
I too love historic armor and was impressed by From's attention to detail and painterly inspiration. For me, the art direction is by far the best part of the game.

Anonymous at Sun, 24 Apr 2022 03:33:38 UTC No. 893530

>>893335
>I recognize a lot of their inspiration from the collections at Royal Armouries
Same. I used to actually live in Leeds, and used to visit one of them pretty often as a kid and as a teenager. I haven't been as an adult, but the armour sets are pretty unforgettable. My particular chagrins are that like other souls games, the lighting is well placed but looks boring and the metals don't pop as much as I'd like them to.

It could look so much prettier.

Anonymous at Sun, 24 Apr 2022 12:05:42 UTC No. 893593

>>893335
Would a method of approach be to sculpt the details of the "normal map 1", such as the bas and engravings and relief of the surface, then, to add the second 'layer', apply a tiled surface bump , and then finally, follow this with a bake which combines the both qualities of these into 1 normal map?

Anonymous at Sun, 24 Apr 2022 12:18:31 UTC No. 893594

>>893322
absolutely nothing technically special
just above-than-average texel for materials and good artists
on the other hand, enviroment has to compensate for bulky player/enemy models so it often looks absolutely horrendeous
especially budget as hell foliage with camera facing cards (2022) which is a big lol by itself

Anonymous at Sun, 24 Apr 2022 12:24:09 UTC No. 893595

>>893593
what you imply is called "micro-normal" (at some projects)
you don't bake anything
you integrate your asset in the engine, then assign R or G or B vertex layer to apply small (256*256, 512*512), tiled material with specified blending modes for each map
to combine normals you just overlay them
these overlayed micro materials are usually taken from project libary so it can be shared across other assets
it's nothing special again, you can do that easily in eu4

Anonymous at Sun, 24 Apr 2022 13:33:11 UTC No. 893601

>>893593
It's not baked together but combined from various textures within a shader so you can have say a 4K baked bespoke map from a sculpt that covers all of your character.
Ontop of this you now run a mask that masks of say all areas that are metal and then you tile a '512x512 hammered metal' over those areas say 20 times.
Giving the appearance that your model has a 10 megapixel resolution normalmap.

If you then blend between multiple tile maps or stack them at different frequencies you can create shaders that can tile over vast areas without any obv repetition
providing the illusion large segments all have unique texture.

This pic of V's boot from Cyberpunk may provide some ideas what's going on with textures in many modern games.

Anonymous at Sat, 30 Apr 2022 06:10:43 UTC No. 894522

>>893322
>4K textures
Did people forget that detail mapping is a thing?
You don't need to stuff your VRAM full of shit to make pretty pictures

Anonymous at Sat, 30 Apr 2022 06:29:18 UTC No. 894523

>>894522
Since people on this board seem averse to googling shit, here's a good article on normal blending
https://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blending-in-detail/

Anonymous at Sat, 30 Apr 2022 06:58:30 UTC No. 894530

>>893323
no lol, you can get the same level of quality from baking your normals

Anonymous at Mon, 2 May 2022 16:02:41 UTC No. 894944

>>893323
that's right, only unreal can have 4k textures, normal maps, and pbr shading.

Anonymous at Mon, 2 May 2022 17:14:11 UTC No. 894947

>>893601
This method looks soulless though.

Anonymous at Mon, 2 May 2022 19:04:39 UTC No. 894976

>>893322
Baked normal maps
And no Blender use.

Anonymous at Thu, 5 May 2022 22:04:05 UTC No. 895573

>>893322
>It's all just heavily heightmapped and normal-mapped 4K textures, no?
some bump maps but 100% no heightmaps / displacement.
and then just normal maps for everything. Really you just need 3 maps to make something look good. Diffuse, spec/roughness and a normal.